Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Quantifying CO2 emissions from Chinas cement industry

Weiguo Shen a,b,c,n, Liu Cao b, Qiu Li b,c, Wensheng Zhang d, Guiming Wang a,b,c,
Chaochao Li a,b
a

State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
School of Material Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
c
WUT-UC Berkeley Joint Laboratory on Concrete Science and Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
d
State Key Laboratory of Green Building Materials, China Building Materials Academy, Beijing 100024, China
b

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 9 December 2013
Received in revised form
7 December 2014
Accepted 9 May 2015
Available online 6 June 2015

Cement is the most widely used material and contributes around 8% to the global anthropogenic CO2
emissions. In 2011 China produced 2.085 Gt cement (60% of the cement production of the world) but the
carbon emission from cement industry still not accurately assessed. The LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) method
was employed to thoroughly estimate Chinas cement industry CO2 emissions, and results indicated that the
carbon emissions of Portland cement clinker, Portland cement, and average cement in China are lower than
developed countries. In 2011, the direct CO2 emission factor and manufactured CO2 emission factor of Chinas
average cement manufacture is just 0.4778 t/t and 0.5450 t/t, respectively, and the direct CO2 emission and
manufacture CO2 emission from Chinas cement industry is 0.9983 and 1.1364 Gt, respectively, from the life
cycle view, carbon emission of cement industry and the neat carbon emission from cement industry is just
0.8553 and 0.6386 Gt respectively, the share of six carbon emission sources is calculated. The RMCO2 , FDCO2 ,
EDCO2 , total TDCO2 and CSCO2 counts 53.8%, 28.3%, 7.94% and 0.86%, respectively, 29.64% of those carbon
emission can be sink by carbonization during 100 years after it cast. The policies to close down outdated
facilities and improve recovery the waste heat signicantly reduced carbon emission from cement industry,
through public, industrial, and technological policies. As the biggest cement producer and consumer in the
world, a holistic approach is proposed to slash the carbon emission of cement industry.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
China
Cement industry
Carbon emission
LCA
Emission reduction

Contents
1.
2.
3.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The assessment of CO2 emission from different sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
The raw material CO2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Fuel derived emission carbon emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3.
Electricity derived CO2 emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.
The transportation derived CO2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.
The CO2 emission at concrete life cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.
The carbon sinking by carbonation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. The carbon emission assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.
The carbon emission in the life cycle of average cement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.
The CO2 emission factors of Chinas cement products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.
Carbon emission of Chinas cement industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.
The carbon reduction approach of Chinas cement industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1005
1006
1007
1007
1007
1007
1007
1008
1008
1009
1009
1009
1010
1010
1011
1011

n
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. Tel.: 86 27 87395822;
fax: 86 27 87641294.
E-mail address: shenwg@whut.edu.cn (W. Shen).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.05.031
1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

EFdiesel
Mi

Nomenclature
RMCO2
MCaO
MMgO
RCaCO3
RMgCO3
FDCO2
P
Vdiesel
EFcoal

raw material carbon emission (t CO2)

share of the CaO in the clinker in mass (%)
share of the MgO in the clinker in mass (%)
calcium from calcium carbonate (%)
magnesium from magnesium carbonate (%)
carbon emission from the fuel used to calcite (t CO2)
thermal energy consumption of the clinker (GJ/t
clinker)
diesel used during the cement manufacturing (liters)
emission factors of standard coal (t CO2/t)

1. Introduction

China

2011

2010

2008

2009

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

World

1994

Cement preduction (million tonnes)

As the worlds top CO2 emitter, Chinas CO2 emission is of

central concern in efforts to combat global climate change [1,2].
Cement manufacturing is a highly intensive energy consuming and
carbon emission industry. It is one of the major contributors to
global anthropogenic CO2 emissions, contributing 7% of the
anthropogenic and 26% of the industrial carbon emission [3,4].
With the rapid increase of the cement production (see Fig. 1), the
technology of Chinas cement industry has markedly improved,
resulting in a decrease in the amount of energy consumed
compared to the past. The lack of formal statistical data introduced
the tendency of overstating the levels of carbon emission of the
cement industry in China [5].
In January 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey issued their Mineral
Commodities Summary [6], which included a report on cement
production of China, the United States, and eighteen other counties/regions (see Table 1). China produced 2.0 Gt of cement in 2011.
This gure is slightly lower than 2.085 Gt estimated by China
Building Materials Union Associate [7] and the 2.06 Gt estimated
by China Cement Associate. The per capita cement production is
1.55 t, which is three times of the worldwide average and eight
times that of the United States (as of 2011), ranks at no. 2 just
behind Saudi Arabia, a rich petroleum exporting country. Taking in
count of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of countries considered [8], in China, 285 g of cement is used to obtain every one
U.S. dollar GDP, which is more than 5.7 times of the world average
and 57 times of the data of U.S, only lower than that of Vietnam.

