China goes green
Europe is earnestly investigating important measures to drastically reduce pollution. However, if the world is to achieve the targets set out by the Kyoto Protocol — which outlines the reduction of greenhouse gases — action has to be taken at a global level. The EU, which has already made efforts to reduce its own CO2 production, is lending a helping hand to China. This effort involves the promise to reduce China's CO2 production by an amount equivalent to twice Norway's total emissions of greenhouse gases.
Recent years have seen record levels of economic growth in China. The tail end of this, however, has been a less-than-enviable environmental problem for China. The country produces more than 1 billion tonnes of waste a year, and the way in which it is treated is less than satisfactory. Waste is a major health hazard and is an enormous source of pollution. The cement industry alone discharges 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, 26 times as much as Norway's total CO2 emissions.
China already boasts the biggest cement industry in the world, but most of its production is based on outdated technology. This means that most of its plants are coal-fired, resulting in large emissions of CO2 and dust. A major EU project led by SINTEF (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research) could lead to significant cuts in CO2 emissions in China's cement industry — this reduction will have the magnitude of twice Norway's total emissions of greenhouse gases.
The EU’s latest research project on CO2 capture in coal- and gas-fired power stations involves 14 partners from 8 different countries, and has a total budget of more than twice the Norwegian parliament’s annual funding for research of this type. The project is called DECARBit: it will be coordinated by SINTEF Energy Research and has a total budget of NOK 120 million (EUR 15.3 million). 'We have just started a three-year project that aims to ameliorate both the environmental problem and the waste problem,' commented special consultant Kare Helge Karstensen of SINTEF Construction and Environment.
'We will use industrial waste as a supplementary fuel in the cement industry. It cannot completely replace coal, but we could come up to a 40% replace factor. This waste consists of everything from tyres and plastic to organic waste. When we reduce the consumption of coal — which is a non-renewable energy source — in this way, the cement industry will become more sustainable. And when millions of tonnes of coal can be replaced by waste, we also protect the environment from enormous CO2 emissions. This could be a quantum leap in solving a lot of environmental problems,' says Karstensen.
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