
China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century - jonbaer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/24/how-china-used-more-cement-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-did-in-the-entire-20th-century/
======
bch
Pedant: Cement != Concrete. Cement is one component of concrete. Concrete is
composed of water, aggregate, and cement.

The video linked to by Gates' blog says[0] "The most important material in
terms of sheer mass in our civilization is cement _made into concrete_ " "The
chinese poured into their buildings and roads [...] as much _concrete_ in just
3 years as United States in 1 century".

"In modern times, researchers have experimented with the addition of other
materials to create concrete with improved properties, such as higher
strength, electrical conductivity, or resistance to damages through
spillage."[1]

There's more available[2] to concrete these days than what the US
infrastructure used up to 2000[3]. Not that 3 years consumption > 100 years
consumption isn't impressive, but:

1) not only are we not comparing the same period

2) it's not clear we're comparing the same material

I often hear cement and concrete used interchangeably, but had the difference
drilled into me when I worked (doing computer work) in the industry briefly.
For that reason (cement != concrete) and potential advancements in concrete
(maybe there are new composites that let us use a fraction of what used to be
necessary?) it's not entirely clear what the numbers mean, outside of "China
is growing fast".

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi7O9pmM_A0&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi7O9pmM_A0&feature=youtu.be&t=54s)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete#Modern_additives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete#Modern_additives)

[2]
[http://www.columbiatribune.com/editorial_archive/pollution-e...](http://www.columbiatribune.com/editorial_archive/pollution-
eating-concrete/article_c82246f6-5cfa-11e3-9f03-10604b9f6eda.html)

[3]
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/03/...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/03/making-
the-modern-world-cement-A_800_v2-11.png)

~~~
jacquesm
Anybody that does not understand the difference between cement and concrete is
going to be in for a surprise when they mix up a batch of dark gray goop and
try to use it for something in construction.

The shrinking alone will cause some interesting effects.

There are a lot of lay-man misconceptions about concrete, one of the more
persistent ones is that concrete needs to 'dry'. It doesn't, it needs to
_cure_ , it's a chemical reaction that gives concrete its strength, not
something going into solution to allow pouring that then dries and solidifies.

Concrete is very interesting material, its history is fascinating and the
materials science behind it as well.

Such a simple thing in principle, so incredibly complex. Just like glass
another one of those materials with vast depth.

~~~
Osmium
> Concrete is very interesting material, its history is fascinating and the
> materials science behind it as well.

It's one of those deceptively 'unsexy' materials too from an outsider's
perspective: think of steel and someone may think of, what, swords? watches?
but think of concrete and someone thinks of brutalist architecture and urban
decay. But there's no reason why concrete is any less fascinating and complex
than steel.

What I suppose I'm saying is that it has a PR problem, and I'm glad people
like yourself are leaving comments like that to help solve it :)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Isn't the Parthenon cast in concrete? Some very beautiful buildings have been
made that way.

~~~
Osmium
I believe the _Pantheon_ dome was, not sure about the Parthenon though. But
it's definitely very old. A lot older than some people realise I think. But
yes, not disagreeing that it can be beautiful. I've seen many beautiful
concrete sculptures, but I don't think it's the first thing that springs to
mind for many.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ha ha, yeah, that's the one. What was I thinking.

------
arh68
The bit about buildings lasting 20-30 years really surprised me. The Pantheon
stands for a millennium, but 30-year-old concrete crumbling? The article cites
a Goldman Sachs quote from a tumblr [1] notes at the bottom of the list:

    
    
        An estimated 25-30% of China’s cement capacity is low-grade cement
        not used in other countries (P.C. 32.5 grade). 
    

I'm not a cement/concrete expert, but PC 32.5 does seem to be a low grade.
Higher than PKC 32.5 (composite cement) but lower than PC 42.5. So I found
this other source that puts it in stark terms [2]:

    
    
        According to the China Cement Association, low-grade cement products 
        (all 32.5 grade) accounted for 72% of the total cement output in China 
        in 2013, with the P.C. 32.5 grade cement accounting for 54%.
    

So 72% of cement was 32.5 grade, and most of that (54/72%) is PC 32.5. I was a
bit skeptical at first, but now I really wonder if/when these structures start
to crack &/ crumble.

[1]
[http://ftalphaville.tumblr.com/post/100653486301/contextuali...](http://ftalphaville.tumblr.com/post/100653486301/contextualising-
chinas-cement-splurge)

[2]
[http://pg.jrj.com.cn/acc/Res/CN_RES/INDUS/2014/2/19/c6835c29...](http://pg.jrj.com.cn/acc/Res/CN_RES/INDUS/2014/2/19/c6835c29-bc15-490c-ac73-83b64cdecd86.pdf)