3600
3400
3200
3000
2800
2600
2400
2200
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

1005

Year

Fig. 1. The cement production of world and China during 19942011.

emission factors of diesel, (kg CO2/L)

mass of material to produce 1 t of clinker during
process I (t)
EDCO2
emission from the electricity consumption (t CO2)
Eli
electricity used in process i, (k Wh/t)
EFelectricity emission factor of electricity consumption (kg CO2/
kW h)
TDCO2
transportation derived CO2 (t CO2)
FC
fuel consumption of the transportation (in L/100 kt)
Di
transportation distance of process I (kM)
LCCO2
CO2 emission related to the concrete life cycle (t CO2)
SCCO2
CO2 sinking during the concrete service life (t CO2)

From 1985 to 2011 [5], the average annual growth rate of

Chinas cement production was 10.7%. In 2007, half of the cement
produced worldwide was produced by China (see Fig. 1). Chinas
skyrocketing cement production was driven by the high urbanization rate that occurred from 1995 to 2011, when the urban
population increased to 0.284 billion. Urbanization had an annual
growth rate of 4% during 2000  2005 [7] and 3.44% during 2005
2010, with the expectation that it will continue to increase at
rate higher than those of Vietnam (3.26%) and India (2.56%) [7].
The rapid increase of cement production ensures the rapid
urbanization of China, it is anticipated that high production of
Chinas cement industry will maintain for a long time [5].

Table 1
The cement production and population and GDP of Countries.
Country/Region

PR China
India

Cement
production
(Million
tonnes)

Population
(Billion
people)

GDP
(Billion
US
dollars)

Cement
per
capita
(t)

Cement
per GDP
(kg/
dollar)

2000

1341,335

11,300

1.49

0.177

210

1224,614

4,458

0.17

0.047

310,384

15,094

0.22

0.005

United
States
Turkey

68.4
64

Brazil

62.6

Iran

52

31,672

990

1.64

0.053

Russia

52

142,958

2,383

0.36

0.022

Viet Nam

50

87,848

300

0.57

0.167

Japan

47

126,536

4,440

0.37

0.011

South
Korea
Egypt

46

48,184

1,554

0.95

0.030

72,752

1,074

0.88

0.060

194,946

2,294

0.32

0.027

45

81,121

519

0.55

0.087

Saudi
Arabia
Thailand

44

27,448

683

1.60

0.064

36

69,122

602

0.52

0.060

Mexico

35

113,423

1,662

0.31

0.021

Italy

35

60,551

1,847

0.58

0.019

Germany

33

82,302

3,099

0.40

0.011

Pakistan

30

173,593

489

0.17

0.061

Indonesia

22

239,871

1,125

0.09

0.020

Spain

20.7

46,077

1,413

0.45

0.015

2396,658
6871,395

23,571
78,897

0.20
0.49

0.020
0.043

Others
World

480
3400

Note: The cement production is from Ref. [6], the date of population is from Ref. [7]
and the GDP data is from Ref. [8].

1006

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

With the high production of cement, the carbon emission and

its reduction is attracted extensive interesting. Shen et al [9]
Factory-level measurements on CO2 emission factors of cement
production in China, and predict the CO2 emission will be
continually increasing will continuously increase before the
demand of cement may reach at its peak in the next 5 years, they
also made an analysis on differences of carbon dioxide emission
from cement production [10]; Ke estimate the CO2 emissions and
its developing tendency from Chinas cement production [11]; Lei
also did a An inventory analysis of the primary air pollutants and
CO2 emissions from cement production in China during 1990
2020 [12]; Wang made an integrated assessment of four CO2
reduction technologies in Chinas cement industry including
alternative fuels, clinker substitution and CCS [13];the carbon
emission, the climate policies, life cycle inventory, impact and
improvement of pollutants, CO2 emissions reduction potential of
China cement industry is widely studied [1418]. But the accurate
carbon emission especially the carbon emission form the life cycle
view still lack.
With the implement of the policies of National Development
and Reform Commission (NDRC), outmoded production facilities
e.g. shaft kiln, wet kiln and long dry kiln have been replaced by
new, large-scale production facilities that are highly efcient,
drastically reduce the carbon emission rate compared to 2005,
the change on the level of facilities is too fast to be simulated by
researchers, because lack of statistical data, the carbon emission of
Chinas cement industry is overrated mostly by simulation [11,13],
so in this paper, a life cycle assessment is used to assess the
footprint of the China cement industry, six sources of carbon
emission from cement industry is calculated, and the carbon
emission from four perspectives is assessed, a holistic approach
with six steps is proposed to reduce the carbon emission of the
cement industry.

