Wednesday, August 8, 2007

[papercreters] Re: 26lbs of CO2 per bag of Portland

Does clinker outgas CO2 as it is getting fired? How much?

I'm not disagreeing with your overall point. I actually agree.

--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, Mikey Sklar <sklarm-yahoo@...>
wrote:
>
>
> 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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