Sustainability Investigation in the Building Cement Production System Based on the LCA-Emergy Method

Hairuo Wang, Yexin Liu, Junxue Zhang (), He Zhang, Li Huang, Dan Xu and Chunxia Zhang
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Hairuo Wang: School of Civil and Ocean Engineering, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang 222005, China
Yexin Liu: School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212100, China
Junxue Zhang: School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212100, China
He Zhang: M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, College of Design, Construction and Planning, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603, USA
Li Huang: School of Design Art, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, China
Dan Xu: School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212100, China
Chunxia Zhang: School of Art and Design, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-22

Abstract: As one of the highest energy and resource consumption industries in China, discussion on the sustainability of the cement production system has great significance. This study conducted sustainable calculations and analyses for cement production systems based on the emergy method. This study also considers the sustainability impact of clean energy on the overall cement production system. Through a series of sustainable indicator measurements, the results prove that: (1) the two primary sections, non-renewable resource and non-renewable energy, contribute 88.6% and 11.1% of the emergy proportion, respectively; (2) the emergy sustainability indicator (ESI) was only 0.058, which is significantly less than the standard; (3) through the analysis of eight hypotheses, a very small change between the absolute values was found, which demonstrates that the sensitivity changes are within acceptable limits for the cement production system; and (4) by integrating the biological power generation subsystem, sustainability has been optimized in the cement production system. Finally, two ameliorated strategies are discussed in this paper for the better sustainability performance of the cement production system in the future.

Keywords: sustainability; cement production system; LCA-emergy method; bioenergy system (BES) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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