2. Methodology
The CO2 emissions from Chinas cement industry were measured by life cycle assessment (LCA), which including raw materials quarry, clinker calcination, cement manufacture, concrete
preparation, transportation, construction, application, and demolition (Fig. 2) [3,19,20]. The database on cement production was
obtained from the USGS [6], IEA [3], UN [7], IOR [21], IPCC [22], and
the China Cement Association [23]. The energy consumption of
cement raw materials quarried has been obtained from the U.S.
Department of Energy [24], while the energy and emission data on
concrete mixing, placing, and demolition has been obtained from
two master theses published from MIT [25] and Lund University
[26], respectively.
In todays China, the types of equipment used on raw materials
of cement of concrete raw materials quarrying, concrete mixing,
concrete placing, and demolition are mostly large-scale modern
equipment, resulting in less energy consumption than ever, therefore, the carbon emissions in China in those processes are much
lower than before, for lack of statistic data, we use those data
[2325] to replace the refer data of China cement industry, so the
results of our assessment may be a little bigger than the real
carbon emission of China cement industry. Whereas the amount of
CO2 emissions in those processes are just so small section in the
overall life cycle of cement that those replacements will not
impact the reliability of this assessment.
The assessment of the cement life-cycle carbon emissions is
studied on six separate resources: raw material CO2 (RMCO2 ) [27],
fuel-derived CO2 (FDCO2 ) [27], electricity-derived CO2 (EDCO2 ), transportation CO2 (TDCO2 ), concrete life cycle CO2 (LCCO2 ), and carbon
sinking in concrete (SCCO2 ). The cement manufacture CO2 includes
RMCO2 , FDCO2 , EDCO2 and the part of TDCO2 relates to cement manufacture, the direct CO2 includes RMCO2 , FDCO2 because the EDCO2 and

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the cement life cycle.

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

the part of TDCO2 are credited in the energy and transportation

industry already, the neat CO2 includes RMCO2 , FDCO2 and CSCO2 .
3. The assessment of CO2 emission from different sections

1007

Table 2
The capacity share and the thermal energy consumption value of Chinas cement
industry in 2011.
Size (t
clinker/
day)

Number
of klin

Production
share (%)

Thermal energy
(GJ/t clinker)

Chosen value
(GJ/t clinker)

Z 10,000
Z 7,200
60006500
40005000
27004000
20002500
r 2000
No-precalciner
Average

7
10
17
501
67
534
269

2.05
2.14
48.15
4.23
26.22
6.21
11

2.872.96
2.93.0
2.93.0
2.93.05
3.03.1
3.03.2
3.13.2
3.36.6

2.95
2.95
2.97
3.05
3.10
3.15
3.70

3.10

3.1. The raw material CO2

The raw material carbon emission RMCO2 was calculated by Eq. (1).
RMCO2 MCaO 

44
44
 RCaCO3 MMgO 
 RMgCO3
56
40

where MCaO and MMgO are the share of the CaO and MgO in the
clinker; RCaCO3 and RMgCO3 is the calcium and magnesium from calcium
and magnesium carbonate. The typical MCaO and MMgO in Portland
cement clinker is 65% and 1.8%, respectively [28]. The RCaCO3 was set as
95%, because of various amounts of solid waste, e.g., carbide mud, y
ash, and steel slag are used as calcium raw materials in China. Those
calcium raw materials do not yield CO2 during sintering. RMgCO3 was
set as 75% because although most of Mg in calcium raw material is
from dolomite, the Mg in clay mainly comes from brucite. RMCO2 of
0.500 t CO2/t clinker was obtained from Eq. (1). At 2001, it was
estimated that in the worldwide 0.500 t CO2/t clinker was produced
[29]. In China, because the sulphoaluminate cement (which counts
0.8% of the cement production) needs less limestone, phosphogypsum
is used to produce cement and sulfuric acid. Therefore, the average
value of RMCO2 in Chinas cement industry should be smaller than
0.500 t/t clinker.
3.2. Fuel derived emission carbon emission
FDCO2 is the carbon emission from the fuel used to calcite the
cement clinker and from the onsite machinery (the fuel required
to transport the raw materials was not included, it will included in
FDCO2 ). It is can be calculated by Eq. (2).
FDCO3

