I don't like this trend of piling up unrelated green house gas contributions, particularly for a relatively small (8%) of the total of anthropogenic climate emissions.
For example, of that 8% figure 40% is fuel used to heat the kilns which make cement - i.e. a substituteable energy usage not unique to the cement industry. 10% is the fuel used to mine and transport the raw materials (also substituteable and not unique to the industry).
About 50% of emissions overall are from the actual calcination reaction of limestone[1], but plugged into that number it would then be that 4% of global emissions are from a non-replaceable operation in making cement.
That itself is also a bit a misnomer of course - aging concrete structures re-absorb CO2, up to about 40+% of that released during their manufacture over their lifetime.[2]
This is certainly not a process we couldn't manage by CO2 scrubbing or sequestration activities during the manufacture of cement, or you know, probably could offset with forestation projects.
All the rest of contributions are not cement industry problems, they're technology problems which if solved would change things positively for every industry (i.e. electric/microwave kilns, electric mining and transport vehicles).
For example, of that 8% figure 40% is fuel used to heat the kilns which make cement - i.e. a substituteable energy usage not unique to the cement industry. 10% is the fuel used to mine and transport the raw materials (also substituteable and not unique to the industry).
About 50% of emissions overall are from the actual calcination reaction of limestone[1], but plugged into that number it would then be that 4% of global emissions are from a non-replaceable operation in making cement.
That itself is also a bit a misnomer of course - aging concrete structures re-absorb CO2, up to about 40+% of that released during their manufacture over their lifetime.[2]
This is certainly not a process we couldn't manage by CO2 scrubbing or sequestration activities during the manufacture of cement, or you know, probably could offset with forestation projects.
All the rest of contributions are not cement industry problems, they're technology problems which if solved would change things positively for every industry (i.e. electric/microwave kilns, electric mining and transport vehicles).
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-cement-emissions-matter-f...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-11-22/concrete-is-a...