Source Of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Research Articles

Cement production, environmental pollution, and economic growth: evidence from China and USA

The study focuses on the nonlinear Granger causality between cement production, economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions by Markov-switching vector autoregressive (MScVAR) and Markov-switching Granger causality approach for the period of 1960–2017 for China and the USA. The empirical findings from MSIA(2)-VAR(2) for the USA and MSIA(3)-VAR(3) for China suggest that cement production has an important impact on CO2 emissions and economic growth. Markov-switching causality approach determines the evidence of unidirectional causality running from cement production to carbon dioxide emissions in all regimes for the USA and China. The cement production is an important source of environmental pollution. The USA and China have global responsibility for cement production determined as one of the central sources of carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, MS-Granger causality results were compared with ones determined by traditional causality method. It was determined that to employ traditional method instead of MS-causality method can cause wrong policy applications if the tested series has nonlinearity.

Experimentation and Predictive Models for Properties of Concrete Added with Active and Inactive SiO₂ Fillers.

Cement is one of the main constituents of concrete material and it is one of the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions in the environment. Fillers within a range of 5–7% from different sources can be used as a replacement of cement without compromising the properties of concrete or even tailoring for required property. This paper investigates the influence of inactive silica filler and silica fume on the mechanical- and durability-related properties of concrete with different strengths. The investigated mechanical properties focused on compressive strength at different ages up to 400 days, while the durability-related properties focused on porosity and rapid chloride ion penetrability (RCPT). Two types of ultrafines, namely quartz ultrafine and silica fume, were used. Concrete mixtures with four different water/binder ratios (0.25, 0.30, 0.35, 0.40) were prepared for various dosages of quartz ultrafine (0%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 15%, 25%, and 35%) and different dosages of silica fume (0%, 8%, 10%, and 12%). The results revealed that the compressive strength and durability related properties of concrete with different dosages of ultrafines and silica fume were significantly affected; however, there was a negative impact of ultrafine filler on the compressive strength after replacement of more than 8% of ultrafines. The strength relationships for the concrete with different water-to-cement ratio were assessed and certain modifications were proposed for ultrafines and silica fume. Predictive models were proposed for predicting the compressive strength of concrete in terms of RCPT and porosity for different levels of replacements of ultrafines and silica fume.

Analysis of CO2 Emissions in China’s Manufacturing Industry Based on Extended Logarithmic Mean Division Index Decomposition

China is the world’s largest emitter of CO2. As the largest sector of China’s fossil energy consumption and carbon emissions, manufacturing plays an important role in achieving emission reduction targets in China. Using the extended logarithmic mean division index (LMDI) decomposition model, this paper decomposed the factors that affect the CO2 emissions of China’s manufacturing industry into eight effects. The results show the following: (1) China’s manufacturing CO2 emissions increased from 1.91 billion tons in 1995 to 6.25 billion tons in 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 6%. Ferrous metal smelting and rolling were the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions, followed by chemical raw materials and products and then non-metallic minerals. (2) During the research period, the industrial activity effects were the most important factor leading to increased CO2 emissions in manufacturing and energy intensity was the most important factor in promoting the reduction of CO2 emissions from manufacturing. The investment intensity was the second most influential factor leading to the increase in China’s manufacturing CO2 emissions after the industrial scale and this even exceeded the industrial activity effect in some time periods (2000–2005). R&D efficiency and R&D intensity were shown to have significant roles in reducing CO2 emissions in China’s manufacturing industry. The input of R&D innovation factors is an effective way to achieve emission reductions in China’s manufacturing industry. (3) There were differences in the driving factors of CO2 emissions in the manufacturing industry in different periods that were closely related to the international and domestic economic development environment and the relevant policies of the Chinese government regarding energy conservation and emission reduction. (4) Sub-sector research found that the factors that affect the reduction of CO2 emissions in various industries appear to be differentiated. This paper has important policy significance to allow the Chinese government to implement effective energy-saving and emission reduction measures and to reduce CO2 emissions from the manufacturing industry.

Carbon-efficient deployment of electric rubber-tyred gantry cranes in container terminals with workload uncertainty

Rubber-tyred gantry cranes are one of the major sources of carbon dioxide emissions in container terminals. In a move to green transportation, the traditional diesel powered cranes are being converted to electric ones. In this paper, we study the deployment of electric powered gantry cranes (ERTGs) in container terminal yards. Cranes always move in-between blocks to serve different workload. ERTGs use electricity for most movements but switch to diesel engines to allow inter-block transfers between unaligned blocks. We exploit this feature and propose to consider simultaneously the CO2 emissions and workload delays to develop carbon-efficient deployment strategies. Moreover, unlike previous works we consider the workload uncertainty, and model the problem as a two-stage stochastic program. A sample average approximation framework with Benders decomposition is employed to solve the problem. Multiple acceleration techniques are proposed, including a tailored regularised decomposition approach and valid inequalities. A case study with sample data from a major port in East China show that our proposal could reduce significantly CO2 emissions with only a marginal compromise in workload delays. Our numerical experiments also highlight the significance of the stochastic model and the efficiency of the Benders algorithms.

