Abstract
Many stadiums will be built in China in the next few decades due to increasing public interest in physical exercise and the incentive policies issued by the government under its National Fitness Program. This paper investigates the energy saving and carbon reduction performance of timber stadiums in China in comparison with stadiums constructed using conventional building materials, based on both life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) and life cycle carbon assessment (LCCA). The authors select five representative cities in five climate zones in China as the simulation environment, simulate energy use in the operation phase of stadiums constructed from reinforced concrete (RC) and timber, and compare the RC and timber stadiums in terms of their life cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions. The LCEA results reveal that the energy saving potential afforded by timber stadiums is 11.05%, 12.14%, 8.15%, 4.61% and 4.62% lower than those of RC buildings in “severely cold,” “cold,” “hot summer, cold winter,” “hot summer, warm winter,” and “temperate” regions, respectively. The LCCA results demonstrate that the carbon emissions of timber stadiums are 15.85%, 15.86%, 18.88%, 19.22% and 22.47% lower than those of RC buildings for the regions above, respectively. This demonstrates that in China, timber stadiums have better energy conservation and carbon reduction potential than RC stadiums, based on life cycle assessment. Thus, policy makers are advised to encourage the promotion of timber stadiums in China to achieve the goal of sustainable energy development for public buildings.
Highlights
The energy consumption during operation phase accounts for the majority of the total life cycle energy consumption
In terms of operation stage, the energy consumption of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings during the operation phase ranges from 343.44 MJ/m2 to 779.95 MJ/m2 per annum, while that of timber building ranges from 349.49 MJ/m2 to 712.24 MJ/m2 per annum
(1) The estimated energy consumption and carbon emissions of CLT buildings are much lower than those of RC buildings in all of the studied cities, which indicates that CLT systems have greater potential than RC systems to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption
Summary
Energy is necessary for human development and economic growth [1]. The world’s population reached 7.69 billion in mid-2019 and is expected to exceed 9.8 billion by mid-2050 [2]. This massive population growth has had a huge impact on the global environment and natural resources over the last two centuries. Fossil fuels (i.e., coal, gas, and oil) have been the major energy sources for human activities since the 1760s. The use of fossil fuels pollutes the environment and emits large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) [4]. The use of fossil fuels is believed to be the main factor leading to global warming [5,6]. Global warming is widely considered to cause glacier retreat and regional climate changes, species extinction, and further uncertain risks [7,8]
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