Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871

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Journal of Environmental Management

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

Cement replacement by sugar cane bagasse ash: CO2 emissions reduction

and potential for carbon credits
Eduardo M.R. Fairbairn a, *, Branca B. Americano b, Guilherme C. Cordeiro c, Thiago P. Paula a,
Romildo D. Toledo Filho a, Marcos M. Silvoso a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, COPPE/Universidade Federal do Rio Janeiro, 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
b
Ministry of the Environment e Federal Government, Brasília, DF, Brazil
c
Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a study of cement replacement by sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) in industrial scale
Received 21 August 2009 aiming to reduce the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. SCBA is a by-product of the sugar/ethanol agro-
Received in revised form industry abundantly available in some regions of the world and has cementitious properties indicating
23 March 2010
that it can be used together with cement. Recent comprehensive research developed at the Federal
Accepted 19 April 2010
Available online 20 May 2010
University of Rio de Janeiro/Brazil has demonstrated that SCBA maintains, or even improves, the
mechanical and durability properties of cement-based materials such as mortars and concretes. Brazil is
the world’s largest sugar cane producer and being a developing country can claim carbon credits. A
Keywords:
Sugar cane bagasse ash
simulation was carried out to estimate the potential of CO2 emission reductions and the viability to issue
Carbon credits certified emission reduction (CER) credits. The simulation was developed within the framework of the
CO2 emissions methodology established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for
Concrete the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The State of São Paulo (Brazil) was chosen for this case study
Cement because it concentrates about 60% of the national sugar cane and ash production together with an
important concentration of cement factories. Since one of the key variables to estimate the CO2 emissions
is the average distance between sugar cane/ethanol factories and the cement plants, a genetic algorithm
was developed to solve this optimization problem. The results indicated that SCBA blended cement
reduces CO2 emissions, which qualifies this product for CDM projects.

2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concrete consists of cement, aggregates, water, and eventually,
mineral and chemical admixtures. When all these materials are
mixed, cement particles upon contact with water undergo a hard-
ening reaction that bonds the aggregates together. Concrete is the
world’s most consumed construction material because it combines
good mechanical and durability properties, pleaceability, work-
ability and it is relatively inexpensive. However, cement production
involves significant CO2 emissions, which is known as the green-
house gas mostly important for the global warming. Each tonne of
cement produces approximately one tonne of CO2 (Malhotra, 2002;
Hewlett, 2005) and the cement industry is responsible for about 5%
of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Worrell et al., 2001).
Cement is manufactured in more than 80 countries and the
most commonly used cement is Ordinary Portland Cement
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: eduardo@coc.ufrj.br (E.M.R. Fairbairn).
(referenced as OPC). For its production, limestone mixed with clays
and small quantities of other materials needs to be heated up to
1450
C. As a result of this process, clinker (about 95% in mass) is
obtained. The clinker is then ground and mixed to gypsum (about
5% in mass).
In the cement production greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
come from both industrial process and fuel combustion. During the
industrial process CO2 is emitted due to the heating of limestone
(CaCO3 / CaO þ CO2) to obtain calcium oxide (CaO), which is the
main oxide in the OPC. To reduce emissions, several recommen-
dations can be followed in the cement industry. Concerning the
industrial process an alternative is the replacement of clinker by
mineral additions that can also act as cementitious materials such
as blast furnace slag and pozzolans (Malhotra and Mehta, 1996).
The main pozzolans currently used in cement industry are fly
ash, a by-product of coal-fired power plants, and silica fume, a by-
product of metallurgical processes. Other pozzolans have also been
used in a reduced scale, such as natural pozzolans, metakaolin, and
agro-industrial ashes such as rice husk and sugar cane bagasse
ashes.

