Current Status of Energy Consumption, Environmental Impacts, and Potential for Improvement Opportunities in Cement Industry of Pakistan /

Abstract

The cement industry of Pakistan is a huge consumer of energy, consuming approximately 1.7 TGWh electrical and 209.3 MGJ thermal energy respectively during the base year 2018. Moreover, due to the frequent use of carbon-intensive kiln fuel such as coal and petroleum coke, the cement industry of Pakistan is responsible for various types of atmospheric emissions like CO2, NOx, ammonia, PM (Dust). Cement production in Pakistan is alone responsible for 19.5 MMT of CO2 equivalent GHG emissions. Pakistan the 12th most vulnerable country to global warming in the world needs to reduce the cement production adverse effect. The growth rate of 3.6% is projected for long term up to 2050 for cement production in Pakistan, due to urbanization, population growth, and future mega projects such as CPEC, which will cause 56.3 MMT of CO2 up to 2048, which needs to be mitigated to reduce the environmental impacts of cement industry. This study inspects the impacts of different strategies on carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption reduction from Pakistan cement industry using Long-Range Energy Alternative Planning System (LEAP). The present and future energy demand and emission are investigated for next 30 years (2018-2048). Three different scenario business as usual (BAU), Efficient production (EFF) and Alternative Fuel (ALT) is considered to estimate the overall effect of cement production up to 2048. The results indicate that in 2048 CO2 equivalent emission and overall energy consumption would reach up to 56.3 MMT and 622.4 MGJ respectively in the BAU scenario. However, the Replacement of Coal with 40% Natural gas and 10% Biomass would result in 27 MMT CO2 equivalent emission (50% reduction) up to the year 2048. Similarly implementing various energy efficiency measures would result in 1.7 Thousand GWh electrical energy saving (34% reduction) and 6.1 MGJ (1% reduction) of overall energy saving. Additionally, Using ORC for a 5-stage preheater has a capacity of producing 48MW electrical power. Installation of electrostatic precipitators can reduce the dust emission to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of cement production in Pakistan.