~~~
kijin
I think China is going to suffer an epidemic of infrastructure failure in the
near future, perhaps as early as the mid-2020s if the 20-30 years estimate is
correct.

For comparison, South Korea's extraordinary growth was followed by a series of
infrastructure failures in the mid-90s. A relatively new bridge suddenly fell
into a river during the morning rush. A department store imploded, killing
over 500 people. Gas explosions all over the place. IIRC none of the major
accidents in Korea were caused by low-grade concrete specifically, but there
seems to be a general parallel between what the Chinese have been doing lately
and the "build now, worry about quality later" mentality that Koreans adopted
during their period of rapid growth. Both result in crumbling buildings 20-30
years later.

~~~
PakG1
It's already happening. There are high-profile stories of bridges collapsing
and so on. I live in Shenzhen right now and was looking for a new apartment
during the summer last year. My roommate noted that a lot of the landlords all
know that the apartment buildings will be replaced and rebuilt in 20-30 years.

If that's true, the expectation is already there. However, my impression is
that this belief stems from this idea that construction will always be
happening because that's how the economy rolls.

The question is what percentage of the population believes that this cycle
really is the end game and what percentage of the population thinks they're
investing into infrastructure what will last their entire life.

~~~
kijin
Most ordinary people either don't understand the cycle, or even if they do,
they're powerless to do anything about it.

If what happened in Korea is any indication, the first generation of apartment
buildings will be demolished after 20-30 years, homeowners will be "asked to
leave" with as little compensation as the construction company can get away
with, and a new block of condos will go up that the previous homeowners just
can't afford. In Korea, at least we let the previous homeowners file
complaints and protest for a while before we send in the bulldozers. In China,
the bulldozers will probably go in first, and the GFW won't let anyone else
know what happened next.

~~~
vorg
This is an accurate picture of what happens right now in China, but limited
protests are permitted by homeowners to haggle the price. An extra
complication is Chinese can only own their properties for a maximum of 70
years anyway, with many having only 30 or 40 years left on the state-granted
lease, so even without the demolition cycle Chinese aren't really looking
ahead more than a few decades anyway.

------
bubbleburster
according to these stats the US did the same in the last 5 years

[http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-
cem...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-cement-in-
the-us/)

~~~
swombat
That was the first thing I thought when I saw this stat posted a little while
ago. "Fine, the stat sounds impressive, but there's a lot of other stats that
other countries do more of in the last few years than in the 20th Century".

For example, anyone could write a dramatic headline declaring that we've
created more computer chips in the last X months than in the 20th century.
That doesn't mean much.

In short, this feel like some sort of crappy statistic handpicked to make
China look bad, when in fact it's the whole world that's using a lot more
concrete, not just China!

~~~
barkingcat
Wait why is this bad? I thought it was crappy statistics handpicked to make
China look good!?

Why is progress in countries outside the western civilizations a bad thing?

Don't we want the people who make our iphones and oculus rift headsets and
shiny usb-c devices to have apartment buildings to live in?

~~~
EliRivers
_Don 't we want the people who make our iphones and oculus rift headsets and
shiny usb-c devices to have apartment buildings to live in?_

I'd rather they had nice houses instead.

~~~
dagw
Why? So that China experience the 'luxury' of endless suburban sprawl and the
myriad of problems it brings. Hopefully China can learn from out mistakes, not
repeat them

~~~
EliRivers
No. Because a house is simply a nicer place to live than a flat.