0301-4797/$ e see front matter
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.04.008
 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871
This paper presents a case study that simulates the industrial
use of sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) as a cement mineral addition
in the Southeastern region of Brazil, estimating the potential for
granting carbon credits. Brazil is the world’s largest sugar cane
producer (515 million tonnes in 2007), which corresponds to 33% of
the world’s production (FAO, 2008). Of this total, 45% is destined to
produce sugar, seeds and animal food, whereas the other 55% is
intended to ethanol production, being 92% of the produced ethanol
used as vehicle fuel. Today, 90% of new cars sold in the country are
flex-fuel and represent around 25% of the fleet. It is important to
highlight that even the gasoline sold in Brazil is a blend of 76%
gasoline and 24% of anhydrous ethanol. The increased awareness
about climate changes and the recent strong oscillations of oil
prices indicate that ethanol plays a new strategic role in terms of
environmental and energy safety, not only in Brazil but also all over
the world.
Bagasse is an important by-product of the sugar cane industry
and most of it is burned to produce steam and electricity in a co-
generation plant at the ethanol factory. The SCBA is the result from
the bagasse combustion and consists mainly of silica (SiO2), which
indicates its potential as mineral admixture. Brazilian SCBA
potential amounts to more than 2.5 million tonnes per year, cor-
responding to about 6% of the cement production in the country.
Carbon credits, implemented through a mechanism called Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) is a great incentive for the imple-
mentation of projects that reduces CO2 emissions in developing
countries (Americano, 2008). The CDM, which has been established
by the Kyoto Protocol, allows emission-reduction or emission-
removal to earn Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits, each
equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded and sold,
and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emis-
sion reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The mechanism
stimulates sustainable development and emission reductions,
while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they
meet their emission reduction limitation targets. Hence, Brazilian
projects involving clinker replacement by ultrafine SCBA may claim
the benefits of the CDM, if it brings real, measurable and longterm
advantages of CO2 emissions reductions.
The simulation presented in this paper considers the technical
viability for using SCBA as partial replacement of clinker, as well as
the conditions to implement CDM projects within the methodol-
ogies established by the Kyoto Protocol. It is shown that SCBA can
be a suitable choice for reducing cement related CO2 emissions and
that its industrial implementation is entitled for the emission of
CER credits.
2. Sugar cane bagasse ash: a new cement blending material
The use of SCBA as a pozzolan is possible due to the presence of
reactive silica in the ash. Since the late 90s studies have been
carried out showing that SCBA presents adequate behavior in
blended-based cementitious materials (Martirena Hernández et al.,
1998; Singh et al., 2000; Morales et al., 2009). Moreover, Ganesan
et al. (2007) showed that the addition of SCBA as partial cement
replacement (5e30%, in mass) could increase the mechanical and
durability properties of concrete.
Recently, a comprehensive research has been carried out
considering several thermo-chemo-mechanical aspects of the SCBA
produced in Brazil (Cordeiro, 2006; Cordeiro et al., 2008a,b, 2009a,
b). In these works, the ashes were collected during the boiler
cleaning operation of a sugar cane/ethanol plant in the South-
eastern region. The SCBA was submitted to grinding to improve its
homogeneity and reactivity (Cordeiro et al., 2009a). After grinding,
different concretes were mix designed with a cement replacement
level ranging from 0 to 20%, and their performance was studied
1865
based on rheological, mechanical, durability and calorimetric tests
(Cordeiro et al., 2008a). The results indicated that, in general, the
SCBA-based concretes presented better rheological behavior (i.e.,
workability) than the reference concrete.
The mechanical behavior synthesized in Fig. 1 does not show
a significant difference after 180 days of curing.
However, the concrete containing SCBA presented best perfor-
mance in rapid-chloride ion permeability tests (Ganesan et al.,
2007; Cordeiro et al., 2008a) according to ASTM 1202 standard
(1997). The investigation has also shown that the maximum adia-
batic temperature rise of concrete was decreased by about 11%.
Other possibilities of mixing SCBA to cement have been studied. In
this way, the thermo-chemo-mechanical simulation of a dam
construction (Cordeiro et al., 2007) indicated that a concrete made
with rice husk ash/SCBA blended cement performs better than
a reference concrete. Therefore, it can be concluded that sugar cane
bagasse ash is a pozzolan which, when mixed to cement, improves
the performance of the material.
3. Methodology for CDM implementation
3.1. CDM basic concepts
The CDM (UNFCCC, 2009a) allows that an emission-reduction
project in developing countries (named within the Kyoto Protocol
as non-Annex I) generates CER credits, which can be counted by
industrialized countries towards meeting Kyoto targets in gener-
ating a carbon market. However, it is important to avoid the situ-
ation where carbon credits are given to projects that would occur
anyway. In this case, emissions in developing countries will not
reduce beyond “the business as usual” and industrialized countries
will continue to emit compromising the Protocol environmental
integrity.
The CDM projects must be certified and must qualify through
a rigorous and public registration and issuance process. “The
concepts of applicability, additionality and baseline are fundamental
to guarantee the environmental integrity of the Protocol. Regarding
projects related to blending of mineral additions to cement, these
concepts could be explained as follows” (UNFCCC, 2005, 2009b).
The applicability is limited to “projects that increase the share of
additives (i.e. reduce the share of clinker) in the production of
cement types beyond current practices in the country”. It should be
insured, among other restrictions, that: (i) “there is no shortage of
80
Compressive strength (MPa)
70
60
Reference concrete
50 10% SCBA concrete
15% SCBA concrete
20% SCBA concrete
40
0 50 100 150 200
Curing time (days)
Fig. 1. Evolution of compressive strength of reference and SCBA concretes (Cordeiro
et al., 2008a).
1866 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871

