Do you remember all those family holidays of your youth that went perfectly well? No? What about the disasters - like when it rained for a week in France and you all got bitten by mosquitos, or when you rolled the Land-Rover on black-ice in Ireland and it was so cold that the pipes in the youth hostel froze and you all had to brush your teeth in beer? You remember those kind of holidays, don't you? Sometimes it's best when things don't go exactly according to plan.
Such it was when one of my speakers at the recent CemPower Conference dropped out at the last minute. I had to write and present a paper in his place, given less than 24 hours notice. However, I really enjoyed putting it together, the paper was well-received and it has led to a lot of useful discussion.
The paper I came up with was 'Seven megatrends in the global cement industry,' which looked at the forces that will shape the industry in the next 50 years. The seven factors were:
- Demographic trends (showing how China's workforce of single-children, with a sharply reducing workforce being born, will lead to one of the 'oldest' populations on the planet: Russian and Italian depopulation due to low birth rates; America's continuing strong growth due to immigration and relatively high birth rates; Nigeria, Ethiopia and Indonesia's strong population growth);
- Urbanisation (with 50% of humankind living in cities in 2000 and 70-75% of humanity due to live in cities by 2050);
- Growth of new super-powers (Nigeria? Brazil? Mexico?);
- Possibility of further climate change with attendant disasters (and also the possibility that we shall shortly see the discrediting of the primarily anthropogenic climate change theory/belief system);
- Paradigm shifts in the cement industry business model (including an ever-decreasing clinker factor through continuing use of supplementary cementitious materials and even through the rise of non-calcareous mineral systems);
- Ever-increasing energy costs (but also the possibility that energy costs will reduce dramatically as shale gas and oil sand reserves are tapped and oil costs reduce due to a semi-permanent low-growth recession) and
- Influence of Rumsfeldian known-unknowns which, in my presentation, I suggested might include - in no particular order - Eurozone collapse, US bankruptcy, a Chinese hard landing or regime change, a global SARS/H1N1/bird-swine flu/ebola/West Nile Fever (etc) pandemic, Arab-Spring-like events, accidents (nuclear, biological, chemical etc), catastrophes (weather, earthquake, tsunami, etc), 9-11 type events or global thermonuclear war; and Rumsfeldian unknown-unknowns like the eruption of an unexpected super-volcano or an alien invasion (unlikely, I know, but not impossible and with large consequences - the classic 'black swan' event).
I asked the netizens of cyberspace on LinkedIn what they thought would be the megatrends shaping the cement industry in the next 50 years and they came up with a slightly different but overlapping list:
- Continually increased use of alternative fuels;
- Attention to thermal stress and strain in all concrete structures large and small;
- Continued reduction in specific electrical and calorific consumption per tonne of clinker produced;
- Increasingly stringent environmental regulations that will push technical innovation;
- Popularity of co-generation/waste heat recovery/captive power generation;
- Continued design improvements in major OEM equipment to reduce maintenance and increase efficiency (including modular designs and smaller and multiple gear units);
- New cements and concretes, including CO2-absorbing cement and bio-based cements;
- Increased use of additives to attain final strength at lower fineness;
- Finer grinding (!);
- Increased use of clinker replacement materials/supplementary cementitious materials;
- Increased use of construction and demolition waste-derived materials in cement and concrete;
- Increased use of performance-based international standards.
I think that the safest forecast for the next 50 years is as follows: By 2050, humanity will increasingly live in cement-intensive mega-cities. Economic power will have shifted towards Asia and to Africa. Many countries will be struggling to cope with ageing populations. We might be in the midst of a climate change disaster. Energy costs will probably dominate all business decisions. Use of alternative fuels will be near-universal. 'Cement' production will be energy-optimised. SCMs and alternative cements will be common and OPC will be a costly, polluting rarity.
Whatever else you should expect in the next 50 years, you should expect the unexpected.
Read the review of the Global CemPower Conference and Exhibition 2012