Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2015, Vol. 70 ›› Issue (10): 1566-1580.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201510003

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Distribution of exergy use of cement manufacturing industry in China based on the extended exergy accounting method

Fengnan CHEN1,2(), Lei SHEN1(), Litao LIU1, Tianming GAO1,2   

  1. 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2014-12-19 Revised:2015-06-01 Online:2015-10-20 Published:2015-10-20
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41271547, No.41401644;Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.XDA05010400

Abstract:

Factory data from 23 Chinese provinces, combined with Chinese cement manufacturing industry data and socioeconomic data from 2012, was used to analyze the spatial distribution of exergy use for China's cement manufacturing industry using the Extended Exergy Accounting method. This method allows for the inclusion of energy and raw material supply and other external factors (capital, labor and environment) in a comprehensive resource cost assessment. We quantitatively calculated the extended exergy consumption and its intensity at the provincial level and evaluated the agglomeration level of exergy use at the regional level. Based on this analysis, a distribution in size and efficiency of exergy use at the provincial level was determined, and regional characteristics were revealed. The results are as follows. (1) The gross distribution of exergy use in China's cement manufacturing industry is focused on the eastern region, which centers on Anhui and Shandong, and on the western region with Sichuan as a core. For exergy use, energy costs related to coal and electricity are highest for the center of the eastern region, whereas the costs of capital, labor and external environmental factors highlight the invisible social cost in the central and western regions to various degrees. (2) The efficiency distribution of exergy use in China's cement manufacturing industry reveals an incremental character from west to east, especially for the energy, labor and capital efficiencies. An evaluation of the environmental efficiency indicates that Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi have much higher environmental costs. (3) By building up the Euclidean distance model using the gross and efficiency results of exergy use, the 23 provinces could be classified into eight groups. (4) High industry concentration is the main driving factor of exergy efficiency improvement for cement manufacturing industry.

Key words: cement manufacturing industry, spatial difference, exergy use, extended exergy accounting method, China