Spatial Analysis of CO₂ emission in Concrete Industry Using Resource Recycling Simulator “ecoMA” Implementing Road Network

Abstract

Objective. This study proposes a comprehensive method for calculating transporting distance on ecoMA. Moreover, as an example of the method’s application, the study conducted a simulation of material flow that meets the fresh concrete demand in four prefectures of Kanto region and calculated CO₂ emissions from the process of production and transportation.
Results and Discussion. The share of CO₂ emissions from transportation was 5.7% for road distance, which was 1.2% higher than when linear distance was used. It was understood that total amount of CO₂ emissions from transportation is 1.3 times that of emissions when linear distance was used. Looking at the transportation of crushed stone, sand, cement (cement service station – fresh concrete factory) and cement (cement factory – cement services station), road distance was between 1.30 and 1.43 times greater than linear distance. For transportation of products other than fresh concrete, it was understood CO₂ emissions for road transportation are much higher than those for linear transportation. Furthermore, for cement (cement factory – cement service station), the ratios of CO₂ emissions for linear distance and road distance were large compared to crushed stone and sand, which are often transported over long distances from the suburbs to urban centers, and therefore it was understood that transportation distance caused by use of road distance depending on material types as well as geographic characteristics.
Conclusions. By providing an example of ecoMA with a calculation module that can take road distance into account, this study demonstrated that it is possible to calculate CO₂ emissions accurately with consideration for road distance. As a result, it has become possible to quantitatively calculate how much larger CO₂ emissions are for road distance when compared to linear distance.