The Greenhouse Gas Emission from Portland Cement Concrete Pavement Construction in China

This study proposes an inventory analysis method to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Portland cement concrete pavement construction, based on a case project in the west of China. The concrete pavement construction process was divided into three phases, namely raw material production, concrete manufacture and pavement onsite construction. The GHG emissions of the three phases are analyzed by a life cycle inventory method. The CO(2)e is used to indicate the GHG emissions. The results show that for 1 km Portland cement concrete pavement construction, the total CO(2)e is 8215.31 tons. Based on the evaluation results, the CO(2)e of the raw material production phase is 7617.27 tons, accounting for 92.7% of the total GHG emissions; the CO(2)e of the concrete manufacture phase is 598,033.10 kg, accounting for 7.2% of the total GHG emissions. Lastly, the CO(2)e of the pavement onsite construction phase is 8396.59 kg, accounting for only 0.1% of the total GHG emissions. The main greenhouse gas is CO2 in each phase, which accounts for more than 98% of total emissions. N2O and CH4 emissions are relatively insignificant.