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142 comments on Graphs that Blow Your Mind...

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kevinM on January 29, 2006 - 4:53am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Don't forget
CaCO3 + heat > CaO + CO2

and the heating of limestome to
make the CaO is done using a
fossil fuel, and the cement is
transported to the construction
site using petrol/oil vehicles.
So all that concrete equates top a
massive contribution to global
warming.

So our debate now should be centred
around 'which will get us first,
energy depletion or abrupt climate
change?'

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Stuart Staniford on January 29, 2006 - 5:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, I've actually been working on a whole series about the carbon cycle which I plan to start posting tomorrow night.
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zach on January 29, 2006 - 5:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yup, I can see the headline now...

"We Are Officially Fucked - A blog called The Oil Drum is now going to focus its attention on the carbon cycle just as data showing possible 10% declines surfaces"

/sarcasm off

Seriously guys, what the fuck?!

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Stuart Staniford on January 29, 2006 - 7:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Since we have four editors, two contributors, and legions of excellent commenters and guest posters, we can actually think about more than one thing at the same time. That's good, because there are a large number of interlocking pieces to the overall problem.
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Twilight on January 29, 2006 - 8:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think such posts are entirely appropriate, and I for one appreciate them.  Oil is intertwined with so many aspects of our lives that one cannot develop a ture understanding of the problem without exploring some side paths.

And while I can curse with the best of them, this site does not really benefit from poor language all that much.

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zach on January 29, 2006 - 8:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I hope I am clear below on the issue of relevance.

...understood about the language. Beer/fatigue does strange things to vocabulary. :)

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Nate Hagens on January 29, 2006 - 12:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Several comments:
1) here is a link to one estimate of the embodied energy in cement
Clearly cememt requires much energy to create and transport.

2)I just got back from 4 days in DC meeting with energy wonks   and environmental NGO types. Enviros are very interested in the link between peak oil and climate change, as the main current liquid fuel options are biofuels and fisher-tropsch CTL both impacting GHGs

  1. I learned how severe and relevant the US current coal shortage is- the tracks from the Powder River Basin have been damaged from the coal dust mixing with water over time. There is also a limitation of coal cars. The bottom line of this is it is impacting future natural gas prices - even with the mild winter, post 2006 natural gas prices keep going up, because NG and coal make up majority of our electricity grid.

  2. I also discovered that "Peak Oil" while worrisome, may not be the nearest danger. US has been running at 100% capacity for 18 months in natural gas production vs deliverability - this is the first time this has ever happened. There is plenty of crude available (presently) but the ability to refine it and DELIVER it is what is most fragile. These deliverability problems in refined product and natural gas mean there is little room for error (or growth)

  3. Essentially, the short term (medium term?) limits to coal, the tightness in natural gas deliverability and the refining and delivery limitations point to the possibility of an energy train wreck in US that could occur with world crude production still on the upslope - I need to research this new direction and will post some links

So, cement production is VERY central to peak oil, as it is energy intensive and shortages there limit scalable alternatives to oil. Everything is linked at this point. There is not alot of switching ability. One a bright note, I met with an efficiecy expert who is writing a paper suggesting there still is a great deal of low hanging fruit in US that can reduce energy use and increase efficiency, with behavioral changes
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Nate Hagens on January 29, 2006 - 12:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Um.. a quick back of the envelope calculation from the above link to energy embodied in cement - there are 6,296,000 BTUs embodied in a ton of cement. 1 billion of these tons equals 6.3 quadrillion BTUs, which at 5,800,000 BTUs per barrel of oil, equates to 1.1 billion barrels of oil to create the amount of cement China created last year. They used 2.5 billion barrels of oil TOTAL last year (3 quarters extrapolated forward from EIA).

So:
a) China is using a HUGE % of their oil to make cement.
b) China is using a mix of other energies (coal, hydro, etc) to make cement.

Again, I second Stuarts observation that this is jawdropping.

Just as in the Great Leap Forward when every bit of spare metal was contributed to communist party to create iron for growth, it seems that its happening again, yet cement is the goal....

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Stuart Staniford on January 29, 2006 - 4:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Do you have any numbers for the energy costs of mining and delivering sand and gravel? There's a large pile of the latter that go with each bag of cement to make concrete (which is almost certainly what the great bulk of this cement is used for).
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Sparaxis on January 30, 2006 - 12:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
In China, oil isn't used in cement production. In the clinker stage, it's all coal. In the blending stage it's electricity (which is generated 80% from coal in China).

And cement production in China is inefficient. There are hundreds of small plants, both wet and dry processes, and the local environmental impact is severe.

