For three years, China has consumed more cement than the United States in 100 years.
Surely you have heard about the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, but the pace of this growth is quite difficult to imagine - they are hiding behind numbers and graphs. A simple comparison, which can give an idea of this growth, was made by the historian Vaclav Smil in his book How the Modern World Was Built: from 2011 to 2013, China used as much cement as the USA used for the entire 20th century.
That's right - three years against a hundred years. And in fact, cement (used for the production of concrete and mortar) has been used for a very long time (since the times of Ancient Rome). But despite all the huge US projects - a huge number of skyscrapers, a network of interstate roads, dams, etc., China is still developing faster. Such growth rates are difficult to imagine.
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In 2013, China consumed about 2.3 gigatons of cement. According to the Washington Post , this amount of cement would be enough to turn the entire island of Hawaii into a parking lot. For comparison, the United States in the same year consumed a little more than 80 megatons, Russia - almost 70 megatons . What was the reason for such a gap?
Economic growth and urbanization. Every year, 20 million Chinese people move from villages to cities (these are more people than they live in the suburbs of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago). Urbanization started only about 50 years ago and is growing exponentially. In 1978, less than 20% of Chinese lived in cities, and in 2020, urban residents would account for 60% of the total population.
By some estimates, half of China’s entire current infrastructure (railways, highways, dams, airports, skyscrapers) was built after 2000. The two photos below show how one of the Shanghai districts changed from 1987 to 2013.
As I wrote recently , in a region called the Yangtze Delta (Golden Triangle), which is gradually turning into the largest city on the planet, living in the amount of about 100 million people. Now in China there are already more than 100 million-plus cities.
So, while the rest of the world is inventing new construction technologies , China is simply building. What such an incredible growth of cities will lead to (the problem of smog is already acute in Chinese cities) will be shown by a not very distant future.
That's right - three years against a hundred years. And in fact, cement (used for the production of concrete and mortar) has been used for a very long time (since the times of Ancient Rome). But despite all the huge US projects - a huge number of skyscrapers, a network of interstate roads, dams, etc., China is still developing faster. Such growth rates are difficult to imagine.
')
In 2013, China consumed about 2.3 gigatons of cement. According to the Washington Post , this amount of cement would be enough to turn the entire island of Hawaii into a parking lot. For comparison, the United States in the same year consumed a little more than 80 megatons, Russia - almost 70 megatons . What was the reason for such a gap?
Economic growth and urbanization. Every year, 20 million Chinese people move from villages to cities (these are more people than they live in the suburbs of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago). Urbanization started only about 50 years ago and is growing exponentially. In 1978, less than 20% of Chinese lived in cities, and in 2020, urban residents would account for 60% of the total population.
By some estimates, half of China’s entire current infrastructure (railways, highways, dams, airports, skyscrapers) was built after 2000. The two photos below show how one of the Shanghai districts changed from 1987 to 2013.
As I wrote recently , in a region called the Yangtze Delta (Golden Triangle), which is gradually turning into the largest city on the planet, living in the amount of about 100 million people. Now in China there are already more than 100 million-plus cities.
So, while the rest of the world is inventing new construction technologies , China is simply building. What such an incredible growth of cities will lead to (the problem of smog is already acute in Chinese cities) will be shown by a not very distant future.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/366625/
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