P
 EFcoal V diesel  EFdiesel =1000
29:307

where FDCO2 is the fuel derived carbon emission, P is the thermal

energy consumption of the clinker system including the kiln, preheater and pre-calciner in GJ/t clinker, Vdiesel is the amount of
diesel in liters used by the machine during the cement manufacturing. EFcoal and EFdiesel are the emission factors of standard coal
and diesel; EFcoal is 2.4567 t CO2 emission/t [30] of standard coal;
and EFdiesel is 2.764 kg CO2 emission/L, respectively [25,26].
The thermal energy demand for clinker process is governed by
endothermic reactions of raw materials, with required temperatures
of up to 1450 1C for the formation of stable clinker phases; therefore
theoretical energy demand of 1.65 to 1.80 GJ/t clinker is needed to
complete the process [31]. A large amount of energy is consumed
during the process of clinker sintering. Depending on the moisture
content of raw materials, additional energy is required of about 0.2 to
1.0 GJ/t clinker (corresponding to a moisture content of 3 to 15%), and
some input energy is lost through hot ue gas, the cooler stack, and
the kiln shell [32]. Such energy losses are dependent on type of kiln
used [3133] and the size of the kiln; the pre-calciner kiln and largescale kilns are more thermally efcient, the dominant fuel-derived
CO2 results from clinker sintering.
In 2005, the share of cement produced by the new dry process
(using a pre-heater and pre-calciner kiln) was just around 45%
[23], but after six years, 86.83% of clinker and 89% of cement is
produced through this new dry process [5] at 2011. There were 10
kilns operating with a capacity of 7200 t clinker/day each (including 7 kilns with capacity of 10,000 t clinker/day each), and more
than half of the cement produced used kilns capable of producing
more than 4000 t clinker/day [5]. A new, recently designed kiln
has the thermal energy consumption around 2.95 GJ/t clinker [5],

and it was calculated that the average thermal energy consumption of clinker in China in 2011 is 3.10 GJ/t clinker (see Table 2).
There is no formal data for the fuel emission of onsite machinery
of China [24], so this data deduced from the cement production by
different capability kilns of is used.
3.3. Electricity derived CO2 emission
EDCO2 is the emission from the electricity consumption during
cement production, including quarrying, crushing of raw materials, grinding of raw meal, and calcination of clinker, nishing with
the grinding and packing of cement.
X
EDCO2
Mi  Eli  EFelectricity
3
where Mi is the mass of material produced from 1 t of clinker
during process i, Eli the electricity used in process i, EFelectricity is
the emission factor of electricity consumption by kg CO2/kW h;
according to IEA, as of 2011 in China this factor was 0.9746 [34], it
is higher than the data from Ref. [35]. The electricity used to
process the raw meal grinding and the nishing grinding, are
12  22 kW h/t material and 28 55, respectively [33].
Since 2000, the energy saving vertical roller press and roll bowl
miller have been widely adopted, with the raw materials and nishing
grinding being 18 and 32, respectively, on average. In China, 80% of
the suitable kilns use low-and-medium temperature cogeneration
technology to recover the waste heat of kiln. Statistics showed that
around 60% of clinker was produced by the kilns using this technology [5], saved 24 kW h/t clinker of electricity on average.
3.4. The transportation derived CO2
The transportation derived CO2 TDCO2 can be written as:
X
Mi  Di  FC  EFdiesel
TDCO2

where FC is the fuel consumption of the transportation (around

6.03 L/100 kt in China in 2011), and the Di is the distance of process i.
The cementitious materials can be shipped via highway, railway or
ship. The average distance that raw materials travel is 10 km, where
gypsum and coal travel 300 km, mining mineral admixtures travel
20 km, waste mineral admixtures travel 50 km, cement travels
80120 km, and fresh concrete and demolished concrete travel
30 50 km and 50 km, respectively. The fuel consumption is currently much higher than that found in other developed countries but
recent improvements in the highway system and the use of largescale professional vehicles will reduce transportation costs. The
TDCO2 was calculated by separately taking into account the cement
process and concrete life cycle, respectively. Table 3 lists the

1008

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

Table 3
The calculation of transportation derived CO2 emission.
Product

Process

Clinker

Cement
Cement
Portland cement Cement
Cement
Cement
Cement
Cement
Concrete
Concrete
Concrete
Average cement Cement
Cement
Cement
Cement
Cement
Concrete
Concrete
Concrete

Materials

Mass (t) Average distance (km) Diesel consumption (L/t km) emission factor (kg CO2/L) CO2 emission (t)

Raw materials
Coal
Raw materials
Coal
Gypsum
Mining mineral admixture
Waste mineral admixture
Cement
Fresh concrete
Waste concrete
Raw materials
Coal
Gypsum
Mining mineral admixture
Waste mineral admixture
Cement
Fresh concrete
Waste concrete