Life cycle carbon dioxide emissions for fill dams

The construction industry including infrastructure construction, affects the environment due to the use of a considerable amount of resources and energy. The management of the environmental effect of dams for agricultural reservoirs is especially important in South Korea because of their large scale and nationwide distribution. The objective of this study is to propose an assessment method for evaluating life cycle carbon dioxide emissions associated with fill dams and to characterize carbon dioxide emissions to use in effectively addressing the environmental concerns for infrastructures. A total of four dams were selected for the research, and the material production, use of equipment and transportation were considered as the causes of carbon dioxide emissions at the dams. The effective life cycle of a fill dam was assumed to be 100 years. The results of the research indicated that the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions were different for each dam according to their characteristics, and the results showed that the dam size is the primary cause. In addition, the carbon dioxide emissions increased as the period of use increased, and a rapid increase was indicated in 40–50 years interval of the dams’ use periods because the repair activities were concentrated in those years. Materials were the biggest contributor in the amount of total carbon dioxide emissions at all four sites and the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions caused by materials was higher than any other factors in most processes. There was little difference in the proportion of carbon dioxide emissions for each process in the total carbon dioxide emissions for the four sites. Most carbon dioxide was emitted during repair activities at the two largest dams. Activities associated with the construction process was the major source of carbon dioxide emissions at the two other dams. This difference in process carbon dioxide emissions was the result of the difference in the construction scale for the embankment elevation. The assessment method that has been proposed in this study reflects the characteristics of fill dams, and the result of estimating carbon dioxide emissions indicates that we are able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the life cycle of fill dams by selecting the construction materials and the repair methods with a low carbon dioxide emissions.

Engineering and Microstructural Properties of Fiber-Reinforced Rice Husk–Ash Based Geopolymer Concrete

AbstractThe concrete industry is a remarkable point source of carbon dioxide emission due to the disintegration of raw materials and burning of fuel during the cement manufacturing process. One eff...

Impact of elevated precipitation, nitrogen deposition and warming on soil respiration in a temperate desert

Abstract. Soil respiration (Rs) is the most important source of carbon dioxide emissions from soil to atmosphere. However, it is unclear what the interactive response of Rs would be to environmental changes such as elevated precipitation, nitrogen (N) deposition and warming, especially in unique temperate desert ecosystems. To investigate this an in situ field experiment was conducted in the Gurbantunggut Desert, northwest China, from September 2014 to October 2016. The results showed that precipitation and N deposition significantly increased Rs, but warming decreased Rs, except in extreme precipitation events, which was mainly through its impact on the variation of soil moisture at 5 cm depth. In addition, the interactive response of Rs to combinations of the factors was much less than that of any single-factor, and the main response was a positive effect, except for the response from the interaction of increased precipitation and high N deposition (60 kg N ha−1 yr−1). Although Rs was found to show a unimodal change pattern with the variation of soil moisture, soil temperature and soil NH4+-N content, and it was significantly positively correlated to soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and pH, a structural equation model found that soil temperature was the most important controlling factor. Those results indicated that Rs was mainly interactively controlled by the soil multi-environmental factors and soil nutrients, and was very sensitive to elevated precipitation, N deposition and warming. However, the interactions of multiple factors largely reduced between-year variation of Rs more than any single-factor, suggesting that the carbon cycle in temperate deserts could be profoundly influenced by positive carbon–climate feedback.

Analysis of the global carbon dioxide emissions from 2003 to 2015: convergence trends and regional contributions

ABSTRACTThis paper consolidates and applies statistical methods to the per-capita carbon dioxide emissions and emissions per unit of the gross domestic product (GDP) data of the World Bank member nations, and presents an analysis of the temporal and geographical sources of carbon dioxide emissions. The results indicate that during the observation period, the countries’ per-capita carbon dioxide emissions and emissions per unit of GDP both displayed evidence of convergence. The global per-capita carbon dioxide emissions are relatively stable, and are converging at a rate lower than that of the emissions per unit of GDP. In terms of per-capita income levels, the total emissions of the mid-tier countries continue to grow, and countries with mid-tier per-capita income levels exhibit higher emissions per unit of GDP than both the low and high per-capita income countries. In terms of location of low- and middle-income countries, Southeast Asia and the Pacific have relatively high emission levels, while the per-capita carbon emission levels and the emissions per unit of GDP for Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are below the global average. The gap between emission levels across different countries, geographic regions, and income groups continues to decrease.

