중국 시멘트 3년 사용량, 미국의 100년 사용량보다도 많아 How China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century
Courtesy of Rhett Allain
Bill Gates's GatesBlog
edited by kcontents
케이콘텐츠
미국의 20세기 전체 시멘트 사용량이 중국의 2011~2013년까지 3년사이의 사용량보다도
적은 것으로나타났다.
워싱턴 포스트(The Washington Post)는 미국이 20세기 100년 동안에 사용한 시멘트가 약 44억 톤인데 반해, 중국이 2011년부터 2013년까지 단 3년간 사용한 시멘트가 약 64억 톤에 달했다고 보도했다. 이에 대해 인민일보의 국제문제 자매지 환구시보(環球時報)는 미국 언론이 놀랄 만하다며, 20세기는 미국으로 말하자면 대 확장기로서, 미국의 거의 모든 도로와 교량, 주(州)와 주 사이의 시스템, 세계 최고층 빌딩 등을 이때 건설했으며, 국토 면적으로 보더라도 미국과 중국은 거의 비슷했기 때문이다. 중국이 과연 이렇게 많은 시멘트를 썼을까? 중국시멘트협회 관계자는 최근 이 데이터의 정확성을 입증해주었다. 중국은 개도국으로서, 인구가 많기 때문에 주택의 건축 시스템을 개선하고, 도로·철도·교량·전신 등 SOC를 건설하는 데 대량의 시멘트가 소요됐다는 것은 합리적이고 정상적이며, 크게 비난받을 일은 아니라고 지적했다. 워싱턴 포스트는 현재 중국의 도시화 속도는 20세기 미국의 도시화 속도보다 더 빠르다고 분석했다. 중국에서는 매년 2000만 명 이상이 도시에 진입하는데, 뉴욕·로스엔젤레스·시카고 등 3개 도시의 도심인구 합보다도 많은 숫자다. 현재 중국의 인구는 미국 인구의 4배에 불과하지만, 20세기 초에는 미국 인구의 15배였다. 그 외에도 20세기에는 건축자재에 큰 변화가 있었다. 20세기 중반, 미국의 건물은 기본적으로 철근과 시멘트에 의존해 지어졌지만, 후에 지어진 많은 건물은 목재로 지어진 것이다. 그러나 중국은 상대적으로 목재가 부족했기 때문에 건물을 짓는 데 대량의 시멘트를 쓸 수밖에 없었다. 중국의 2014년 시멘트 생산량은 24억7619만 톤으로 세계 1위였으며, 전 세계 시멘트 생산량의 약 60%를 차지했다.
[글로벌이코노믹] 윤상준 기자 myg2323@ |
By Ana Swanson China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire 20th Century. It’s a statistic so mind-blowing that it stunned Bill Gates and inspired haiku. But can it be true, and, if so, how? Yes, China’s economy has grown at an extraordinary rate, and it has more than four times as many people as the United States. But the 1900s were America’s great period of expansion, the century in which the U.S. built almost all of its roads and bridges, the Interstate system, the Hoover Dam, and many of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. And China and the U.S. are roughly the same size in terms of geographic area, ranking third and fourth in the world, respectively. The statistic seems incredible, but according to government and industry sources, it appears accurate. What’s more, once you dive into the figures, they have a surprisingly logical explanation that reveals some fascinating differences between the two countries, and some ominous realities about China. Gates plucked the statistic from the historian Vaclav Smil, who calls cement “the most important material in terms of sheer mass in our civilization.” (In case you need a refresher, cement is a powdery lime-and-clay substance that is combined with water and gravel or sand to make concrete.) Smil got his estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, whose figures for the American use of cement in the 20th Century are below. U.S. Geological Survey This chart shows some interesting economic trends – including dips in construction during the Great Depression, World War II and the recession of the early 1980s. All of America’s cement consumption during the century adds up to around 4.4 gigatons (1 gigaton is roughly 1 billion metric tons). In comparison, China used around 6.4 gigatons of cement in the three years of 2011, 2012 and 2013, as data below from the International Cement Review, an industry publication based in London, shows. U.S. Geological Survey estimates on China's cement consumption are similar: According to Hendrik van Oss, a mineral commodity specialist at the USGS, China’s cement consumption between 2010–12 was about 140 percent of U.S. consumption for 1900–99.
