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142 comments on Graphs that Blow Your Mind...

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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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