The Value of Energy Efficiency in the Anchorage Residential Property Market

The residential sector is a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions. Improving the energy efficiency of the housing stock can reduce carbon emissions and increase property values. In this paper, we examine whether residential energy efficiency improvements are capitalized into home prices in Anchorage, Alaska. The impact of a residential energy efficiency program on single-family house prices is estimated using both a hedonic pricing framework and a difference-in- differences estimator. The results indicate that participating homes sell for a premium of 4.2% compared to similar properties that did not participate in the program.

Unconsidered sporadic sources of carbon dioxide emission from soils in taiga forests.

Long-term monitoring in the Russian taiga zone has shown that all known extreme destructive effects resulting in the weakening and death of tree stands (windfalls, pest attacks, drought events, etc.) can be sporadic, but significant sources of CO2 soil emission. Among them are (i) a recently found effect of the multiyear CO2 emission from soil at the bottom of deadwood of spruce trees that died due to climate warming and subsequent pest outbreaks, (ii) increased soil CO2 emissions due to to the fall of tree trunks during massive windfalls, and (iii) pulse CO2 emission as a result of the so-called Birch effect after drought events in the taiga zone. According to the modeling, while depending on the spatial and temporal scales of their manifestation, the impact of these sporadic effects on the regional and global soil respiration fluxes could be significant and should be taken into consideration. This is due to continuing Climate Change, and further increase of local, regional and Global human impacts on the atmospheric greenhouse gases balance, and land use, as well.

Comment on “The challenge of energy-efficient transportation” J. Hermans

It’s hard to beat the energy density and convenience of liquid hydrocarbons. The product of energy used and journey time is another way to compare transportation systems. It is more practical to power electric cars from batteries than photovoltaics. Solar can be used to supply some of the energy needed to recharge the batteries. The primary energy used to make food, the fuel for the human cyclist, can be many times the calorific energy derived from the food. Transportation is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions. Hermans makes some excellent points in his article “The challenge of energyefficient transportation.” However primary energy to produce fuel should also be considered. The embodied energy of liquid hydrocarbon fuels is much less than their energy content. For a cyclist the fuel is food, and, depending on diet, the primary energy can be many times the food’s calorific energy. The article is over optimistic on the prospect of cars directly powered by solar photovoltaics. It’s more realistic to use batteries in electric cars and generate the electricity from a number of sources. For anything other than trains that run on fixed tracks it’s hard to beat the energy density and convenience of liquid hydrocarbons.

Experimental study on capture of carbon dioxide and production of sodium bicarbonate from sodium hydroxide

Global warming due to greenhouse gases is an issue of great concern today. Fossil fuel power plants, especially coal-fired thermal power plants, are a major source of carbon dioxide emission. In this work, carbon capture and utilization using sodium hydroxide was studied experimentally. Application for flue gas of a coal-fired power plant is considered. Carbon dioxide, reacting with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide, could be converted to sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). A bench-scale unit of a reactor system was designed for this experiment. The capture scale of the reactor system was 2 kg of carbon dioxide per day. The detailed operational condition could be determined. The purity of produced sodium bicarbonate was above 97% and the absorption rate of CO2 was above 95% through the experiment using this reactor system. The results obtained in this experiment contain useful information for the construction and operation of a commercial-scale plant. Through this experiment, the possibility of carbon capture for coal power plants using sodium hydroxide could be confirmed. Keywords: Carbon Capture, Carbon Utilization, Sodium Bicarbonate

Closed coal mine shaft as a source of carbon dioxide emissions

The closure of coal mines does not terminate their impact on the environment. Gas emissions into the atmosphere are the one of the problems. The closed “Gliwice II” shaft has been selected for a series of measurements to assess greenhouse gas emissions from the closed mine; however, only CO2 emission has been detected. The article compromises obtained knowledge about the rate of emissions and the influence of meteorological parameters on this phenomenon—baric tendency, difference in dry-bulb temperature between flowing gas and the atmosphere (buoyancy effect) and wind speed. In the course of the conducted research, it was detected that the highest amount of carbon dioxide emission was $$V_{{{\text{CO}}_{2} }}$$ = 0.023 m3/s (which is 82.8 m3/h) when baric tendency of pressure drop was 0.57 hPa/h, and the difference between dry-bulb temperatures gas and atmosphere was +4.4 °C (the highest difference in the obtained results). The rate of CO2 emissions varied from 12.7 to 162.3 $${\text{kg}}_{{{\text{CO}}_{2} }} / {\text{h}}$$ . Carbon dioxide was detected up to 43 m from the shaft. The results can be considered as a general conclusion about gas behavior when it flows from the underground sites to the surface in natural conditions and about gas concentrations near a point of emission, especially in the case of former mines. However, it may also be useful for other applications, e.g., the leakages from installations of underground coal gasification, or gas drainage.

