Thoughts on Several Hot Issues in Current Building Materials Industry

1. Analysis and forecast

of peak consumption of bulk building materials in China output of traditional bulk building materials "water glass pottery" has reached its peak, and the total market demand and consumption turning point have been basically confirmed. After repeated comparison and analysis, it is concluded that China's clinker consumption in 2020 will be 1.612 billion tons (due to different types and grades of cement, The output of building flat glass in 2021 is 812.85 million weight boxes (40.72 million tons), the output of building ceramics in 2017 is 101.2022

, and the output of flat glass in China is 101278 5000 weight boxes, of which 34.58 million tons are building flat glass. The output of photovoltaic rolled glass was 16.06 million tons, representing a year-on-year increase of 53. In 2021, the total output of flat glass was 51.18 million tons (including 10.46 million tons of photovoltaic glass), weighing 102360 ten thousand boxes, with a market scale of more than 100 billion yuan. Due to building energy conservation and consumption upgrading, the consumption of unit building glass has increased, coupled with the rapid development of photovoltaic glass, hedging the decline in real estate demand, the possibility of a cliff-like decline in the flat glass industry in the future is small.

According to the author's comprehensive statistics, the cumulative cement consumption per capita in China since 1978 is 32. From 2010 to 2021, the annual cement consumption per capita in China is as high as 1. From 2012 to 2021, the average annual output of cement in China is 23. China Building Material Planning Institute accurately predicts that "the peak consumption of cement in China will occur from 2020 to 2022". Since the fourth quarter of 2021, the production and sales of cement and concrete in Hunan Province have fallen off a cliff. According to the summary and analysis of the actual operation of key enterprises and industries, the average number of days of kiln shutdown of dry-process cement enterprises in 2022 is 170 days. It is estimated that the actual output of our province will decrease by about 20% and 25% respectively in 2022. The output of cement, concrete and sand and gravel in China accounts for about 55% of the world's total, and the annual consumption has reached the ceiling. It is predicted that the total demand will shrink in 2023 and in the future. If China's cement consumption drops to the level of 700 kg per capita in Europe, America and Japan in the 1970s, the annual output will be about 1 billion tons.

In 2021, the output of building ceramics in China reached 8.17 billion square meters, accounting for 48% of the global total. In addition, the price of gas and coal has soared, the profit has been greatly reduced, the market competition has become white-hot, and the industry reshuffle has accelerated. In 2021, there were 1048 building ceramics enterprises above the national scale, showing a gradual decreasing trend, and the industrial concentration was further improved.

2. Analysis and judgment on

the carbon peak time of China's building materials industry China Building Materials Federation released that in 2020, China's building materials industry will emit 1.48 billion tons of carbon emissions (excluding indirect electricity emissions of about 1 tons of clinker carbon emissions of 865 kg, accounting for about 96% of cement carbon emissions. If the cement industry does not include the indirect emission of electricity consumption (about 0.42 billion tons), its carbon emission is the carbon emission of clinker production. It is estimated that in 2020, China's carbon emissions will be 1.354 billion tons (16.12 × 0.82 × 1.54 × 0.44 + 16.12 × 107 × 2).

Cement, lime (gypsum), building ceramics, flat glass and wall materials rank among the top five in the building materials industry. Cement clinker production is the largest and most important factor affecting the total carbon emissions of building materials industry, especially the peak time of carbon emissions. In addition, the production and sales of traditional "water glass pottery" have reached the peak. Therefore, the carbon emission probability of China's building materials industry has reached its peak in 2021.

In recent years, due to the restriction of river sand mining and the closure of a large number of small mines, the price of sand and gravel has risen sharply, resulting in a large number of capital and government platform companies competing to intervene. In the last two years, the investment fever of sand and gravel mining rights has continued to rise. With the successive release of production capacity, the sand and gravel production capacity will be seriously excessive, the market competition will become more intense, the price will drop sharply, and the risk has emerged. The correlation between cement and sand consumption is very high, about 1:8. In the past few years, the starting price of river sand in some places was more than 100 yuan per square meter. In 2020, 100,000 tons of river sand in Chenzhou, Hunan, was sold for 15.55 million yuan. The bidding price and intensity constantly set new records, and the premium rate once reached 600%. In the current environment of low demand and continuous release of supply, the recent river sand auction reflects investors'psychological expectations and caution. As the transportation distance and financial costs have a great impact on the cost and operation, if only relying on loans to lay out large mines, the investment and financial risks are high, it is not only difficult to reproduce the effect of the previous cement industry integration, but also may be similar to the plight of the loss of some cement plants in 2022.

