An input-output approach for environmental life cycle assessment of cement production

Abstract

To evaluate the energy consumption and global warming impact of cement production at macro level, this work provided the 10 sectors Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) based on 1990 - 2010 Thailand national economic data. The estimating Thailand gross domestic product (GDP) and the environmental impacts from 1990 to 2010 were used to project the energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of cement production chains in Thailand for 2015 - 2030. The results of EIO-LCA analysis found that the main energy input of the cement production was mainly associated with the use of fossil energy, including, coal, diesel, lignite, and electricity, which accounted for 74 % − 93 % in years 1995 - 2010 and 58 % − 59 % in years 2015 - 2030 of the total energy used. The highest contributor to the total GHG emissions of cement production was from diesel combustion emissions by 58 % − 65 % in years 1995 - 2010 and 44.2 % − 44.5 % in years 2015 - 2030. This was because various types of energy inputs were included in petroleum refineries sector. In comparison with the Process LCA, the main contributions of energy used (84 %) and GHG emissions (91 %) of cement production were from the limestone calcination in clinker production and fossil fuels used. The diesel consumption were excluded from the calculation because the amount of diesel used and combustion was relatively small. The obtained results showed that the disaggregated for the desired level analysis was particularly insufficient. The EIO-LCA analysis might be used for providing alternative way to estimate the environmental burdens associated with the life cycle of products at the macro level and relatively inexpensive. © 2020 Italian Association of Chemical Engineering - AIDIC. All rights reserved.