India: A report from NITI Aayogl, India’s primary public policy think tank, has warned that, if current trends continue, CO2 emissions from India’s cement sector could rise more than five-fold to 1.32Bnt/yr by 2070. India is already the world’s second-largest cement producer, accounting for 13% of global output, but, with ‘rapid’ expansion in infrastructure projects, cement production is expected to grow nearly seven-fold from 391Mt in 2023 to 2.7Bnt/yr in 2070.
The report states that, while Indian cement plants are among the most energy-efficient in the world, efficiency gains have largely plateaued. As demand rises, emissions are expected to grow in parallel to capacity, threatening India’s climate commitments even though per-capita cement consumption remains well below the global average.
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 to scale up the use of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) made from municipal solid waste (MSW). India generates around 62Mt/yr of MSW, a figure that expected to rise sharply in the future. The report estimates that achieving a 20% thermal substitution rate (TSR) by 2030 could cut cumulative CO2 emissions by about 80Mt over the five year period.
The second recommendation focuses on reducing clinker factor from 67.5% to 62%. Although both of these values are below the global average, the roadmap calls for greater use of materials such as calcined clay, slag and bio-ash that could reduce sectoral emissions by 7-15% by 2070, while also lowering operating costs.
The third, and most costly, recommendation is to begin a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) pilot programme. This would be used to identify the most scalable technologies and to estimate the real cost of capture and level of support needed, before scaling them further. Once operational, such projects could reduce emissions by 35-54%.