additives related to the lack of blending materials”; and that (ii) surplus. If the project proponents do not substantiate that x
“the methodology is applicable to domestically sold output of the tonnes of additives used in the project activity are surplus, the
project activity plant and excludes export of blended cement”. project emissions reductions are reduced by the factor a defined
Additionality is defined as follows: “A CDM project activity is as x tonnes of mineral admixtures in year y divided by the total
additional if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases by additional additives used in year y.
sources are reduced below those that would have occurred in the
absence of the registered CDM project activity”. “The applicants to 3.3. Baseline emissions
CDM projects must demonstrate that there exist real and demon-
strable barriers to the increase in the additive blend. Such barriers The baseline emissions for the cement production are expressed
may include, among others: (i) a substantial research effort that is by equation (2):
required to enable the increase in blending; (ii) lack of infrastruc-  
ture for implementation of the technology; (iii) lack of access to BEBC;y ¼ BEclinker $BBlend;y þ BEele ADD BC (2)
financing; (iv) perception by the market that high additive blended
cement is of inferior quality; (v) lack of awareness of customers on where:
the use high additive blended cement”.
The baseline for a CDM project activity is the scenario that BEBC,y e mass of CO2 emitted per mass of blended cement in the
reasonably represents the anthropogenic emissions by sources of year y (tonnes of CO2/tonne of blended cement);
greenhouse gases that would occur in the absence of the proposed BEclinker e mass of CO2 emitted per mass of clinker (tonnes of
project activity. CO2/tonne of clinker);
A CDM Project Activity (CPA) is by definition established in BBlend,y e baseline benchmark of share of clinker per tonne of
a project-by-project basis. This means that the applicability, addi- blended cement (tonnes of clinker/tonne of blended cement);
tionality and baseline are established for each and every project. BEele_ADD_BC e baseline emissions due to the use of electricity in
Programmatic CDM permits a replication of similar units (i.e., eventual mineral admixtures used in the cement (tonnes of CO2/
similar CPAs), but in general the foundation is the same. tonne of blended cement).
CDM is a project-based mechanism, which means that baselines
and project scenarios are to be established for one and each case. The terms of equation (2) are expressed in equations (3) to (7).
However, to make an assessment of the potential for CDM projects
BEclinker ¼ BEcalcin þ BEfossil fuel þ BEele grid CLNK þ BEele sg CLNK
concerning the implementation of SCBA in a given region, general
averaged emission factors have been estimated within the frame- (3)
work of the present study. where:
The methodology presented in the following paragraphs is the one
approved and consolidated by UNFCCC (2009b). It follows UNFCC BEcalcin e emissions due to the process of calcinations of calcium
guidelines and is based on results published in research papers. carbonate and magnesium carbonate (tonnes of CO2/tonne of
Furthermore, the data suggested for baseline determination is from clinker);
authentic sources and readily verifiable. Justification and details of the BEfossil_fuel e emissions due to the combustion of fossil fuels
methodology can be found elsewhere (see, for instance, new meth- during the clinker production (tonnes of CO2/tonne of clinker);
odologies, UNFCCC, 2004). Within the framework of this method- BEele_grid_CLNK e emissions due to electricity for grinding (tonnes
ology the basic nomenclature of the variables is established as follows: of CO2/tonne of clinker).
the first letters, B and P, stand, respectively, for Baseline and Project; the BEele_sg_CLNK e emissions from self-generated electricity for
second letter, E, stands for Emissions; BC is the abbreviation of Blended clinker production (tonnes of CO2/tonne of clinker)
Cement and ER of Emissions Reduction; and L means Leakage.
The equations corresponding to emissions reduction, baseline
and project emissions, and leakage are detailed in the following
½C1 ðOutCaO  InCaOÞ þ C2 ðOutMgO  InMgOÞ
paragraphs. BEcalcin ¼ (4)
ðCLNKBSL $C3 Þ
where:
3.2. Emission reductions
C1 ¼ 0.785 e stoichiometric emission factor for CaO (tonnes of
The emission reductions provided by the use of the blended CO2/tonne of CaO)
cement are calculated by equation (1). C2 ¼ 1.092 e stoichiometric emission factor for MgO (tonnes of
CO2/tonne of MgO)