At present, the abuse of inferior sand and gravel is more serious, and the quality problems of machine-made sand and gravel and the abuse of "mixed sand" for cheap are more prominent, which leads to the difficulty of quality control of concrete engineering. Machine-made aggregate looks simple, but in fact, the technical indicators (such as strength, fineness, gradation and modulus, harmful components, etc.) are numerous and demanding, and the factors affecting the quality of machine-made aggregate are numerous and complex; most of the natural sand must also be deeply processed. It is suggested that the management and quality control system of sand and gravel industry should be improved, the quality responsibility system chain of "production-sale-use-supervision-traceability" should be established, and the construction of standardized laboratory and quality assurance system of mechanism sand and gravel industry should be strengthened. High-quality machine-made sand and recycled aggregate are the development direction, and recycled aggregate will continue to grow in the future.

4. The integrated development of cement, concrete, sand and gravel industry is the

trend of the times. The integrated development of cement and upstream and downstream industries is conducive to the quality of the project, and the reduction of comprehensive taxes is also an important way for the cement industry to become bigger and stronger and improve its competitiveness. vigorously promotes the cement industry to supplement, extend and strengthen the chain, and speeds up the integration of cement + whole industry chain and the agglomeration development of new energy, logistics and green building materials parks." It is conducive to improving competitiveness and opening up markets, and also plays an important role in promoting energy-saving buildings and low-carbon development. At present, the operation of commercial concrete is very difficult, and the accounts receivable is high. Cement is a semi-finished product, due to historical and institutional reasons, there are serious quarantine in the production, use and construction of cement, and the problems of responsibility disputes and engineering quality have become increasingly prominent. There is a great space for the development of cement industry chain extension and integration.

China is about to usher in an era of comprehensive carbon constraints. Carbon emission rights have financial value and have become a new factor of production for the development of enterprises. They are also another new type of assets after cash, physical and intangible assets-carbon assets. It is expected that cement will be included in the carbon market within two years, and flat glass, building ceramics and lime will also be included in the future. China is now issuing carbon quotas free of charge, and will probably adopt the industry baseline method to verify the quotas. In the future, China's carbon price is expected to rise strongly, and the cost of carbon emissions will continue to increase. If it reaches 120 ~ 200 yuan or higher, it will become a stable or boosting

The cement industry is facing a severe situation of carbon reduction, with both pressure and opportunities. Promoting carbon emission reduction through economic and market-oriented means will have a significant and far-reaching impact on the development and operation of China's cement industry. Cement enterprises need to advance the layout, plan management and operation of carbon assets (market) as soon as possible (assessing the status of carbon assets, balancing carbon quotas, tapping potential, laying out carbon finance), and actively participate in the formulation of carbon (accounting, verification, monitoring) standards to win the first chance. Under the constraints of carbon emission indicators, how to allocate and operate carbon assets and make good use of carbon quotas, how to improve unit product efficiency and reduce carbon emissions?

6. The task of controlling coal and abandoning coal and developing new energy is arduous

. China implements a strict "double control" policy of energy consumption. At present, the total energy consumption and energy consumption per unit GDP will be assessed, and the transition will be to the double control of total carbon emissions and intensity, and the target will be decomposed into provinces. For example, the total incremental control index of energy consumption in some cities and States of a province during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period does not exceed 250000 tons of standard coal. Comprehensive analysis shows that it is difficult to implement new coal-consuming projects of cement, lime, building ceramics and glass and replacement projects of cement and glass production capacity across prefecture-level cities in the future. The main obstacles are that the energy consumption and emission indicators can not be transferred with the production capacity indicators, as well as the strict constraints of the "double control" policy of energy consumption, and the strict reduction substitution (replacement) policy of energy consumption, emission and production capacity indicators.

"First establish and then break" is to speed up the establishment of new energy, and coal will eventually be broken (abandoned). Although the price of fossil energy is still relatively high and the price of electricity is also on the rise, the goal and direction of coal control and abandonment can not be shaken. Britain, France and the United States will close all coal-fired power plants by 2021, 2025 and 2035 respectively, and the European Union will ban sale of fuel vehicles by 2035.

