I have been tormented by a few local adobe and straw bale builders
for my use of Portland cement. They point out to me that by using
a high energy product that I am destructive to the environment. I
had my doubts and decided to run some numbers this evening about
just how much CO2 was being produced to create a bag of portland.
The answer I came to was less than 26lbs of CO2 per 94lb bag of
portland. I suppose I can now point out to the so called green
builders who are hauling straw bales or pre made adobes from across
state boarders that their CO2 footprint is orders of magnitude larger
than my own.
- portland cement 4,700,000 million btu per ton
- convert btu's per ton to one bag of Portland (94lbs)
* 1 ton 2000lbs
* 2000 / 94 = 21.28
* 4700000 / 21.28
* 22,0864.66 btu's per bag
- convert btu's of natural gas to pounds of CO2
* 1 million BTUs (NG) will produce 117.08 pounds of CO2
- convert btu's per ton of portland to pounds of CO2
* 4,700,000 / 1,000,000 = 4.7
* 4.7 * 117.08
* 550.276 lbs of CO2 per ton of Portland made from Natural Gas
- convert lbs of CO2 per ton of Portland to bag of Portland
* 550.276 / 21.28
* 25.86 lbs of CO2 per bag of Portland
When we consider that jet fuel, diesel, and car fuel all produce
about 20 lbs of CO2 per gallon we can see that a bag of Portland
is producing the same amount of CO2 as driving 20 miles in your
truck.
If you want to bring yourself to neutral on CO2 for your Portland
usage. Consider that the average tree will absorb 26lbs of CO2 per
year.
Keep in mind that we humans on average exhale over 2lbs of CO2 per
day.
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