Engineering properties of lightweight aggregate concrete containing limestone powder and high volume fly ash

Concrete industry is one of the major sources of consuming high volume of natural resources. On the other hand, cement industry is a significant point source of carbon dioxide emissions due to the decomposition of raw material and burning fuel during the manufacturing process. As the demand for concrete is growing, one of the effective way to minimize the negative environmental impact of the industry is the use of waste and by-product materials as cement and aggregate replacement in concrete.In the current study, possibility of making structural lightweight aggregate concrete using large amounts of waste material was investigated. The waste materials comprised oil palm shell, which was used as coarse aggregate, and a high volume (50% and 70%) of type F fly ash, as cement replacement by mass. The mechanical properties, such as compressive strength in different curing conditions, splitting tensile and flexural strengths, as well as density, ultrasonic pulse velocity, water absorption, and drying shrinkage up to one year were investigated. All oil palm shell concretes containing high volume fly ash are found to have adequate strength for formwork removal. Oil palm shell concretes containing high volume fly ash had 46%–60% lower cement content compared to previous studies with a similar compressive strength. Although, using high volume fly ash in oil palm shell concrete significantly reduced short-term mechanical properties, however, the use of limestone powder significantly improved the compressive strength at early and later ages. Test results also showed that there is no significant difference between the drying shrinkage of oil palm shell concrete containing 50% fly ash and the control oil palm shell concrete.

Optimization and Characterization of the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Conversion of Calcium Carbonate into Calcium Oxide for STEP Cement

The production of cement (primarily lime, sand, and water) is a massive, global source of carbon dioxide emissions. Lime is formed through heating limestone (CaCO3), which splits it to CaO and CO2. We’ve introduced a carbon dioxide-free replacement methodology, STEP cement, in which limestone is converted to lime and graphite (and no CO2). STEP is the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process. STEP cement produces lime efficiently at high electrochemical rates (up to amps per cm2), at low energy, using inexpensive (nickel and steel) electrodes in molten carbonates. STEP uses thermal energy to heat reactants to high temperatures to drive endothermic reactions. This decreases the thermodynamic energy and improve the kinetics of a wide range of chemical processes. In particular, solar thermal provides an efficient heat source, and efficiently utilizes the full spectrum of sunlight (whereas solar cells are limited to sub-bandgap sunlight). Useful staples are formed electrochemically, rather than chemically, at low energy (at low electrolysis voltage). STEP processes include STEP carbon for direct removal of atmospheric or smokestack carbon dioxide, and the portfolio of demonstrated STEP products include fuels, iron, graphite, organic syntheses, waste water treatment, bleach and most recently ammonia.1-9 In industry today, lime is produced by calcination. During calcination, CaCO3 is heated to temperatures in excess of 850ºC to decompose it into CaO and CO2. The STEP pathway uses a molten carbonate electrolyte to electrochemically convert calcium carbonate. Whereas the calcium carbonate reactant is highly soluble in alkali carbonates, we have found that the desired product, calcium oxide is not. In the STEP molten salt electrolyer, dissolved CaCO3 is converted into CaO, O2 gas, and a solid carbon product, as shown in Eq. 1. 9 CaCO3 → CaO + O2+ C (1) As calcium carbonate is depleted from the mixture, additional limestone can be added to the electrolyzer to continue the process. With proper heat exchangers, the heat loss from the products removal can be used to preheat the added calcium carbonate, improving energy efficiency of the process. To probe the mechanism of electrolytic lime formation and optimize the STEP cement process, a method of analysis is presented here to precisely distinguish between calcium carbonate and calcium oxide. Characterization is performed by x-ray diffraction with a quantification of the layer by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy along with supplemental SEM and elemental analyses. The system is optimized in regards to calcium oxide purity and yield, along with coulombic efficiency, energy efficiency, and process stability. Various temperatures, current densities, and electrolyte compositions were explored to determine the effect on the deposition layer. With high purity calcium oxide production possible, STEP cement allows for a CO2free pathway towards a greener cement.