U.S. Geological Survey and International Cement Review Clearly, the amount of cement that China has used in recent years is just stunningly huge. Here it is as a cube, overlooking Chicago. As a parking lot, it would cover Hawaii’s big island:
Rhett Allain So how did China use so much cement? First, the country is urbanizing at a historic rate, much faster than the U.S. did in the 20th Century. More than 20 million Chinese relocate to cities each year, which is more people than live in downtown New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined. This massive change has taken place in less than 50 years. In 1978, less than a fifth of China’s population lived in cities. By 2020, that proportion will be 60 percent. China's cities have been transformed to make room for this influx of people. By some estimates, half of China’s infrastructure has been built since 2000, with new rail networks, interstates, dams, airports and high-rise apartment buildings springing up across the country. For example, the gif below shows how Shanghai’s Eastern Pudong District changed between 1987 and 2013. You can see why Spike Jonze chose Pudong as the setting for a city of the future in the recent movie "Her."
1987 REUTERS/Stringer, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/ Carlos Barria More stunning than Shanghai's transformation is the growth of the Pearl River Delta, a megalopolis on the Chinese mainland across from Hong Kong. The manufacturing hub had 42 million inhabitants in 2010, according to the World Bank. If considered a single urban area – which makes sense, since the cities there all run together -- the Pearl River Delta would be the world’s largest city by both area and population.
What’s almost more impressive than China’s biggest cities is the incredible number of “small” cities that no one has ever heard of. In 2009, China had 221 cities with more than a million people in them, compared with only 35 in Europe. Even relatively minor cities like Zhengzhou and Jinan are more populous than Los Angeles or Chicago. Beyond China's incredible urbanization, there are a few more facts that make the cement stat even more believable. As Goldman Sachs pointed out in a note, China’s population today is only about four times as large as the U.S., but it is 15 times as large as the U.S. was in the early 20th Century, and nine times the size of the U.S. in 1950. The world also experienced a shift in building materials over the 20th Century. In 1950, the world manufactured roughly as much steel as cement; by 2010, steel production had grown by a factor of eight, but cement had gone up by a factor of 25. And where many houses in the U.S. are made of wood, China suffers from a relative lack of lumber. Unlike in the U.S., many people in China live in high- or low-rise buildings made out of cement. Finally, China's cement industry is much larger than it should be. Many of China's cement manufacturers are state-owned, and they benefit from government support and access to cheap capital. As in other overcapacity state-owned industries -- aluminum, steel, and shipbuilding -- China's cement sector has undergone a period of explosive growth without much regard for product quality or profits. This massive cement industry also takes a heavy toll on the environment. Scientists estimate that the global cement industry accounts for around 5 percent of the world's carbon emissions, and more than half of the world's cement production capacity is based in China. What's more, low standards for construction quality mean some of China's concrete buildings may have to be knocked down and replaced in as little as 20 or 30 years. According to Goldman Sachs, about a third of the cement that China uses is low-grade stuff that wouldn't be used in other countries. When Bill Gates wrote in his blog about China's stunning cement consumption, he pointed out that the issue of materials is key to helping the world's poorest people improve their lives. Replacing mud floors with concrete improves sanitation; paving roads with concrete allows vegetables to get to market, kids to get to school, and the economy to flourish. In China, the building boom has spurred economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And yet, China's massive cement use also points to a darker side of the economy: The waste that occurs with too much top-down economic planning, and the environmental toll of growth at all costs. China's cement splurge is impressive, yes, but it may hold the seeds of a more ominous story. |
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