It's very possible to have nice houses without endless suburban sprawl. They
can indeed learn from our mistakes; have nice houses, but without endless
suburban sprawl.

~~~
dagw
First of all I absolutely reject your claim that houses offer a priori simply
a nicer place to live than flats. Sure there exists certain combinations of
price point, geographic location and life situation where it holds, but it
certainly isn't a given.

Secondly how are you going to build nice affordable houses for 1.4 billion
people without sprawl. Are you suggesting completely giving up on urbanization
and going back to having countless tiny villages?

~~~
EliRivers
There are many very nice places to live in the world that are not afflicted
with suburban sprawl and provide houses to live in, yet are not tiny villages.
I'm not going to sit here and fill in the gaps in your imagination; I suspect
you've already made your mind up.

~~~
dagw
_There are many very nice places to live in the world that are not afflicted
with suburban sprawl and provide houses to live in, yet are not tiny villages_

Absolutely, but they either suffer from rapidly rising houses prices or no
appreciable population growth. If you stick to a population ceiling of say 50k
or so then many problems are easy

But we are talking about about places that are seeing up to a million new
people show up in just a few years. Building everybody a nice house is neither
realistic nor, in my opinion, desirable. We've either got to re-think the
whole "everybody gets a nice house" or try to reverse urbanization in favour
of lots and lots of small town capped at around 50k population.

------
yueq
In China every building is built with cement. In US most homes are built with
wood.

~~~
myth_buster
From the article:

> 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.

A critical argument, but unfortunately mentioned towards the end of the
article. But overall its a interesting article and this gif [0] comparing
Shanghai '87 vs '13, from it gives a good perspective of the modernization
(akin to images of Dubai).

[0]
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/03/...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/03/Shanghai.gif)

~~~
VieElm
Why does such a large geographical region lack wood? Really? Maybe they just
don't care and are happy with cement buildings.

~~~
sangnoir
I am non-American, and I do not understand why (most/some) Americans think
think the default/superior housing material is wood. If someone can explain,
I'd be happy to learn.

I'm perfectly fine with brick-and-mortar houses (and concrete sky-scrapers).
Brick houses have less fuel for fires, better load-bearing properties (pros),
although they take longer to construct.

~~~
maratd
> I'm perfectly fine with brick-and-mortar houses

Brick is just siding. What's the frame made out of?

You can use wood, you can use steel, you can use concrete with rebar. Those
are your only real options.

In the US, you will frequently see 2-3 story houses framed with wood and with
a brick siding. I'm in one right now. Anything higher than 3 stories will be
done with steel or concrete.

Wood is cheaper than steel and lasts for hundreds of years if properly cared
for, which is why it's preferred for smaller residential structures.

~~~
breischl
>>Brick is just siding. What's the frame made out of?

Man, that is going to be a shock to my house that has all of the outside
walls, and parts of the foundation, made from brick. Just because your house
has a brick veneer doesn't mean that's the only way to do it.

In my particular the case the floors and roof are made from wood. The floor
joists rest on the brick walls.

------
tokenadult
Similar stories have been written about other parts of the world. They didn't
have the same impressive aggregate total of concrete (or the ingredient in
concrete called cement) used, but there were impressive housing and road
construction figures from Ireland and Spain and many parts of the United
States before the housing markets collapsed in those countries. China is still
at risk for a housing collapse,[1] particularly because workers' incomes are
not rising as fast as the cost of newly constructed apartments, and overall
national population growth has slowed. Housing construction in China is
propelled by many of the same speculative lending practices that propelled the
last boom in the United States, and may not result in all those new housing
units being occupied by anyone able to pay enough rent to produce a positive
return on investment.