1.49
0.14
1.490
0.140
0.050
0.000
0.000
1.000
1.350
1.350
0.935
0.088
0.050
0.100
0.222
1.000
1.450
1.450

10
500
10
500
300
20
50
120
30
50
10
500
300
20
50
80
30
50

6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03
6.03

2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764
2.764

0.00248
0.01167
0.00248
0.01167
0.00250
0.00000
0.00000
0.02000
0.00675
0.01125
0.00156
0.00732
0.00250
0.00033
0.00185
0.01333
0.00725
0.01208

Table 4
The CO2 emission calculation process of average cement of China at 2011.
Process

Materials ow

Material t/t
cement

Carbon type

Quarry
Quarry
Crush
Prehomogenization
Raw meal grinding
Coal grinding
Calcination
Calcination
Calcination
Waste heat
recovery
Waste air cleaning
Cement grinding
Storing packing
Transportation
Mixing
Placing
Demolition
Transportation
Carbon sink

Raw material Gypsum coal mining mineral

admixture

1.167
1.167
1.167
0.928
0.928
0.088
0.627
0.627
0.627
0.627

Electricy
Oil
0.02545
Electricity
Electricity
Electricity
Electricity
Decarbonation
Coal
3.10
Electricity
Electricity

0.627
1.000
1.000

Electricity
Electricity
Electricity
Oil
Oil electricity
Oil electricity
Oil electricity
Oil
Carbonation

Raw material
Raw material
Coal
Clinker
Clinker
Clinker
Clinker
Clinker
Cement
Cement process
Cement water
Cement paste
Cement paste
Concrete process
Clinker

1.450
1.450
1.450
0.627

transportation derived CO2 emission of clinker, Portland cement, and

average cement in China in 2011.

Fuel energy
(GJ/t)

Electricity
(kW h/t)
1.697
0.79
2.57
15
30

23.8
 24
4.1
28
1.5

CO2 emission (t/t

cement)
0.00193
0.00205
0.00090
0.00233
0.01357
0.00257
0.31368
0.16302
0.01455
 0.01467
0.00252
0.02729
0.00146
0.01356
0.00058
0.00362
0.00078
0.03267
 0.17243

concrete, and the water cement ratio is around 0.35. A mass of

1.35 t (cement and water) was used to calculate the carbon
emission of Portland cement during its concrete life cycle.

3.5. The CO2 emission at concrete life cycle

To simplify the calculation process, this paper did not calculate
the CO2 emission related to the aggregates. But the water ensures
the workability of concrete and the hydration of cement and
strength development of concrete, it is reasonable to reckon the
emission of water in the emission of cement during concrete life
cycle. Therefore, material ow of the cement in the concrete life
cycle is the mass of the cement paste. It was reported that the
mixing, construction, and demolition of concrete yielded
0.0004 kg CO2/kg concrete, 0.0025 kg CO2/kg and 0.000538 kg
CO2/kg, respectively [25,26]. In China the average concrete has
average 28 day strength around 30MPa. Given that an average of
320 kg of cement is used in every cubic of concrete, the water/
cement ratio is 0.45. Then a mass of 1.45 t was used to calculate
the carbon emission of average cement during its concrete life
cycle. Portland cement, which is used to prepare high strength
concrete, has average dedicated 28 day strength of 60MPa. In
general, 450 kg of Portland cement is used in every cubic meter of

3.6. The carbon sinking by carbonation

The CO2 sinking during the concrete service life or after land
lling by carbonation was calculated. Swedish scientists estimated
that 50  57% of CO2 generated during raw materials decarbonation can be reabsorbed when it is carbonated in100 years [36]. In
this paper, 275 kg CO2/t clinker was chosen to represent the
carbon sink with carbonation during its service live and deposal
over a period of 100 years.
In this paper the cement manufacture direct, the cement
manufacture process, cement manufacture neat CO2 emission,
the cement life cycle emission are assessed, they are calculated
with equations of 5,6,7 and 8 repetitively.
Manufacure direct CO2 RMCO2 FDCO2

Manufacture process CO2 emission RMCO2 FDCO2 EDCO2

TDCO2 cement produce

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

1.6

Cement grinding
Storing & packing
Concrete mixing
Conrete palacing

0.977

1.308

1.152

68

64
62

61.7

0.4

60

0.2

58

0.0

56

Year

Concrete demolition
Sink
2.50

2.25

2.00

1.75

1.50

1.25

1.00

0.75

0.50

0.25

0.00

Fig. 5. The clinker and cement production of China from 2005 to 2011.

