New Delhi: India’s cement industry—critical to highways, housing and urban infrastructure—is also turning into one of the country’s toughest climate challenges, contributing around 6-7 percent to India’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a NITI Aayog report released Wednesday.
The report, ‘Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation’, warns that if current trends continue, carbon emissions from the sector could rise more than five-fold to 1,323 million tonnes annually by 2070.
India is already the world’s second-largest cement producer, accounting for about 13 percent of global output. With rapid expansion in infrastructure projects, cement production is expected to grow nearly seven-fold from 391 million tonnes in 2023.
“The rapid expansion brings with it a considerable environmental challenge, as emissions from the sector are projected to increase from 246 million tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023 to 945 MtCO2e in 2047 to 1,323 MtCO2e annually by 2070 under a Business-As-Usual scenario,” the report says.
The problem, it notes, is structural. Cement manufacturing is highly energy-intensive, with multiple stages releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The largest share of CO2 comes from the conversion of limestone to lime in the kiln (calcination). This process is mainly heated by fossil fuels, especially coal and pet coke, and fuel use for calcination accounts for about 57-60 percent of total emissions.
A further 10-13 percent of emissions come from electricity use, either drawn from the grid or supplied by mainly thermal captive power plants (CPPs). Another 27-31 percent of emissions is linked to thermal energy used for process heating.
While Indian cement plants are among the most energy-efficient globally, the report cautions that efficiency gains have largely plateaued. As demand rises, emissions are expected to grow in parallel, threatening India’s climate commitments even though per-capita cement consumption remains well below the global average.
“Indian cement plants demonstrate energy efficiency comparable to global counterparts. This can be attributed to the adoption of technologies such as high efficiency kilns with preheaters and pre-calciners, which help reduce specific energy consumption in cement production,” the report states.
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Recommendations
A NITI Aayog working group evaluated 22 possible measures and identified three high-impact interventions that need urgent policy and regulatory backing.
The first recommendation is scaling up the use of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) made from municipal solid waste. India generates around 62 million tonnes of such waste annually, a figure expected to rise sharply by 2031. Replacing coal with RDF could tackle both waste management gaps and industrial emissions.
The report estimates that achieving a 20 percent thermal substitution rate by 2030 could cut cumulative emissions by about 80 million tonnes.
To make this viable, NITI Aayog calls on municipal bodies to provide land at minimal lease rates, offer tipping fees for waste collection and segregation, and sign long-term agreements with RDF vendors and cement plants.
The second recommendation focuses on reducing the use of clinker, an essential component in producing cement. India has already brought down its clinker-to-cement ratio to about 67.5 percent, below the global average, but the report says it can be pushed down further to around 62 percent.
The roadmap calls for greater use of materials such as calcined clay, slag and bio-ash that could reduce sectoral emissions by 7-15 percent by 2070, while also lowering operating costs.
The third recommendation from NITI Aayog is to begin a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) pilot programme, which can be used for identifying the most scalable technologies along with the real cost of capture and quantum of support needed, before scaling it further.
“Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) emerge the best options for the cement sector as captured CO2 may be utilised for preparing building material, which is an established and commercially viable technology,” the report says.
It adds that carbon capture is a long-term intervention requiring identification of storage sites, land acquisition and transport infrastructure. Once operational, such projects could reduce emissions by 35-54 percent.
“By 2030, the proposed measures have the potential to deliver measurable impacts, including significant reductions in cumulative emissions, mobilisation of private capital, creation of green jobs, and enhanced fiscal contributions,” it states.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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