Assessment of Energy Conservation in Indian Cement Industry and Forecasting of Co2 Emissions

Cement industry ranks 2nd in energy consumption among the industries in India. It is one of the major emitter of CO2, due to combustion of fossil fuel and calcination process. As the huge amount of CO2 emissions cause severe environment problems, the efficient and effective utilization of energy is a major concern in Indian cement industry. The main objective of the research work is to assess the energy cosumption and energy conservation of the Indian cement industry and to predict future trends in cement production and reduction of CO2 emissions. In order to achieve this objective, a detailed energy and exergy analysis of a typical cement plant in Kerala was carried out. The data on fuel usage, electricity consumption, amount of clinker and cement production were also collected from a few selected cement industries in India for the period 2001 - 2010 and the CO2 emissions were estimated. A complete decomposition method was used for the analysis of change in CO2 emissions during the period 2001 - 2010 by categorising the cement industries according to the specific thermal energy consumption. A basic forecasting model for the cement production trend was developed by using the system dynamic approach and the model was validated with the data collected from the selected cement industries. The cement production and CO2 emissions from the industries were also predicted with the base year as 2010. The sensitivity analysis of the forecasting model was conducted and found satisfactory. The model was then modified for the total cement production in India to predict the cement production and CO2 emissions for the next 21 years under three different scenarios. The parmeters that influence CO2 emissions like population and GDP growth rate, demand of cement and its production, clinker consumption and energy utilization are incorporated in these scenarios. The existing growth rate of the population and cement production in the year 2010 were used in the baseline scenario. In the scenario-1 (S1) the growth rate of population was assumed to be gradually decreasing and finally reach zero by the year 2030, while in scenario-2 (S2) a faster decline in the growth rate was assumed such that zero growth rate is achieved in the year 2020. The mitigation strategiesfor the reduction of CO2 emissions from the cement production were identified and analyzed in the energy management scenarioThe energy and exergy analysis of the raw mill of the cement plant revealed that the exergy utilization was worse than energy utilization. The energy analysis of the kiln system showed that around 38% of heat energy is wasted through exhaust gases of the preheater and cooler of the kiln sysetm. This could be recovered by the waste heat recovery system. A secondary insulation shell was also recommended for the kiln in the plant in order to prevent heat loss and enhance the efficiency of the plant. The decomposition analysis of the change in CO2 emissions during 2001- 2010 showed that the activity effect was the main factor for CO2 emissions for the cement industries since it is directly dependent on economic growth of the country. The forecasting model showed that 15.22% and 29.44% of CO2 emissions reduction can be achieved by the year 2030 in scenario- (S1) and scenario-2 (S2) respectively. In analysing the energy management scenario, it was assumed that 25% of electrical energy supply to the cement plants is replaced by renewable energy. The analysis revealed that the recovery of waste heat and the use of renewable energy could lead to decline in CO2 emissions 7.1% for baseline scenario, 10.9 % in scenario-1 (S1) and 11.16% in scenario-2 (S2) in 2030. The combined scenario considering population stabilization by the year 2020, 25% of contribution from renewable energy sources of the cement industry and 38% thermal energy from the waste heat streams shows that CO2 emissions from Indian cement industry could be reduced by nearly 37% in the year 2030. This would reduce a substantial level of greenhouse gas load to the environment. The cement industry will remain one of the critical sectors for India to meet its CO2 emissions reduction target. India’s cement production will continue to grow in the near future due to its GDP growth. The control of population, improvement in plant efficiency and use of renewable energy are the important options for the mitigation of CO2 emissions from Indian cement industries

Field measurements of the CO2 evolution rate under different crops during an irrigation cycle in a mountain oasis of Oman

For millennia oasis agriculture has been the backbone of rural livelihood in the desertic Sultanate of Oman. However, little is known about the functioning of these oasis systems, in particular with respect to the C turnover. The objective was to determine the effects of crop, i.e. alfalfa, wheat and bare fallow on the CO2 evolution rate during an irrigation cycle in relation to changes in soil water content and soil temperature. The gravimetric soil water content decreased from initially 24% to approximately 16% within 7 days after irrigation. The mean CO2 evolution rates increased significantly in the order fallow (27.4 mg C m^−2 h^−1) < wheat (45.5 mg C m^−2 h^−1) < alfalfa (97.5 mg C m^−2 h^−1). It can be calculated from these data that the CO2 evolution rate of the alfalfa root system was nearly four times higher than the corresponding rate in the wheat root system. The decline in CO2 evolution rate, especially during the first 4 days after irrigation, was significantly related to the decline in the gravimetric water content, with r = 0.70. CO2 evolution rate and soil temperature at 5 cm depth were negatively correlated (r = -0.56,n = 261) due to increasing soil temperature with decreasing gravimetric water content.

Arbres a canvi de CO2

Una marca de vehicles anuncia que, amb la venda dels seus models, es compromet a plantar prou arbres per fixar el CO2 que els cotxes trauran pel tub d’escapament. Malgrat el que digui la publicitat, el càlcul de l’absorció del gas que fan els arbres resulta una qüestió no gens fàcil d’esbrinar

Estudi de producció energètica amb microalgues : la reutilització de CO2 d’incineradora i d’aigües de depuradora

Disseny d’una planta de producció de microalgues com a complement de depuració d’aigües residuals actuant com a tractament terciari i basant-se en l’aprofitament dels nutrients sortints de la depuració d’aigües convencionals, donant un segon ús al CO2 per tal de fer créixer les microalgues i utilitzant la biomassa resultant com a combustible. La principal millora seria el reciclatge dels nutrients i la reutilització del CO2 en biomassa aprofitable

Calculadora de cO2. 'Calculadora de cO2'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Cuánto CO2 emitimos en el transporte escolar, cuánto gastamos : competencia matemática en un proyecto de innovación.