Raw materials(1.49)
Gypsum(0.08)
Solid waste mineral admixture (0.354)
Cement (1.594)
Cement paste (2.311)

Coal(0.14)
Mining mineral admixture(0.16)
Clinker (1.0)
Water (0.717)

Fig. 3. Material ow of the life cycle of average cement base by 1 t of clinker.

Raw materials
Gypsum
Solid waste meneral admixture
Cement
Cement paste

Coal
Mining meneral admixture
Clinker
Water

1.600
1.400
1.200
Material flow (ton)

62.7

2011

Waste air cleaning

70

66

65.8

2009

Calcination
Waste heat recovery

0.6

0.9567

Calcination

0.8

2007

Calcination

68.8

1.0
0.8733

Coal grinding

72

clinker intensity
70.3

0.779

Raw meal grinding

1.2

2005

Clinker production (billion ton)

Crush
Prehomogenization

70.6

1.084

1.4

Quarry

1.000
0.800
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000

74
clinker production

72.9

Quarry

clinker intensity in cementy (%)

Material flow (t)

1009

Clinker

Portland cement

avearge cement

Fig. 4. Materials ow by 1 t of production.

Manufacture Neat emission RMCO2 FDCO2 EDCO2

TDCO2 cement produce SCO2

Cement Life Cycle CO2 emission RMCO2 FDCO2 EDCO2

TDCO2 cement produce LCCCO2 TDCO2 concrete life cycle SCO2
8
4. The carbon emission assessment
4.1. The carbon emission in the life cycle of average cement
Estimating of cement CO2 emissions should include the emissions during the whole cement life cycle, from the quarry of raw
materials to the point where the concrete has been demolished.
Table 4 shows the material ow, energy intensity, and CO2
emissions during each of these stages based on 1 t of Portland
cement clinker, including a similar calculation for average cement
for 1 t of clinker (1.594 t cement). The Portland cement in this
model is a cement composed of 95% of clinker and 5% of gypsum,

the average blend cement (average cement) is cement with 5% of

gypsum and average fraction of clinker, it is 62.7% in 2011. The
materials ow of the cement process is illustrated in Fig. 3, and the
materials ow of clinker, Portland cement, and average cement are
illustrated in Fig. 4.
Chinas National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
[5], has instituted several new policies in recent years. Backward
production capacity facilities including vertical shaft kilns, long
dry kiln, wet kiln and even small sized pre-heater kiln have been
banned to reduce the energy and electricity consumption of
cement industry, those energy consumption and emission criteria
are much lower than before. Fierce market competition and the
supporting policies encourage energy saving, with large-scale
plants replacing the backward capacity. Low- and mediumtemperature cogeneration technology is widely used to recover
the waste heat from the kiln, large amount of solid waste is used to
produce blending cement and reduce the clinker intensity in
cement product [37]. Fig. 5 illustrated the clinker production and
the clinker intensity of China during 20052011, this because the
clinker produce with large scale kiln has higher strength than the
old kiln, so more mineral admixture is used to prepare cement
with equal strength. Note that the clinker intensity was just 62.8%
in 2011, which is even lower than the worldwide goal of 71% of
roadmap of 2050 [3], this because there are more mineral
admixture with high hydration activity e.g. blast furnace slag
and y ash in China, it is an effective approach to slash the CO2
emission to produce blend cement with high mineral content [38].
4.2. The CO2 emission factors of Chinas cement products
Based on the energy consumption, and the emission factors
listed in Table 4, by employing the related materials ow of Figs. 3
and 4, the carbon emission of the clinker, Portland cement and the
average cement in China was calculated, Table 5 lists their carbon
emission factors. The clinkers manufacture direct emission factor
is just 0.7628 t CO2/t, and its manufacture emission factor is
0.8142 t CO2/t. The manufacture emission factor of Portland
cement was 0.8077 t CO2/t, and the direct CO2 emission factor of
average cement was just 0.4788 t, which reduced 0.308 t CO2 since
1995 (0.787 t) and 0.113 t since 2005 (0.592 t) [37], due to the high
mineral admixture content and the improvement of equipment.
The clinker intensity reduced from 72.9% in 2005 to 62.7% in 2011,
the reduction on the share of clinker (the highest CO2 emission
intensity component) resulted notable CO2 emission reduction.
The total manufacture emission factor was just 0.545 t CO2/t and
reduced 0.138 t CO2/t cement since 2009 [37], resulted from the

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W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