China's photovoltaic wind power technology and equipment manufacturing industry has significant advantages. It is expected that in ten or twenty years, China may become the world's energy exporter, exporting solar and wind power generation equipment instead of oil and coal. Photovoltaic and other new energy development space is huge, is a long-term investment track, its growth will far exceed the real estate in the past 30 years. In the next 40 years, China's energy, industry, consumption and regional structure will undergo major adjustments.In 2025, 2030 and 2060, the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption will reach 20% (the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation will reach about 39%), 25% and 80% respectively, and the task is very arduous. In 2060, China's photovoltaic wind power will reach more than 75% to 80%. Energy storage is an important means to solve the instability and intermittency of wind and solar power generation, and to enhance the security and flexibility of energy system. The

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) pointed out: "Nowadays, renewable energy has become the lowest cost energy.". For coal-dependent countries, renewable energy is an economically attractive option to phase out coal-fired power, ensuring that it meets growing energy demand while saving costs. In the past ten years, the cost of photovoltaic and wind power has dropped by 85% and 56% respectively. In terms of operating costs, new renewable energy sources are also better than existing coal-fired power plants, and the closure of coal-fired power plants in developed countries to use renewable energy sources saves a lot of costs and reduces carbon dioxide. At present, in places with better resources in China, the investment and operation costs of photovoltaic and wind power are close to or even lower than those of coal-fired power schemes, without any subsidies.

Cement plants have achieved 35% green electricity consumption by using waste heat power generation technology, and have the conditions to promote them to take the lead in realizing zero power plants, which will play an active role in promoting carbon reduction in the industrial field, alleviating power shortage and reducing electricity costs.

It is suggested to improve the supporting policies and measures. First, we will focus on supporting enterprises to build distributed photovoltaic projects, actively promote the direct access of wind and solar power stations to users'internal power grids, and allow enterprises to build their own transmission lines and surplus electricity access to the grid. Second, we will vigorously promote distributed transactions between enterprises and renewable energy enterprises, and clarify the conditions for examination and approval and the standards for charging service fees for crossing the network. Thirdly, in combination with virtual power plants and other technologies, we should encourage the construction of projects such as source-network-load-storage integration and smart energy demonstration plants, optimize the relationship between energy supply and demand, and reduce the support requirements for large power grids.

8. The key path of carbon emission reduction and carbon sequestration

of concrete According to international literature reports, concrete carbonation (the reaction of cement hydration products with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) can absorb and fix a large amount of carbon dioxide, excluding the reaction of forced absorption of carbon dioxide by giving external energy. The Paris Agreement also proposes this technology, but at present, the relevant international organizations have not reached a consensus on the calculation method of carbon dioxide absorption by cement concrete carbonization. In August 2021, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) assessment report estimated the carbon balance (carbon emissions) from 2010 to 2019, and the results showed that the average amount of carbonated cement per year was 0.2 PgC (converted to carbon dioxide about 7. IPCC submitted an application for the calculation method and data of concrete carbonation, and quantitatively calculated the emission and absorption of carbon dioxide in the whole life cycle of cement. Based on this calculation method, the carbonation of cement in Japan in 2050 is about 0. China's cement production accounts for more than half of the world's total, and it is of great significance to suggest that relevant departments focus on supporting the research work of related topics.

It is suggested that the top-level design should be strengthened, and the accounting and control methods of carbon emission responsibility of consumers and producers should be improved. By strengthening the responsibility of the consumer side and the requirements of engineering application, the producer will be forced to reduce carbon, which will effectively promote the adjustment of the product structure of building materials and the development of low-carbon building materials. Only by improving energy efficiency (energy-saving technology), the effect of cement carbon reduction is limited. The most important direction of international cement and concrete development is to shift from the production of ordinary cement to the production of blended cement, reduce the clinker coefficient in unit products, and replace part of clinker with admixtures. At present, the problem of poor durability such as early cracking of concrete is very common in China, which has caused huge economic losses and increased carbon emissions. One of the main reasons is the early strength cement, which is also the main factor leading to more and more serious quality problems and disputes in concrete projects. The clinker coefficient of cement in China is 0. 68, if it is reduced to 0.

In addition, the recycling of waste concrete and the improvement of the quality of sand and gravel for concrete have a great effect on carbon emission reduction in the whole society, which needs to be promoted by comprehensive measures.