The eco-efficiency evaluation in China's cement industry: A city-level study

Yihan Wang; Mao Xu; Xiaojun Lv; Zongguo Wen; Chen Chen

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161132

The eco-efficiency evaluation in China's cement industry: A city-level study

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Mar 20:865:161132. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161132. Epub 2022 Dec 29.

Authors

Yihan Wang¹, Mao Xu², Xiaojun Lv³, Zongguo Wen⁴, Chen Chen⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (SKLESPC), School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
² State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (SKLESPC), School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Industrial Energy Saving and Green Development Assessment Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
³ Appraisal Center for Environment and Engineering, Ministry of Ecological and Environment, Beijing 100012, China.
⁴ State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (SKLESPC), School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Industrial Energy Saving and Green Development Assessment Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: wenzg@tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁵ Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

PMID: 36587694
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161132

Abstract

To implement strict environmental targets in China's cement industry into small regions, one should evaluate the city-level eco-efficiency that provides comprehensive instruction. This study establishes a plant-level database with 4000+ production lines located in 341 cities, calculates the energy consumption and CO₂, SO₂, NO_x, and PM emissions, evaluates the eco-efficiency in each city via Slacks-based Measure, and verifies the spatial features of these indicators. Results show that the energy consumption and emissions of the industry are highly concentrated, with ~10 % of the land area contributing to 28.4 %-34.6 % of the total amounts in 2019. The average eco-efficiency value of the clinker calcination and cement grinding processes are 0.761 and 0.714, but the city clusters having low eco-efficiency values are inconsistent with the ones having large energy consumption and emission amounts. The results can contribute to the implementation of the targets such as carbon peaking and pollution cap in China's cement industry.

Keywords: Cement industry; Data Envelopment Analysis; Emission; Energy consumption; Moran's I index; Plant-level database.