El artículo forma parte de una sección monográfica dedicada a la competencia matemática. - Resumen basado en el de la revista.

The effect of doubled CO2 and model basic state biases on the monsoon-ENSO system. II: Changing ENSO regimes

Integrations of a fully-coupled climate model with and without flux adjustments in the equatorial oceans are performed under 2×CO2 conditions to explore in more detail the impact of increased greenhouse gas forcing on the monsoon-ENSO system. When flux adjustments are used to correct some systematic model biases, ENSO behaviour in the modelled future climate features distinct irregular and periodic (biennial) regimes. Comparison with the observed record yields some consistency with ENSO modes primarily based on air-sea interaction and those dependent on basinwide ocean wave dynamics. Simple theory is also used to draw analogies between the regimes and irregular (stochastically forced) and self-excited oscillations respectively. Periodic behaviour is also found in the Asian-Australian monsoon system, part of an overall biennial tendency of the model under these conditions related to strong monsoon forcing and increased coupling between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO) thus serves as a useful descriptor for the coupled monsoon-ENSO system in this case. The presence of obvious regime changes in the monsoon-ENSO system on interdecadal timescales, when using flux adjustments, suggests there may be greater uncertainty in projections of future climate, although further modelling studies are required to confirm the realism and cause of such changes.

The effect of doubled CO2 and model basic state biases on the monsoon-ENSO system. I: Mean response and interannual variability

The impact of doubled CO2 concentration on the Asian summer monsoon is studied using a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. Both the mean seasonal precipitation and interannual monsoon variability are found to increase in the future climate scenario presented. Systematic biases in current climate simulations of the coupled system prevent accurate representation of the monsoon-ENSO teleconnection, of prime importance for seasonal prediction and for determining monsoon interannual variability. By applying seasonally varying heat flux adjustments to the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean surface in the future climate simulation, some assessment can be made of the impact of systematic model biases on future climate predictions. In simulations where the flux adjustments are implemented, the response to climate change is magnified, with the suggestion that systematic biases may be masking the true impact of increased greenhouse gas forcing. The teleconnection between ENSO and the Asian summer monsoon remains robust in the future climate, although the Indo-Pacific takes on more of a biennial character for long periods of the flux-adjusted simulation. Assessing the teleconnection across interdecadal timescales shows wide variations in its amplitude, despite the absence of external forcing. This suggests that recent changes in the observed record cannot be distinguished from internal variations and as such are not necessarily related to climate change.

Temperature trends derived from Stratospheric Sounding Unit radiances: the effect of increasing CO2 on the weighting function

Stratospheric Sounding Units (SSU) on the NOAA operational satellites have been the main source of near global temperature trend data above the lower stratosphere. They have been used extensively for comparison with model-derived trends. The SSU senses in the 15 micron band of CO2 and hence the weighting function is sensitive to changes in CO2 concentrations. The impact of this change in weighting function has been ignored in all recent trend analyses. We show that the apparent trends in global mean brightness temperature due to the change in weighting function vary from about -0.4 K/decade to 0.4 K/decade depending on the altitude sensed by the different SSU channels. For some channels, this apparent trend is of a similar size to the trend deduced from SSU data but ignoring the change in weighting function. In the mid-stratosphere, the revised trends are now significantly more negative and in better agreement with model-calculated trends.

Estimating surface CO2 fluxes from space-borne dry air mole fraction observations using an Ensemble Kalman filter

We have developed an ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) to estimate 8-day regional surface fluxes of CO2 from space-borne CO2 dry-air mole fraction observations (XCO2) and evaluate the approach using a series of synthetic experiments, in preparation for data from the NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). The 32-day duty cycle of OCO alternates every 16 days between nadir and glint measurements of backscattered solar radiation at short-wave infrared wavelengths. The EnKF uses an ensemble of states to represent the error covariances to estimate 8-day CO2 surface fluxes over 144 geographical regions. We use a 12×8-day lag window, recognising that XCO2 measurements include surface flux information from prior time windows. The observation operator that relates surface CO2 fluxes to atmospheric distributions of XCO2 includes: a) the GEOS-Chem transport model that relates surface fluxes to global 3-D distributions of CO2 concentrations, which are sampled at the time and location of OCO measurements that are cloud-free and have aerosol optical depths <0.3; and b) scene-dependent averaging kernels that relate the CO2 profiles to XCO2, accounting for differences between nadir and glint measurements, and the associated scene-dependent observation errors. We show that OCO XCO2 measurements significantly reduce the uncertainties of surface CO2 flux estimates. Glint measurements are generally better at constraining ocean CO2 flux estimates. Nadir XCO2 measurements over the terrestrial tropics are sparse throughout the year because of either clouds or smoke. Glint measurements provide the most effective constraint for estimating tropical terrestrial CO2 fluxes by accurately sampling fresh continental outflow over neighbouring oceans. We also present results from sensitivity experiments that investigate how flux estimates change with 1) bias and unbiased errors, 2) alternative duty cycles, 3) measurement density and correlations, 4) the spatial resolution of estimated flux estimates, and 5) reducing the length of the lag window and the size of the ensemble. At the revision stage of this manuscript, the OCO instrument failed to reach its orbit after it was launched on 24 February 2009. The EnKF formulation presented here is also applicable to GOSAT measurements of CO2 and CH4.