The contribution of energy efficiency measures to air quality and related health effects in China’s cement industry: English

Abstract

Actions to reduce the combustion of fossil fuels often decrease GHG emissions as well as air pollutants and hereby bring multiple benefits for improvement of energy efficiency, climate change, and air quality associated with human health benefits. Therefore, air quality and health co-benefits can provide strong additional motivation for improving energy efficiency. In China, the cement industry is the second largest energy consumer and key emitter of CO2 and air pollutants. It accounts for 7% of total energy consumption in China and 15% of CO2, 21% of PM, 4% SO2 and 10% of NOx of total emissions, respectively. In this study, An integrated approach that comprises a number of different methods and tools within the same platform (i.e. provincial energy conservation supply curves (ECSC), Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model, geographical information system (GIS), TM5, and Health Impact Assessment (HIA)) is developed and used to assess the potential for energy savings and emission mitigation of air pollutants, as well as the environmental and health impacts of pollution arising from China’s cement industry at the provincial level during the period 2011-2030. The results show significant heterogeneity across provinces in terms of potential energy saving as well as emission mitigation of CO2 and air pollutants (i.e. PM, SO2, and NOx) in the next two decades. Implementation of the current commercially available energy efficiency measures would decrease emissions of SO2 from cement industry by 25%, of NOx by 20%, and of PM2.5 by 5%, reducing air quality-related premature deaths by 5.5 thousand cases in 2020 and 7.8 thousand cases in 2030. The study clearly demonstrates that simultaneous planning of energy and air quality policies creates a possibility of increasing efficiency in both policy areas.