Table 5
The CO2 emission factors of cement products at 2011.
CO2 emission

Clinker

Portland
cement

Avarage
cement

0.5000
0.4762
RMCO2
0.2628
0.2503
FDCO2
0.0374
0.06445
EDCO2
0.0141
0.0167
TDCO2 (cement produce)
0.0046
LCCO2
0.038
TD CO2 (concrete life cycle)
CSCO2
 0.275
 0.2619
0.7628
0.7265
Manufacture direct CO2 emission
Manufacture process CO2
0.8143
0.8077
emission
Manufacture neat emission
0.4878
0.4646
0.5884
Cement life cycle CO2

0.3137
0.1651
0.0526
0.0136
0.005
0.0327
 0.1725
0.4788
0.5450
0.3063
0.4102

TD CO2
concrete life
(5.61%)

CS CO2 (29.64%)
RMCO2
(53.8%)

LC CO2
(0.86%)
ED
CO2(9.03%)
TD CO2
cement
produce
(2.33%)

FD CO2
(28.3%)

Fig. 6. The shares of various CO2 emission of Chinas average cement at 2011.

Table 6
The carbon emission of Chinas cement industry at 2011.
CO2 emission

Manufacture
direct CO2
emission
( Gt)

Manufacture
process CO2
emission
( Gt)

RMCO2
FDCO2
EDCO2
TDCO2 (cement
produce)
LCCO2
TDCO2 (concrete life)
CSCO2

0.6541
0.3442

0.6541
0.3442
0.1097
0.0284

Total CO2 emission

0.9983

1.1364

Manufacture
neat CO2
emission
( Gt)

0.6541
0.3442

Cement
life cycle
CO2
emission
( Gt)
0.6541
0.3442
0.1097
0.0284

 0.3597

0.0104
0.0682
 0.3597

0.6386

0.8553

reduction of capacity share of shaft kiln and wet kiln, and the
contribution of the recovery of waste heat. The neat CO2 emission
was just 0.3063 t CO2/t which is very similar to the RMCO2 emission
of the cement, and the life cycle carbon emission factor of average
cement was just 0.4102 t CO2/t.
4.3. Carbon emission of Chinas cement industry
The carbon emission of Chinas cement industry is shown in
Table 6, the totally direct emission was 0.9983 Gt, which counts
around 11.1% of the carbon emission of the whole country (8.96 Gt
by IEA) in 2011 [39], and was lower than the 15% estimated by IEA
[3]. Most institutes estimated the carbon emission of China basing
on the energy consumption data of 2005 from China cement
almanac of 2007 [40], the development of technology and equipment of Chinas cement industry is too fast to be calculated and
simulated [37]. The life cycle CO2 emission of cement was 0.853 Gt
in 2011, the manufacture carbon emission including electricity
derived CO2 and transportation derived CO2 during cement manufacture was 1.136 Gt, it was nearly the same as the data in 2009,
the later was 1.1364 Gt of CO2 estimated by Jing Ke [38]. During
20092011, although the cement production increased by 26.5% in
China, the CO2 emission nearly remained unchanged, mainly due
to the policies to weed outdate cement capacity and the commission of large scale new dry process kiln, large scale roll miller and
application of waste heat recovery.
Fig. 6 provide the share of six sources of carbon emission of
cement industry of China at 2011, rst, the RMCO2 is as higher as

Fig. 7. The schematic diagram of approach for low carbon emission cement industry.

53.8% of the carbon emission, the second is FDCO2 count 28.3%, the
EDCO2 and the TDCO2 is very similar, and during 100 years after the
concrete is cast, 29.64% of the carbon emission can be sink by
carbonization.
4.4. The carbon reduction approach of Chinas cement industry
Reducing the carbon emissions of cement industry involves a
holistic approach, it can be summarized in six key steps (shown in
Fig. 7): (1) Less construction society: in USA, Japan and UK, the per
capita cement production is just around 300 kg (Table 1), while
countries with high urbanization rate have much higher cement
production capita rate. The urbanization rate in China will continue
at a rapid rate in this decade, but it is anticipated that by 2020, the

