CO2 Emission Reduction in the Cement Industry

The cement industry is one of the largest carbon emitting industrial sectors in the European Union (EU) and in the world. In line with the EU commitment to combat climate change, the cement industry needs to decrease significantly carbon emission. The cement manufacturing process is not only a source of combustion related CO2 emissions, but it is also a large source of industrial process related CO2 emissions. There are several effective measures which can be applied in cement manufacturing processes to achieve emissions reduction targets. Simultaneously, these measures can reduce the local environmental impacts and improve the competitiveness of the cement industry. In this paper, the following measures for CO2 emission reduction were analyzed in order to identify their environmental effectiveness: use of alternative fuels, more efficient kiln process, and co-production of synthetic fuels. The study was done on the case of a Macedonian cement plant. It was confirmed that the implementation of the selected mitigation measures results in substantial CO2 emission reduction.