[1] [http://www.dw.de/chinas-real-estate-market-weighed-down-
by-o...](http://www.dw.de/chinas-real-estate-market-weighed-down-by-
oversupply/a-18207416)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-13/pimco-
warn...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-13/pimco-warns-on-
china-s-steel-demand-outlook-as-housing-cools)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/business/international/in-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/business/international/in-
china-housing-market-pressure-to-sell-hesitation-to-buy.html)

[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/03/02/commentary/wo...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/03/02/commentary/world-
commentary/chinas-real-property-problem-is-in-the-supply/#.VRG-9vnF-So)

~~~
qwertyuiop1234
The fundamental difference between China housing price drop and US is majority
of Chinese buy properties with cash or get mortgage with very large deposit
like 40%. So the risk of subprime crisis is very low.

~~~
adventured
That was true 10 to 15 years ago. It's no longer accurate. China has become a
massive accumulator of debt at the consumer level. While it's not as bad as
the US subprime situation was, it is bad and getting worse.

Since year 2000, China's household debt has gone from 8% of GDP, to now 40% of
GDP as a ratio (the US is 75% by comparison). Mortgage debt has become a
common problem in China. At the rate household debt is expanding in China,
they'll be up to 60% in four years or so.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-19/china-
hous...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-19/china-housing-
slaves-helping-property-rebound-mortgages)

~~~
qwertyuiop1234
You still have to put down a 30% deposit for first home and 60% for a second,
which is stark contract to 0% down payment or even borrowed down payment in
US.

A main reason people buy properties is the lack of other type of investment.
The public in general have no confidence in stock market. Housing is the only
thing almost guaranteed to make money. As financial reforms such as allowing
investing overseas kicks in, we should see money moving away to housing
market.

~~~
adventured
0% down is very rare in the US among total housing ownership. The average
person is required to put down 15%-20%. Even during the bubble it represented
a very small portion of all housing and lasted for only a few years.

Home equity is about 55-56% in the US for the entire housing market (owner
occupied) and has continued to climb since the lows of the post bubble bust.

------
Igglyboo
China went through their industrial revolution far later than the US, this is
to be expected, especially with a population ~3x as large.

~~~
jessaustin
Based on population one might expect 33 years. Would the additional factor of
eleven really be expected from the fact that various developments occurred
later? ISTM that the Chinese just really prefer concrete as a building
material. It isn't as though all new construction in USA is concrete.

~~~
rhino369
For houses, America is somewhat an outlier. Most of the world builds concrete
houses and America uses lumber.

~~~
jessaustin
There is a trade-off between permanence and sustainability. Mostly, though,
lumber construction is only feasible in areas with lower population densities.

~~~
hack_edu
Take note that about 20% of the country lives in Earthquake Country, where
just about all residential dwellings tend to be built of wood.

------
brudgers
A rough analogue for changes to the environment in regard to the US might be
the logging of old growth forests to fuel construction and urbanization.

------
ngokevin
Typical of exponential population growth. The past few years of any resource
usage will be more than all of the resource usage of human history combined.

~~~
spikels
Population growth is not exponential but actually slowing. This is one of many
misconceptions about demographics - an absolutely fascinating and important
subject which gets little attention in the media or schools.

Here's a nice intro from Joel Cohen, a longtime leader in the field:

[http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-
cohen](http://www.floatinguniversity.com/lectures-cohen)

~~~
ngokevin
The rate may be slowing (as expected), but the overall rate has been
exponential until now. Like it took us forever to get to 1 billion, but
getting to 7 billion took no time at all from that point.

~~~
spikels
If the growth rate is slowing it is not exponential - a constant growth rate
is the definition of exponential[1].

After increasing dramatically during the first half of the 20th century the
growth rate has declined for the last 40 years. Looking more deeply into the
demographics (by country and age group) it is pretty clear that this decline
will continue for many decades to come. The video I linked above goes into
some of this.

Most experts currently predict that the world's population will peak (i.e.
below zero population growth) middle of this century around 9 billion -
although a few say as high as 11 billion or as low as 7 billion. These
predictions are way down from just a decade ago.

[1]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth)

------
swframe
I wonder how much was used to build their ghost cities:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-ghost-cities-
in-2014-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-ghost-cities-
in-2014-2014-6)

~~~
qwertyuiop1234
They are being filled up.

