Reducing carbon emissions in the cement industry using effective measures based on countries’ characteristics

Cement production contributes 5% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions (CEs), and more than 90% of the CEs are in the procedure of pyroprocessing. Thus calculating the pyroprocessing CO2 emission number (PCEN), determining CE-impacted factors, and investigating tailored measures of PCEN reduction for countries based on their characteristics is quite necessary. More specifically, different countries can meet different obstacles to reducing PCENs, such as different restrictions on natural resources and policies, improper energy structures, and so on. With this in mind, tailored measures for PCEN reduction in different countries should be investigated and developed based on their own characteristics. This study selects four sample countries, China, the US, Australia, and Turkey, because of their representative locations and characteristics and then determines PCENs for these countries. The results show that the PCENs of China, the US, Australia, and Turkey are 884, 886, 828, and 913 kgCO2/t clinker, respectively. Subsequently, the most PCEN-impacted factors are analyzed, and the reasons for sample countries' different PCENs are discussed. Then, corresponding custom measures are proposed for each country based on its characteristics. The measures proposed in this study can help with the PCE reduction in the world's cement industry, and the collected data and calculated results can be used to further research on improving energy conservation and emission reduction measures.