From CO2 emissions to resource efficiency: a new simplified methodology for assessing resource use in clinker manufacturing

Abstract A new simplified methodology for calculating industrial exergy-based Resource Efficiency (RE), estimating clinker manufacturing RE from publicly available CO 2 emissions data and existing technical knowledge, is proposed. The analysis builds on previous control-data exergy-based RE analysis of a real cement plant. The results of the two models tested follow the same trends found in the plant’s exergy-based RE analysis employing real-time control-data: fuels dominate total exergetic resource input; the clinker burning section is responsible for the higher consumption of energy and emissions; exhaust gases have significant exergy content, while dust losses are small. Estimation of the raw feed flow from reported CO 2 emissions gives a good proxy of the real exergy content of both raw feed and clinker. The use of average EU28 data on fuels yields a fuel mix exergy content which differs by less than 10% of the one obtained employing control-data analysis. The RE results of the models compare well with both those from the control-data analysis and the values reported in the literature. The new proposed methodology is, thus, found to be capable of estimating a plant’s RE that constitutes a good proxy of its real value, using publicly available data .