China’s cement sector today and in the future
Summary: This article deals with the development of the cement industry in China. The development in the past decades is compared in retrospective with already developed industrial nations. Based on this, the first projections for the cement industry up to the year 2050 are presented. Energy efficiency is a central topic that the Chinese cement industry will have to deal with, today and in the future. Power generation by means of waste heat can be utilized to improve energy efficiency of the clinker burning system. Waste heat recovery (WHR) in the Chinese cement industry is increasing nowadays. The designated target is to achieve a heat efficiency of 55 % for the whole industry in 10 years.
1 Introduction
After 30 years of reform and opening up to the outside world, from 1978 to 2008, the Chinese cement industry has been developing at an accelerated tempo. The developments in China during the last 30 years were similar to the situation in the most important western industrialized countries after World War II from 1948 to 1978 (Tables 1, 2; Figs. 1, 2). That is to say that in a comparable 30 year period, their common feature is an economy in a state of change, per capita GDP or income between 2000 US$ and 4000 US$, average cement consumption 300 to 800 kg/per capita and...
