Doing it better.

• Position: LIFE - CYCLE STUDIES - Brief article

The cement industry's interest in reducing energy costs has led many countries to replace small-scale cement plants with larger, more efficient models. The most efficient kiln models accounted for about 6 percent of China's cement output in 1995, but these are expected to provide &0 percent of Chinese cement next year.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Yet state-of-the-art kilns still consume about 3 gigajoules of energy per cement ton. Renewable energy sources, such as sustainable biomass, could provide more than the current 5 percent of kiln fuel in most developing countries, or kilns may be updated with carbon capture and sequestration technology. But even if that technology becomes affordable, the...