W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 10041012

industrialization and urbanization of China will have reached its peak

and the rate of cement production will begin to decrease. Prolonging
the service life of concrete structures is part of Chinas strategy to
reduce carbon emissions from cement industry. Currently, the average
service life of a building in China is around 30 years, and there is big
room to reduce the cement demand by designing and scheming long
life construction; (2) Less concrete structure: it is an effective approach
to reduce the section of structure by innovative design and the use of
high-strength and high-performance concrete in more structures [41];
(3) Less cement concrete: developing new processes to construction
concrete with higher aggregate volume fraction and less cement paste
but equal even better performance [42,43], with mineral admixtures
such as y ash, blast furnace slag, rice husk ash and other solid waste
to replace the cement in concrete [41], also designing concrete with
optimal mix design system may work [44]. (4) Less clinker cement,
reducing the fraction of clinker in cement by utilization supplementary cementious mineral admixture is also valid. In 2011, the percentage of clinker in cement has been reduced to 62.8%, the cement with
less clinker has lower cost so the cement industries have high initiative
to use the solid waste or natural mineral admixture to produce blend
cement. This strategy is another mean to comprehensively utilize the
solid waste [12,45],. The high performance concrete will have more
opportunity to mineral admixture utilization and reduce the CO2
emission of concrete life cycle; (5) Less carbon emission cement
clinker, clinker gives a prevail carbon emission of the Portland
cements, the RMCO2 is the main fraction, the most effective approach
to cut carbon emissions is to substitute calcium carbonate raw
materials with other calcium raw materials e.g. carbide slag, steel slag,
waste gypsum, substituting 20% limestone in the place of carbonate
material results in the reduction of more than 100 kg CO2/t of clinker
according to Eq. (1); the fuel derived carbon emission is signicantly
cut down by the policies of National Development and Reform
Commission to close down outdated production facilities e.g. shaft
kiln, wet kiln and ordinary dry kiln and the new dry kiln capacity less
than 2500 t clinker/d [12], using renewable or biomass fuels in
cements kiln are a possible approach in reducing carbon emissions
from the production of clinker [3]. The electricity derived carbon
emission is signicantly cut by using large-scale mill, vertical mill or
horizontal mill replace of small ball mill, the recovery of waste heat
from kiln also contributes to the cut down of electricity, and the
emission factor of electricity of China is going down by the use of
renewable energy. The improvement of transport infrastructure contributes to the reduction of transportation derived CO2. (6) Utilization
of alternative cementitious materials, the alkali activated cement has
very low carbon emission and it is regarded as an alternative and low
carbon cementitious material substituting for Portland cement at the
future [4648]. Policy to put forward carbon exchange in cement
industry can induce market competition and promote the low carbon
its progress.
On the other hand, Chinas cement industry provides an
opportunity to utilize various solid waste materials as raw material, fuel and mineral admixture for cement or concrete. As the
world factory, China produced 3.277 Gt industrial solid waste in
2013 [49], China cement industry is turning into an environmental
friendly industry to utilization and treat various solid wastes
including municipal sludge, municipal solid waste [50], industrial
solid waste, and hazardous waste materials. The waste air from
cement kilns has a very high concentration of CO2, which can be
captured and stored [51], so solid wastes e.g. waste tyre, waste
plastic can be used to manufacture cement as recycling energy, the
use of renewable energy in cement industry also is an effective
approach to reduce the carbon emission [3,27]. The carbon
emission of cement industry plays an important role on the society
total carbon emission [3,27,47], exploring new holistic approach to
reduce the carbon emission of cement industry is a very important
issue to slash the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

1011

5. Conclusions
Whereas the high production and lack of statistic data on
carbon emission of Chinas cement industry, the life cycle assessment is employed to assess its CO2 footprint, the carbon emission
reduction approach is discussed and following conclusions have
been reached:
1) China produces 60% of the whole global cement, its 1.55 t per
capita cement production is three times of world average. 286 g
cement is used while each U.S. Dollar of GDP is created, which
is 5.7 times of world average, the large cement production
ensured the rapid urbanization of China.
2) The direct CO2 emission factor from cement is 0.4788 t. CO2
emissions were reduced by 0.308 t compared to 1995 and
0.113 t compared to 2005. The total emissions is calculated to
0.545 t CO2/t cement, a reduction of 0.138 t CO2/t cement
compared to 2009.
3) At 2011, the totally direct emission of cement manufacture is
0.9983 Gt, which is around 11.1% of nations emission and it is
much lower than pre-existing simulation. From 2009 to 2011
cement production increased by 26.5%, but the CO2 emission
nearly remained unchanged.
4) The RMCO2 counts 53.8%, FDCO2 counts 28.3% of the carbon
emission of cement industry at 2011, the share of EDCO2 and the
total TDCO2 is 7.94% and 0.86%, 29.64% of the carbon emission
can be sink during 100 years after cast by carbonization.
5) During the last ve years, effective public policies, strong market
demands and competition factors have encouraged the cement
industry toward innovation and modernization, China has
reduced its CO2 emissions from cement industry by employing
new technology and large-scale equipment.
6) A holistic approach is proposed to reduce the carbon emission of
cement industry including public foundation, technology and
equipment level and innovation cementitious materials, cement
industry is turning into an environment friendly industry by
used solid waste and renewable energy.

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