    
ERy ¼ BEBC;y  PEBC;y $BCy þ Ly $ 1  ay (1) OutCaO e fraction of CaO in the produced clinker (tonnes);
InCaO e fraction of CaO in the raw material (tonnes);
where: OutMgO e fraction of MgO in the produced clinker (tonnes);
InMgO e fraction of MgO in the raw material (tonnes);
ERy e CO2 emissions reductions in the year (kilotonnes); CLNKBSL e total production of clinker (kilotonnes of clinker).
BEBC,y e Baseline CO2 emissions in the year y (tonnes CO2/tonne C3 ¼ 1000 e constant (tonnes/kilotonne)
cement);
PEBC,y e Project CO2 emissions in the year y (tonnes CO2/tonne
cement); P
ð FFi BSL $EFFi Þ
BCy e Total cement production (kilotonnes); BEfossil fuel ¼ (5)
ðCLNKBSL $C3 Þ
Ly e Leakage emissions for transport of additives (kilotonnes of
CO2); where:
ay e Additional leakage coming from the diversion of mineral
admixtures from existing uses. The project proponents shall FFi_BSL e mass of the different fossil fuels used for the production
demonstrate that additional amounts of additives used are of clinker (tonnes of fuel i);
 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871 1867

EFFi e emissions factor for fossil fuel of the type i. (tonnes of CO2/ Pblend,y ¼ Share of additives per tonne of blended cement in year
tonne of fuel) (given by UNFCCC, 2009c) y (tonnes of additives/tonne of blended cement);
BCy ¼ Production of blended cement in year y (kilotonnes of
  blended cement).
BELEgrid CLNK $EFgrid BSL
BEele grid CLNK ¼ (6) The term Ladd_trans that corresponds to the transportation of the
ðCLNKBSL $C3 Þ
where: mineral additions, treated in the methodology as leakages, is
calculated by the equation (10).
BELEgrid_CLINK e baseline grid electricity for clinker production
(MWh); ðTFcons $Dadd source $TEF$C4 Þ
Ladd trans ¼
EFgrid_BSL e baseline emissions factor for the electricity used in Qadd
 
the grinding (tonnes of CO2/MWh). (given by UNFCCC, 2009d)
ELEconveyor ADD $EFgrid
þ (10)
ADDy
  where
BELEsg CLNK $EFsg BSL
BEele sg CLNK ¼ (7)
ðCLNKBSL $C3 Þ Ladd_trans e factor of emissions of the SCBA due to the transport
where: (tonnes of CO2/tonne of additive);
TFcons e consumption of fuel oil of the vehicle used in the
BELEsg_CLNK e amount of self-generated electricity (MWh); transport (kg of fuel oil/km);
EFsg_BSL e emissions factor for the self-generated electricity Dadd_source e distance of transportation (km);
(tonnes of CO2/MWh) e (given by UNFCCC, 2009c). TEF e emission factor of the fuel oil (kg of CO2/kg of fuel oil);
C4 ¼ 0.001 e constant (tonnes/kg)
Qadd e quantity of additive carried per trip in one vehicle
(tonnes of additive);
3.4. Project activity emissions
ELEconveyor_ADD e Annual electricity consumption for conveyor
system for additives (MWh);
The UNFCCC methodology for increasing the blend in cement
EFgrid e grid electricity emission factor (tonnes of CO2/MWh);
production (UNFCCC, 2009b) states that the boundary of the CDM
ADDy e annual production of SCBA in year y (tonnes of additive).
project includes the cement production plant, any onsite power
generation and the power generation in the grid. Besides, the
methodology defines admixtures as materials blended with clinker 4. Case study
to produce blended cement types and include gypsum, fly ash, slag,
etc. For such materials the only GHG emissions associated are 4.1. General considerations
related to grinding, preparation, and eventual use of fossil fuels for
the transportation of such admixtures, defined by the methodology The State of São Paulo (Brazil) together with bordering regions
as leakage (see Section 3.5). in the States of Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio de Janeiro was chosen
The project emissions are given by equation (8). for this case study (see Fig. 2a).
  In the State of São Paulo, with an area of 248,000 km2, about 60%
PEBC;y ¼ PEclinker;y $Pblend;y þ PEele ADD BC;y (8) of the national sugar cane and ash production are concentrated in
201 agro-industrial units, which produced in 2005 over 222 million
where: tonnes of cane. Considering that one tonne of sugar cane supplies
6.6 kg of ash (Cordeiro et al., 2008a), the production potential of
PEBC,y e CO2 emissions per tonne of the SCBA in the project SCBA can be estimated by approximately 1.5 million tonnes for the
activity (tonnes of CO2/tonne of blended cement); studied region.
PEclinker,y e CO2 emissions per tonne of clinker (tonnes of CO2/ The State mentioned above produced about 8.5 million tonnes
tonne of clinker); of cement in 2005, considering 13 cement plants, including the
Pblend,y e share of clinker per tonne of blended cement (tonnes ones which are no further than 100 km from São Paulo’s
of clinker/tonne of blended cement); boundaries.
PEele_ADD_BC,y e electricity emissions for grinding and prepara- The capacity of the cement industry to receive and incorporate
tion of the mineral admixture (tonnes of CO2/tonne of blended SCBA as mineral admixture was estimated by establishing two
cement). average scenarios for the cement production. Scenario #1 is the
baseline and corresponds to cement production of the delimited
region in recent years, considering 2005 statistical data. The
3.5. Leakage scenario #2 corresponds to the project activities for which it is
assumed that SCBA is used as mineral addition.
The leakage emissions are given by the following equation: In scenario #1, for the region delimited by the present study, the
  average Brazilian baseline benchmark of clinker inclusion was
Ly ¼ Ladd trans Ablend;y  Pblend;y BCy (9) considered to be BBlend,y ¼ 0.80 tonnes of clinker/tonne of cement
(OECD/IEA, 2000). This ratio determines the composition of an
where: average hypothetical cement, cement “type A” with the following
contents (by mass): 80% clinker, 5% gypsum and 15% mineral
Ablend,y ¼ Baseline benchmark share of additives per tonne of additions (pozzolans, slags and fillers) denoted here as madd1.
blended cement updated for year y (tonnes of additives/tonne of Considering that the total cement production of the region is 6.8
blended cement); million tonnes of clinker, 1.275 million tonnes of madd1 and 0.425
1868 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871

