World Cement Output & China's Construction Boom
The chart above (click to enlarge) shows annual production of cement by country, in billions of metric tons (data available here: USGS 2006 report and USGS 2008 report). Cement is mainly used to make concrete, and is sort of the "active ingredient" in concrete - it is combined with sand and gravel in roughly fixed proportions. So cement production can be considered a rough proxy for the total amount of construction going on in a country.
From The Oil Drum, via Ben Cunningham
2 Comments:
This blog is awesome, the best kept secret in western civilization. Except it is not a secret.
...of interesting note: I can't find the picture right now, but there was an earthquake aftermath photo, showing a concrete roadway in China. Here in the states, a road would be 4"-6" thick concrete (at least here in the south, where we don't have freezes to worry about). That road in the picture was about 12" thick (and didn't have any rebar in it)...so at least some of their concrete consumption is due to inferior construction methods, and greatly overdesigned (communist style) construction. Of course, the standard perverse incentives from centrally planned economies are making the process lopsided as well.
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