Identification of Source Factors of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions in Concreting of Reinforced Concrete

Construction is a sector that consumes various materials which comes from many sources. Cement and steel (i.e. rebar) part of material used in construction, are combined forming a material called reinforced concrete. In general, reinforced concrete is closely associated with the structure of the building, both low rise building and high rise building structure. In practice, reinforced concrete usage as structural material becomes a strategic issue in the effort to support green construction, especially with regard to the exhaust gas emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). A carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in the use of reinforced concrete is produced by the use of fuel in concreting equipment such as tower cranes and concrete pump. The purpose of this research is to obtain potential factors for the source of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). The research object was carried out on several high rise buildings. The definition of high-rise building in this research is a building with a height of 40 m or higher. The sampling method used in this research is random sampling, while the analysis in this research used a descriptive analysis. The research findings show that there are seven factors that could potentially be a source of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in the concreting of reinforced concrete at a high rise buildings. These seven factors are scope, time, cost, quality, resources, procurement and material transfer.

Modelling the Weekly Electricity Demand Caused by Electric Cars

As transport is one of the big sources of carbon dioxide emissions, it is natural to seek for solutions reducing the carbon dioxide emissions in transport as well. Replacing cars powered by a combustion engine by battery electric vehicles may be one measure to achieve this goal, at least as long as the electricity consumed by these cars is produced carbon neutral or in a low-carbon manner. In Germany, the Federal Government aims at a stock of one million electric vehicles in the year 2020. This goal is very ambitious, since customers are reluctant to buy battery electric cars, probably most of all due to their limited range. A possible solution to the limited range problem is the use of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles or Extended Range Electric Vehicles (EREV), combining an electric battery with a combustion engine or a generator. These solutions overcome the range limitations while at the same time allowing driving on electric power for the majority of the total mileage.In this paper, we analyse the effects of an increased use of EREVs and battery electric vehicles using the travel demand model mobiTopp. For three scenarios with different rates of market penetration of electric vehicles, the travel demand and car usage is simulated over a simulation period of one week. The results show, that for 65 up to 70 percent of the mileage, EREVs can be driven in battery-only mode, demonstrating the usefulness of the EREV concept and indicating a substantial potential for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The results, however, also show that with an uncontrolled charging strategy, i. e. every car recharges immediately after accessing a charging location, the peaks of electricity demand for charging the electric cars occurs when the general electricity demand is already high. During these periods, additional electricity demand is typically covered by gas-fuelled power plants, thus using fossil fuels. Therefore, the concept of introducing electric vehicles in order to reduce total carbon dioxide emissions can only succeed if combined with intelligent charging strategies.

Projects Decision-Making for Construction Enterprise under the Carbon Tax Policy

Carbon tax policy is considered to be one of the effective measures to mitigate global warming. The construction industry, as a main source of carbon dioxide emissions, in the context of carbon tax policy, will face the fact that there is a sharp increase in the total construction costs. In order to reduce effectively carbon emissions in the construction project, and maximize the construction enterprises’ profit, this study aims to apply life cycle assessment in order to assess CO2 emission costs and adopt a mathematical programming approach to allocate limited resources. A case study demonstrates the validity of the proposed methodology.

Measuring carbon dioxide emissions from the Chinese transport sector

Transport is now the second largest global source of carbon dioxide emissions after energy generation. This paper proposes a collecting, quantifying, predicting and backcasting approach for measuring carbon dioxide emissions to facilitate policy-making in China. The approach comprehensively assesses emissions from transport modes including roadways, railways, waterways and aviation. It combines the advantages of forecasting and backcasting methods to implement target control and strategy formulation. The data, collected over a period of 23 years, are presented as a case study. The results indicate that road vehicles constitute approximately 90% of all transport emissions, that transport emissions will grow continuously based on current policies and desired economic development, and that the control target of decreasing per-unit gross domestic product emissions by 40–45% from 2005 to 2020 is challenging. The results of target backcasting and action checklist auditing indicate that current carbon dioxide emission control actions from the transport sector are insufficient to reverse the deteriorating trend, and more creative technical innovations are urgently needed.

Australian Coal: Should It Be Left in the Ground?

Many Australians view themselves as living in a “lucky country” because it has an abundance of mineral resources. James Goodman and David Worth, however, maintain that the mining boom has been a “curse” in disguise. It has sharpened socioeconomic and community divisions, contributed to political conflict, and resulted in “ecological mal-development” with serious environmental consequences. This applies to coal in that it not only contributes to air and water pollution, but is also a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and thus a major contributor to climate change. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.