Blending of cement with SCBA fulfills the requirements of

applicability and additionality of CDM projects. As established by
scenarios #1 and #2 there is no shortage of additives since the same
quantity of mineral additions madd1 is used in both scenarios.
Furthermore, the cement industry in Brazil aims at its internal
market. In what concerns additionality, since SCBA is a new
material related to new technologies and industrial processes, it
would be easy to demonstrate that there exists technological and
market barriers for its implementation.

4.2. Baseline emissions

The above described scenario #1 establishes the main charac-

teristics for computing the emissions corresponding to the base-
line. The term BEele_ADD_BC of equation (2) corresponds to the
mineral additions madd1 and to gypsum, i.e.:

BEele ADD BC ¼ BEele ADD BCmadd1 þ BEele ADD BCgypsum (11)

Since the baseline and the project (i.e., scenarios #1 and #2

respectively) use the same quantity of these two additions (see
Section 4.1), the terms BEele_ADD_BCmadd1 and BEele_ADD_BCgypsum will
be subtracted by equivalent terms for the project (see equations (1),
(13) and (14)), and it is only relevant to calculate the clinker
baseline emissions, BEclinker, which are expressed by equation (3).
The results for the clinker baseline are presented in Table 1. The
average values were calculated according to the data supplied by
the plants investigated in this work and according to the method-
Fig. 2. Project area: (a) State of São Paulo. (b) Localization of the sugar cane/ethanol
plants (red circles) and cement factories (blue circles). (c) Result of the optimization ological tools provided by UNFCCC for calculating the emission
procedure used to determine the average distance. (For interpretation of the references factors (UNFCCC, 2009c,d).
to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.). It is important to note that in Brazil the emissions calculated by
equations (6) and (7) are extremely low due to the fact that elec-
tricity is predominantly generated based from renewable and
million tonnes of gypsum are needed for the cement “type A”
noncarbon intensive sources.
production.
Since the term BBlend,y of equation (2) is estimated as 0.80 tonnes
The recommendations of the Brazilian standards (ABNT, 1991)
clinker/tonne cement (OECD/IEA, 2000) for the average Brazilian
are observed. These standards allow the production of cements
cement production, the baseline emissions (tonnes of CO2/tonne of
with mineral addition contents varying from: 6% to 44% (composite
clinker) can be written as:
slag cement type II-E); 6% to 24% (composite pozzolanic cement
type II-Z); 35% to 75% (slag cement type III); 15% to 55% (pozzolanic BEBC;y ¼ 0:662 þ BEele þ BEele (12)
ADD BCmadd1 ADD BCgypsum
cement type IV). Within scenario #2, following the principles of
CDM implementation, it is considered that the cement industry will
maintain the same consumption (in mass) of madd1 as in scenario
#1. Therefore, although up to 75% of additives are allowed in the 4.3. Project activity emissions
cement production it was decided to use, within a conservative
hypothesis, for the present simulation, a hypothetical cement “type The mineral addition used to reduce the percentage of clinker in
B” which consists of 30% mineral addition madd1, 65% clinker and the total production is SCBA, which is a residue and presents zero