[https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/guest-
post-5-c...](https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/guest-
post-5-chinese-ghost-cities-came-alive/)

~~~
beachstartup
people ridicule it because it's so different than the american way, which is
to severely restrict housing construction to cause enormous increases in price
so that nobody can afford to live anywhere without taking out massive loans,
while poor people get kicked out of their homes.

~~~
vonmoltke
That is not the "American way". That is the way certain areas behave as they
try to fight urbanization, but is not the way most areas behave.

~~~
natrius
Can you give some examples of cities that don't do this? Every single city I'm
familiar with does this, though Houston does it less than most places.

~~~
freehunter
It's hard to point to examples of cities that don't do it because it doesn't
make the news when a new building is put up in Nashville. It doesn't make the
news when a law to limit building height is never even proposed in Kalamazoo.
It doesn't make the news when Akron's population increases 3% year over year.

It _does_ make the news when San Francisco's residents start getting driven
out of the city. It _does_ make the news when Madison limits the height of
buildings downtown. Can you give me an example of people who didn't get a flat
tire today? Of course not, because that's just called normal functioning.

~~~
beachstartup
so what you're saying is, the media distorts and amplifies the exceptions in
order to create a perception of widespread dysfunction, thereby generating
revenues through public outrage?

but this only happens in the US, right? not anywhere else, like... china?

------
doubleshadow
How much concrete did the US use from 2011-2013?

~~~
benihana
cement and concrete are different materials

~~~
chm
But you need cement to make concrete.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, but if you're comparing usage across countries you probably want to
compare the same thing; either concrete or cement.

~~~
chm
Indeed but if you want a pretty good estimate you can just whatever mixing
factor is most common in China or the US and convert :)

------
kryptiskt
Measuring progress in tons of concrete is like judging programs based on lines
of code.

~~~
jacquesm
Not really. It's more like observing the number of shipping containers going
in and out of a country and deriving some rough figures on the economy from
there (or trends).

Lines of code have to be examined in detail to figure out their impact,
concrete is the universal component of construction, if more concrete is used
there _will_ be more construction going on.

~~~
kryptiskt
Loads of code means someone put lots of money into it, same as when loads of
concrete is poured. It says nothing of the benefit of the program/structure
that has been built.

I don't want to dub any specific piece of software the Three Gorges Dam of
code. But it surely is out there.

------
wnevets
I must see this story come up on the internet at least once a month. Why is
this so fascinating to people?

~~~
kidlogic
Pound-for-pound, cement is the largest producer of carbon emissions in the
world.

------
pmastela
Something like Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns [1] helps explain this
ostensibly unbelievable fact. It reminds of a similar statistic about the
number of years that passed before a country's GDP doubled. UK did it in 154
years (early 17th century to mid 18th century) and China doubled its GDP in
just 12 years [2].

For further reading check out an answer on Quora [3] where I found the
McKinsey Global Institute report.

[1] [http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-
returns](http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns)

[2]
[http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/dotcom/Insights%20a...](http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/dotcom/Insights%20and%20pubs/MGI/Research/Urbanization/Urban%20world%20-%20Rise%20of%20the%20consuming%20class/MGI_Urban_world_Rise_of_the_consuming_class_Full_report.ashx)

[3] [http://www.quora.com/What-dont-we-know-about-the-Chinese-
eco...](http://www.quora.com/What-dont-we-know-about-the-Chinese-economy)

------
koolkat
"The growth in any doubling time is grater than the total of all the preceding
growth" So maybe any developed country including the U.S. did the same.

------
jostmey
How about comparing lumber usage? The U.S. may not have used as much cement,
but we probably had more wood available.

P.S. I imagine using cement is more eco-friendly.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Your imagination is wrong, sadly. The cement industry accounts for nearly 5%
of global CO2 emissions, about half of which comes from the chemical
decomposition of calcium carbonate (which is how you make cement).

------
alexzhou
so what,as a Chinese I still can't afford a house

------
notastartup
I think what is not being discussed is debt. Debt is used to finance this type
of growth.

