Competing in Goodness in Lowering the Earth's Temperature

Competing to lower the global temperature is a good thing. Competing in good deeds is highly encouraged in Islam. The negative impacts of global warming can be felt on land and at sea, and therefore must be minimized. This is why various parties involved in this effort should collaborate and synergize to achieve this goal. The business aspect of this activity should be a secondary priority, so that a spirit of good deeds, collaboration, and synergy will be fostered. Technically, strategic sectors that are the main causes of global warming are an important priority to address, although other, more pressing matters must also take precedence.

There is an excess concentration of carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere that causes the earth's temperature to rise due to the greenhouse gas effect, but on the other hand there are billions of hectares of land on earth that need carbon in the form of biochar to increase soil fertility as well as to absorb CO2 in the atmosphere with carbon sequestration / carbon sink. If these two things can be synchronized, it will be an effective solution to reduce the earth's temperature. In 2024, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were recorded at around 36.3 giga tons (36.3 billion metric tons) and the latest CO2 concentration according to the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii reached 429.25 ppm (on June 24, 2025). Meanwhile, on the land side, globally an estimated 1.66 billion hectares of land have been degraded due to human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, mismanaged irrigation, and excessive use of chemicals. 

Biomass fuel, produced by producing wood chips and wood pellets, or biofuel, is a carbon-neutral renewable fuel or source, thus complementing biochar. Wood chips and wood pellets, or biofuel, do not increase CO2 emissions, and biochar absorbs CO2, acting as a carbon sink (carbon sequestration), or carbon-negative. 

Green Economy in the Cement Industry Part 5 : Increasing Production and Reducing Emissions

Increasing production capacity but simultaneously reducing CO2 emissions (carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas) sounds contradictory / paradoxical. It is indeed like that in passing. However, with a decarbonization or CO2 removal (CDR) program, efforts to reduce emissions can be done while increasing cement production. How big the target of reducing emissions and increasing cement production will depend on how much decarbonization efforts are made. The greater the reduction in emissions, the more expensive it will usually be. This is why efforts to reduce emissions while increasing production must also be carried out in stages with certain strategies.

Cement plant is an industry that contributes to an increase in CO2 of more than 6% globally. However, there is something unique about this cement industry, namely that most of the CO2 emissions produced do not come from fuel use, but from the calcination process. The percentage of CO2 produced from the calcination process reaches around 60%, while from fuel use it is only around 40%. The fossil fuels commonly used in cement industries are coal and petcoke, both of which are the two fossil fuels that pollute the air the most. In fact, in a number of areas cement plants are the largest coal users. Cement plants close to oil refineries will use more petcoke.

Decarbonization programs or efforts to reduce CO2 emissions that can be carried out in cement plants include increasing energy efficiency, using clinker substitute materials, using alternative/renewable energy, and using CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage). With these characteristics, total decarbonization in the cement industry cannot be carried out by using only the best efficiency technology or by simply replacing the fuel. Meanwhile, the use of clinker substitutes and CCUS is very important among other technologies to achieve near-zero emissions in cement production.

The best scenario for increasing production and reducing emissions can be done by using much higher energy efficiency improvements using commercially available technology, using more aggressive fuels to low carbon or even carbon neutral fuels, using higher rates of clinker substitute materials. and adopting a higher portion of commercially available CCUS technologies.

And it's worth noting that all suggested improvements in these best-case scenarios can be achieved by implementing technologies that are already commercially available and most of them should also be cost-effective. As for CCUS, while the technology is commercially available, implementation requires large investments that demand higher financial incentives or carbon prices. However, on the other hand, CCUS has the largest contribution to CO2 reduction, followed by the use of clinker substitutes and the switch to low-carbon or even carbon-neutral fuels. And the use of efficiency-enhancing technology has the smallest contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. This is mainly because process-related emissions from calcination account for around 60% of total CO2 emissions and are not related to energy use.

Reducing Emissions or Increasing Electric Vehicles?

The photo from here

Basically the main background of the two things above is climate problem due to greenhouse gases, especially CO2 (carbon dioxide), so of course the fundamental answer or priority is to reduce these emissions (greenhouse gases). Electric vehicles can reduce these emissions if the prerequisites are met. The main prerequisite, of course, is where the source of the electrical energy used comes from. If the source of electricity is from fossil energy sources such as oil, coal and natural gas which produce greenhouse gas emissions, in essence the electric vehicle is not environmentally friendly, even though the power plants is far from the use of the electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles should use electricity from renewable energy sources so they don't increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, one of which can be read here. Production of electricity from renewable energy should be encouraged and supported first so that the amount is sufficient and after that only proceed with these electric vehicles. If this is not done, then no matter how many electric vehicles (buses, cars, and electric motorcycles) it will still not have a positive effect on the climate. A comprehensive understanding of the climate problem including its solutions and especially in the field of transportation with electric vehicles is something important, before moving on to the implementation stage.

Carbon capture and storage technology (Carbon Capture and Storage / CCS) has indeed been introduced, but its implementation is still very minimal and expensive so this technology has not been applied in Indonesia, especially in fossil-fuel power plants, the majority of which are coal. A number of CCS technologies that are being tested are amine-based adsorption (organic compounds and functional groups whose contents consist of lone-paired nitrogen atoms) are the most advanced carbon capture technologies. But apart from technical factors, economic factors are still the main obstacle.

So the best choice is to encourage and support as much as possible the use of renewable energy sources as a source of energy for these electric vehicles. If the electric vehicle operates with a renewable energy source that is environmentally friendly because it does not increase CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere or is an effort to decarbonize the transportation sector, then that is essentially a program that is perfectly successful according to the intent and purpose of developing the electric vehicle.