"A Pretty Stunning Graph of World Cement Usage"

[phantom power]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4162

[TooBigaTent]

1. In Belgium, they site their homes at the front of the lot, closer to the street. By doing this,

they save an enormous amount of green space by having a shorter driveway (less cement).

Plus, it gives them a larger back yard. No need to impress the neighbors with a huge front acreage.

Smart planning can be effective, if only we would take the time to do so.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Wow. Now there's an eye-opener.

That's insane.

[phantom power]

3. One thing I notice, is the difference between China and India...

both are considered to be "rapidly developing," but clearly the pattern of development isn't the same, at least in terms of building structures.

[DCKit]

4. China is building infrastructure, dams and skyscrapers.

Massive construction projects in China alone have provided The Discovery Channel with a couple of seasons of shows.

This boom in construction has also impacted world prices for steel (rebar, beams and structural) and copper (plumbing and electrical. I suspect the worlds glass factories are also pumping out the plate glass as fast as they can.

[phantom power]

5. I just did a check: even 3-gorges dam used only 0.065 gigatons...

So, there's a hell of a lot of construction going on over there...

[NNadir]

6. To be more meaningful, one should use units like "kg per capita."

To be perfectly meaningful, one might compare sums of per capita use over a period of 50 years. How do these figures compare with the US decision to build, at incalculable enviornmental cost, the interstate highway system, effectively subsidizing both the dangerous fossil fuel industry and the automotive industry. Concrete is a long term investment.

People seem to have a big problem that Chinese have decided to try to live like Americans. Mind you, I don't endorse this decision, but any criticism coming from Americans is a little bizarre, frankly.

I get queasy when I think about that big Chinese concrete device that they constructed, the 3 Gorges dam, particularly since - unremarked by the "renewables will save us" crowd - the world's largest energy disaster of all time was the collapse of the Banqiao dam system, killing hundreds of thousands in a few nights.

[phantom power]

7. that would certainly change the shape of the graph.

[NNadir]

8. Concrete prices of course, are way up, but part of the reason is energy.

It takes a fair amount of energy to remove carbon dioxide from limestone to make the oxide (ultimately the dihydroxide when water is added).

I believe that concentrated lime is also stretched though.

In theory it is possible to obtain calcium carbonate as a side product from desalination, but the matter of desalination is probably not some place where we wish to go.