It's no joke that that national bird in China is the crane :)

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dinaz on January 30, 2006 - 1:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I recall learning that the most pronounced effect of the Great Leap Forward's push for steel (not iron) was massive deforestation and a squeeze ion coal supplies. Rural Chinese trying to make steel at the behest of Mao used coal and wood for heat and carbon. The limited supply of coal hurt the railway system and deforestation was a definite issue. Oh, and the quality of the resulting steel was terrible. A former boss and friend from Guanzhou (sp?) recalled how almost all Chinese buildings are made from concrete and often heavily overbuilt. He thinks it's because the concrete is often of poor quality and builders compensate by making walls thicker and using more reinforcing steel. Concrete production in North America does not reflect construction activity as it does in China. Most if not all houses in NA are built of wood with concrete components. In China, even the smallest houses tend to built with concrete - that is where is space for a house. Home for home China consumes far far more cement than us NA energy hogs. You also can't build a tower block out of wood. A point that may not matter when you don't really have any trees to spare. Reforestation is a dominant part of Chinese environmental policy for a reason. I think this info is highly relevant because higher heat demand for cement - largely from coal and "waste" has the effect of limiting supply to market and driving other industrial consumers towards imported fuels (even coal). We worry so much about Chinese drivers but maybe the real growth in energy demand is coming from development...
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zach on January 29, 2006 - 8:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for responding. The only way to simultaneously solve Peak Oil and remove the threat of abrupt climate change is to minimize the use of fossile fuels as soon as possible. Trying to predict an occurance of Abrupt Climate Change is like trying to pinpoint where a hurricane hits land.

If you have something specific, I'm all ears. But otherwise, I'm moving on. The figures below seem much more relevent to this board and my concerns.

1,000 / .60 = 1,666.66667

1,000 / .65 = 1,538.46154

1,000 / .70 = 1,428.57143

I look forward to more discussion on oil and decline rates now that it's probable that we past the 50% mark ten years ago, ironically when Hubbert originally predicted it would happen.

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Stuart Staniford on January 29, 2006 - 4:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You are of course welcome to move on. However, if you do maintain an open mind, I will be responding to exactly what you just argued in your first paragraph in a few days.
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Stormy on January 29, 2006 - 11:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"overlocking problems"...exactly right.  Looking at each and their interrelationships is making TOD the best site on the net.

I do have one problem and recommendation: Acronyms that become part of the TOD vocabulary.  I do not mean the silly ones like IMO, but the technical ones pertaining to oil.

I am acronymed to death.  There should be a place that lists the acronyms and their meanings.  Otherwise, anyone coming in here for the first time is bloody lost.  I get lost, and I come here twice a day!  Maybe a popup that could give definitions?

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PhilRelig on January 29, 2006 - 1:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Agreed.  I second the motion.  (For what it's worth, I myself try to avoid acronyms when I post.)
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Prof. Goose on January 29, 2006 - 1:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'll start an open thread today... you guys hit the acronyms piecemeal and we'll fill in the rest.  Then I'll transfer that to a post.   What acronyms do we need to pull together?
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odograph on January 29, 2006 - 1:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Do we have to say "carbon dioxide"?
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ab3 on January 29, 2006 - 9:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That heat doesn't always come from fossil fuels, at least not directly. One of the main reasons that environmentalists fight to stop the permitting of cement plants is that they often burn waste products (tires being one of the most common), and the emissions are abominable.
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trestok on December 15, 2006 - 8:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for responding. The only way to simultaneously solve Peak Oil and remove the threat of abrupt climate change is to minimize the use of fossile fuels as soon as possible. Trying to predict an occurance of Abrupt Climate Change is
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AlanfromBigEasy on January 29, 2006 - 11:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
China is the world's largest hydraulic cement producer. In 2002 China produced an estimated 725 million metric tons of hydraulic cement, or roughly 39% of the world's supply. Emissions from cement production account for 10.1% of China's 2002 total industrial CO2 emissions. A graph from an interesting database on nation by nation CO2 emissions over time. http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/prc.htm
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Bryant on January 30, 2006 - 2:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
kevinM,

I am no expert on concrete/cement, but I recall that the curing of cement is a pozolonic reaction that absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere(as long as there is sufficient moisture).  This re-absorbtion of CO2 should be approximately equivalent to the CO2 release during the calcining process.

You might consider looking it up as a good memory does not equal pale ink...and mine is surely not a "good memory"

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wkwillis on January 30, 2006 - 6:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Cement does absorb CO2 over time and become stronger, but it takes a long time and thicker concrete takes longer. There is a process to make concrete forms stronger by infusing CO2 under pressure, but you have to put it in an expensive pressure vessel for hours.
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