5% gypsum. Hence, cement “type B” would be produced using all
Table 1
the 1.275 million tonnes of madd1 that are used in scenario #1.
Baseline.
Therefore, the total production of cement “type B” would be 4.25
million tonnes, which corresponds to half of the total cement Term Average value Unit
production. Since in scenario #2, the total cement production of 8.5 OutCaO 4.3 106 tonnes
million tonnes shall be maintained, the percentage of madd1 in the InCaO 252 103 tonnes
OutMgO 263 103 tonnes
total cement production would be 15%.
InMgO 14.3 103 tonnes
With regards to the other half of the total production (4.25 FFcoke_BSL 604 103 tonnes
million tonnes), the production of a hypothetical cement “type C” is FFfueloil_BSL 5.3 103 tonnes
considered, containing SCBA in the mixture. Although percentages FFcoal_BSL 2.7 103 tonnes
EFFcoke 3.5066 tonnes CO2/tonne coke
of cement replacement vary up to 20% (in mass) of SCBA it has been
EFFfuel oil 3.0753 tonnes CO2/tonne fuel oil
proven to be technically viable (see Section 2) to use an optimal EFFcoal 2.713 tonnes CO2/tonne coal
cement replacement of 15%. In order to maintain the same quantity BELEgrid_CLNK 1925 MWh
of gypsum the two scenarios for the cement “type C” (to simplify) EFgrid_BSL 0.2767 tonnes CO2/MWh
the contents presented in Section 2 are rounded up to 15% SCBA, BEcalcin 0.512 tonnes CO2/tonne clinker
80% clinker and 5% gypsum. Therefore, within the hypothesis of BEfossil_fuel 0.315 tonnes CO2/tonne clinker
scenario #2, the cement industry will consume 0.6375 million BEele_grid_CLNK y0 tonnes CO2/tonne clinker
tonnes of SCBA, and the percentage of SCBA in the total cement BEele_sg_CLNK y0 tonnes CO2/tonne clinker
BEclinker 0.827 tonnes CO2/tonne clinker
production will be of 7.5%.
 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871
CO2 emissions, once it is originated from vegetable organic matter,
being the carbon of the ash inside the carbon cycle. Therefore, SCBA
can be equated to other additives (fly ash, slag, etc.) described in the
UNFCCC methodology (UNFCCC 2009b) and equation (8) is applied
to the present project activity.
The term PEele_ADD_BC,y of equation (8) corresponds to the
mineral additions, madd1, gypsum and SCBA as indicated by
equation (13).
PEele ADD BC ¼ PEele ADD BCmadd1 þ PEele ADD BCgypsum
þ PEele
ADD BC SCBA
As stated in Sections 4.1 and 4.2, the baseline and the project (i.e.,
scenarios #1 and #2) use the same quantities of gypsum and of the
additions madd1. Therefore, it can be written that:
   plants and cement plants in such a way that the cement
BEele ADD BCmadd1 þ BEele ADD BCgypsum  PEele ADD BCmadd1

þ PEele ADD BCgypsum ¼ 0
Hence, it is only relevant to compute the last term of equation (13).
Similarly to the calculation of the baseline emissions (equations (6)
and (7)), it can be considered that, since emissions related to
electricity generation are extremely low in Brazil, the term PEel-
e_ADD_BC SCBA y 0.
Since the amount of clinker used in scenarios #1 and #2 is the
same, the mass of CO2 emitted per mass of clinker is the same in the
baseline and in the project, i.e., PEclinker,y ¼ BEclinker,y.
Otherwise, the clinker to cement ratio of the total production for
the hypothetical cements “types B” and “C” within scenario #2 can
be calculated by equation (15):
 
