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Life cycle assessment of the Spanish cement industry: implementation of environmental-friendly solutions

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Abstract

This study tries to find out the hotspots of the Spanish cement sector in 2010 by the life cycle assessment (LCA) and evaluates some improvement scenarios where best available technologies and substitution measures are taken into consideration. The document presents an environmental LCA of the cement production using the 2011 International Reference Life Cycle Data System method recommended by the European Commission. Attending to the clinker production by stage, fossil fuel combustion is the most important source in terms of impacts. Besides, limestone’s calcination is crucial attending to the climate change. Electricity consumption is also relevant both in human toxicity with cancer effects and freshwater eutrophication (FE). Accordingly, solutions deployed lead to reductions in different impact categories. Fossil fuel substitution scenario achieves to reduce 33 and 37 % photochemical ozone formation and acidification (A), while material substitution scenario leads to reduce 10–13 % each impact category. On the other hand, fossil fuel substitution scenario entails an increase of 10 % in FE. Considering the ideal case of applying all these improvements together, reductions go from 15 % in FE to 49 % in A, respectively. To face the problems derived from fossil fuel combustion, a fuel shift is needed to reach less contaminant options such as biomass and bio-waste. Material substitution is another good solution for the industry, but it requires a change in the demand and further research to ensure the properties of cement. Authors recommend taking into consideration the collateral increase of the FE due to the phosphates increase coming from the alternative fuels combustion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Systems Analysis Unit, Energy Department, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Av. Complutense 40, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Diego García-Gusano, Israel Herrera, Daniel Garraín, Yolanda Lechón & Helena Cabal

Authors
  1. Diego García-Gusano
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  2. Israel Herrera
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  3. Daniel Garraín
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  4. Yolanda Lechón
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  5. Helena Cabal
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diego García-Gusano.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 9.

Table 9 LCI of the pre-treatment, transport and combustion of 1 kg of each alternative fuel used in the Spanish cement production in 2010
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Appendix 2

See Table 10.

Table 10 LCI of the fossil fuels combustion introduced in the 2010 Spanish cement production (CORINAIR 2006)
Full size table

Appendix 3

See Table 11.

Table 11 Spanish grey cements by type, E3 scenario adjustment (bold)
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Appendix 4

See Fig. 4.

Fig. 4
figure 4

LCIA results (relative units) of the production of 1 t of cement (generic) in Spain in 2010. Note SimaPro output

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García-Gusano, D., Herrera, I., Garraín, D. et al. Life cycle assessment of the Spanish cement industry: implementation of environmental-friendly solutions. Clean Techn Environ Policy 17, 59–73 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-014-0757-0

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