Analysis of the Embodied Energy and CO2 Emissions of Ready-Mixed Concrete: A Case Study in Cuenca, Ecuador

Abstract

Concrete is the most commonly construction material used worldwide. In contrast to other countries, Ecuador lacks studies that determine the environmental impact of the production of construction materials. This research presents a quantification of embodied energy and CO2 emissions associated with the concrete production, using as a case study a ready-mixed concrete plant in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. The study was based on the Life Cycle Assessment methodology established by ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, and the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. The production of ready-mixed concrete was considered for one year, with a “gate to gate” approach including the “transport of raw material” to the concrete plant and the subsequent “transport of final product” to the construction site. The results revealed that to produce 1 m3 of ready-mixed concrete, its production required 568.69 MJ of energy, accompanied by 42.83 kg CO2. Indirect transport generates the greatest environmental impact, especially the “transport of raw materials”, which represents approximately 80% of the embodied energy and 79% of CO2 emission.

Managing carbon waste in a decarbonized industry: Assessing the potential of concrete mixing storage

“… a estimated assuming the same proportional distribution ofMiller et al ( 2016 ) b estimated from the precast weight considering an average specific weight of 1.7 t/m3 derived from world total precast products weight of 7000 × 10 6 t (Sick et al 2022 ) c estimated from replies to industry questionnaire on precast concrete cement dosage and extrapolation based on cement consumed on the precast industry d value estimated for 2015 by Vázquez-Calle et al ( 2022 ), considered conservative since the share of ready-mix in China increased from 32 to 38% between 2008 and 2010 and was estimated to increase to 51% by 2013 (Song 2011) …”

Dataset of Specific Total Embodied Energy and Specific Total Weight of 40 Buildings from the Last Four Decades in the Andean Region of Ecuador

“…In parallel, the Specific Weight (SW) and the Specific Embodied Energy (SEE) value of each material found in the forty samples was established with the use of bibliography [13,23,26,27,35,36,38,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. These values and their respective sources are specified in Database 01.…”

“…Latin American countries such as Ecuador, which have begun to experience the shift from vernacular to industrialized building systems in recent decades, have negligible scientific production on this topic, mainly due to the lack of a database of EE indexes for each material [22,23].…”

Effect of Graphene Oxide Nanomaterials on the Durability of Concrete: A Review on Mechanisms, Provisions, Challenges, and Future Prospects

“…Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) is the most widely used cement binder in modern concrete applications. The manufacturing of OPC clinker results in utilizing massive quantities of natural resources and energy, which has an adverse impact on the environment [17][18][19][20][21]. It is estimated that 0.83 kg of CO 2 is produced during the production of 1 kg of cement clinker, which corresponds to the cement manufacturing industry bearing responsibility for nearly 6-8% of global CO 2 emissions [17,[22][23][24].…”