0:65$4:25$106 ton þ 0:80$4:25$106 ton
PBlend;y ¼ ¼ 0:725
8:5$106 ton
Finally, the project activity emissions (tonnes of CO2 per tonne of
clinker) can be written as:
PEBC;y ¼ ð0:827$0:725Þ þ PEele ADD BCmadd1
þ PEele ADD BCgypsum
¼ 0:600 þ BEele ADD BCmadd1 þ BEele ADD BCgypsum
4.4. Leakage emissions
The first term of equation (10) stands for the emissions related
to the transportation of SCBA from the sugar/ethanol plants to the
cement plants, corresponding to the main emissions related to the
use of SCBA. The second term concerning the utilized energy in the
transport is negligible for the same reason explained in Section 4.2
regarding the low emissions calculated by equations (6) and (7).
To estimate the values of TFcons, TEF and Qadd, the most viable
way of transport of SCBA chosen for the study, and in accordance
with the characteristics of the project’s area, was the road transport
by trucks. For the present simulation a standard diesel fuel oil truck
(TEF ¼ 3.1 tonnes of CO2/tonne of fuel oil, UNFCCC, 2009c), most
commonly used in Brazil was chosen. According to ANFAVEA
(2008) and manufacturer data, this truck has a fuel consumption
(TFcons) equal to 0.4 kg fuel oil/km and can transport (Qadd) 16.46
tonnes of SCBA per trip.
The parameter Dadd_source was assumed to be the average
distance between producers of SCBA and cement plants. Since this
1869
parameter is important to estimate the emissions related to the
implementation of SCBA, the procedure used in its determination is
shown in the next paragraphs.
To simplify, the 201 sugar/ethanol plants were grouped into 35
municipalities denominated spmk (K ¼ 1, nspm; nspm ¼ 35), and the
cement plants (13 units) were grouped into 8 municipalities
denominated cpml (l ¼ 1, ncpm; ncpm ¼ 8), as can be seen in Fig. 2b.
In both sugar/ethanol and cement plants groups, the units were
grouped within a 30 km radius circumference. Considering this
simplification, there are 280 possible paths between cement plants
(13) and sugar/ethanol plants.
Therefore, the calculation of the average distance is an optimi-
zation problem that can be stated as follows:
 Find the minimum average distance between sugar/ethanol
industry receives as much SCBA as possible.
ð14Þ A genetic algorithm (GA) was used to solve this problem as it has
demonstrated great ability to provide effective solutions to discrete
optimization problems, allowing a robust search for the global
optimal point (Fairbairn et al., 2004).
To simplify the formulation of the GA, the SCBA mass unit was
established to be 104 tonne. Hence, the SCBA production of a given
municipality spmk is given by a number MS(spmk) (104 tonne),
where MS(spmk) is rounded up to zero decimal places.
Each municipality was subdivided into nd(spmk) ¼ MS(spmk)/
104 virtual districts, denominated spdi, of which each one produces
104 tonnes of SCBA, and are located in the same geographical
location of the original municipality. The total number of district
producers of SCBA is then:
X
nspm
nspd ¼ ndðspmk Þ (17)
k¼1
(15)
The mass of SCBA that a cement producer municipality is able to
receive, MCSlim(cpml), is also a number expressed in (104 tonne),
rounded up to zero decimal places. It is based on the hypothesis
established by the scenario #2 and is given by equation (18).
MCSlim ¼ ð0:15Þ$ð0:50Þ$MCðcpml Þ (18)
(16) where MC(cpml) is the cement production of the municipality.
A “dummy” municipality cpmncpmþ1 having distance zero from
all the spdi was created to receive the excess of SCBA within the
framework of the GA.
The SCBA producer districts and the cement producer munici-
palities are organized, respectively, within the discrete sets:
spd˛spd1 ; spd2 ; .spdnspd and cpm˛fcpm1 ; cpm2 ; .cpmncpmþ1 g. Let
~ be a tentative solution set composed of nspd pairs (spdi, cpmj(i)),
S
where i ¼ 1, 2,., nspd and jðiÞ˛f1; 2; .; ncpm þ 1g is randomily
chosen. Let MCSS~ ðcpml ÞsMCSlim ðcpml Þ be the quantity of SCBA that
~
is received by cpmi within the set S.
The GA minimizes the following fitness function:
1 X   ncpm
nspd X
F ¼ D spdi ; cpmjðiÞ þ Pðcpml Þ (19)
nspd i ¼ 1
l¼1
where D(spdi, cpmj(i)) is the road distance (km) between spdi and
cpmj(i), and P is a function that penalizes F if
MCSS~ ðcpml ÞsMCSlim ðcpml Þ. In this way, for the optimal solution set
S we have:
F ¼ Dav;min (20)
1870 E.M.R. Fairbairn et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 1864e1871
where Dav,min is the minimum average distance between the
producers of SCBA and the cement plants, assuming that the plants
receive a quantity of SCBA compatible with their cement produc-
tion within the hypothesis of scenario #2. Therefore, besides the
minimum of the average distance, the solution set S has also the
following properties:
MCSS ðcpml Þ ¼ MCSlim ðcpml Þ; l ¼ 1; ncpm
and
  X
nspm X
ncpm
MCSS cpmncpmþ1 ¼ MSðspmk Þ  MCSlim ðcpml Þ
