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Cement markets are pretty local. It's cheap enough to manufacture and the raw materials are so abundant that it doesn't make sense to transport cement long dist
by jeffreyrogers 7y ago
Cement markets are pretty local. It's cheap enough to manufacture and the raw materials are so abundant that it doesn't make sense to transport cement long distances.
- eloff 7y agoIf this were a big enough cost advantage, suddenly it might make sense to transport over longer distances. Putting the carbon saved back into the process. The law of unintended consequences is a harsh mistress.
- wmf 7y agoTransportation has to become more expensive in the green future so that pushes back towards local manufacturing.
- kragen 7y agoWhy? Can't everything become cheaper in the green future?
- wmf 7y agoIn the long term it may be cheaper once ground transportation is fully electrified and air is running on carbon-neutral synthetic fuels. During the transition period I would expect transportation to be more expensive.
- kragen 7y agoWhy? Won't the advent of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels made with abundant solar energy (whether PV or thermal) start lowering the price of ICE-driven transport? What likely events would happen in the interim to raise the prices higher?
- wmf 7y agoI predict that a carbon tax (or something similar) would motivate replacement of all ICE ground vehicles with battery electric before carbon capture becomes cheap. Then later when synthetic fuels arrive they'll only be used by airplanes. It's possible technologies could arrive in a different order though.
- kragen 7y agoOh, yeah, a carbon tax would certainly make it more expensive to run ICE ground vehicles. I don't think of that as a "technology" though. When you say, "when synthetic fuels arrive", do you mean the Fischer-Tropsch process developed during World War I? I think that's the most likely candidate process for synfuels. It's reasonably efficient but it uses a lot of energy, because fuels contain a lot of energy — that's why we use them. By coincidence last week I read a bunch of papers by Heather Willauer et al. of NRL about producing synfuels with Fischer-Tropsch from seawater, using an electrolytic acidification process with cation exchange to drive CO₂ out of the water and generate the requisite hydrogen at the same time. The paper with the most comprehensive workout of the costs was ECONOMIC COMPARISONS OF LITTORAL PRODUCTION OF LOW CARBON FUEL FROM NON-FOSSIL ENERGY SOURCES AND SEAWATER, from 2017. You should read it if you're interested in the topic!
- blacksqr 7y agoCement is too heavy to transport economically over long distances. I remember reading years ago that something like 90% of cement is made within 35 miles of where it's used.
- ianai 7y agoSo they’ll use something else while California, one of the largest states in the US across any measure, will save a lot of carbon with this route. Hurray, progress.