k¼1 l¼1
For the problem at hand, the GA converged for Dav,min ¼ 153 km,
which is assimilated to the parameter Dadd_source of equation (10).
As all the outstanding parameters are available in the equation
(10), it is possible to calculate the transport related emissions per
tonne of additives:
0:012 tonnes of CO2
Ladd trans ¼ (23)
tonne of SCBA
Therefore, the leakage emissions Ly can be computed using equa-
tion (9), knowing that (Ablend,yBblend,y)BCy is a negative number
equal to the mass of SCBA introduced in scenario #2, i.e., 637.5
kilotonnes of SCBA:
Ly ¼ 0:012$637:5 ¼ 7:7 kilotonnes of CO2
4.5. Emissions reduction
The SCBA potential in the area of the project is estimated to be
1.5 million tonnes, which is surplus compared to the maximum
quantity that could be absorbed by the factories, estimated to be
0.635 million tonnes, considering the average production of
scenario #2. Therefore, the term a can be considered negligible.
The emissions reduction can finally be calculated by applying
equation (1):
h  there is potential for the issuance of Certified Emission
ERy ¼ 0:662 þ BEele ADD BCmadd1 þ BEele ADD BCgypsum
 i
 0:600 þ BEele ADD BCmadd1 þ BEele ADD BCgypsum 8500
 7:7 ¼ 519:3 kilotonnes of CO2
5. Discussion
For the case study analyzed in this paper, the total production of
SCBA is 1.5 million tonnes but only 0.6375 million tonnes have been
used for increasing the blend in cement production. Hence,
a surplus of 0.8625 million tonnes of SCBA would exist. Several
scenarios can be imagined for using this surplus, such as: (i) an
increasing of cement production in Brazil in the next few years; (ii)
sending the ashes to more distant cement factories considering
economical and emission reduction restrictions; (iii) increasing the
quantity of the additives madd1 beyond the 30% of the present
simulation; (iv) increasing the quantity of SCBA in cement beyond
the 15% used in the present simulation, by developing new tech-
nologies for the preparation and grinding.
The authors deliberately avoided the estimation of costs for the
industrial implementation of SCBA because it was out of the scope
of the present paper which considers only the balance of the
averaged CO2 emissions. An economical analysis should consider
local costs and market variables that are beyond the purpose of the
present study. However, it must be pointed out that the main
components of the cost for the implementation of SCBA should
include the costs of the ash, transportation, preparation and
grinding, and the revenues obtained with the carbon credits. Since
(21) SCBA is substituting clinker it can be estimated, in a very first
approach, that the costs for preparation and grinding are similar to
that of the material to be substituted. The cost of the ash, in a very
!
first moment, is zero or even negative because it is a residue and
should be disposed by the sugar cane/ethanol plant. However, like
other residual pozzolans (e.g., fly ash and silica fume), the cost of
(22) the raw material tends to increase with the increasing demand of
the market. In what concerns the CER credits, the value of the tonne
of CO2 has varied in the last years from V15 to V35.
The exercise proposed in this paper was to assess the potential
for CDM in Brazil related to cement blended with SCBA, taking into
account the main production region in the country. This was not
a proposed project activity under CDM or a programmatic CDM. A
CDM methodology which was conceived to be applied in a project-
by-project basis was used. However, the application of the meth-
odology in a regional basis is a good proxy for the real emissions
reduction potential for this technology.
6. Conclusions
 Sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) is a pozzolan that can partially
(24)
replace clinker in cement production and reduces emissions of
CO2 into the atmosphere. SCBA is an agro-industrial residue
available in several countries, and it was proved by previous
comprehensive studies that its use generally improves the
behavior of the cementitious construction materials.
 The case study presented in this paper simulates the use of
SCBA in industrial scale for the southern eastern region of
Brazil. The emissions reduction estimated using the method-
ology of UNFCCC was of 519.3 kilotonnes of CO2 per year.
 The increasing of blend in cement production using SCBA, for
the simulation carried out in this study, fulfill the conditions to
be candidate for CDM projects, respecting the constraints of the
UNFCCC approved and consolidated methodologies. Hence
Reduction credits.
Acknowledgements
ð25Þ
The authors acknowledge the Brazilian agencies CNPq, CAPES
and FAPERJ for their financial support, and the Universidade Federal
do Rio de Janeiro for the scholarship of the fourth author.
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