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Last Thursday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the six projects selected to receive grant money to pursue carbon capture and reuse from industrial sources. The DOE had $106 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act along with $156 million in private funding to split between its chosen projects. The projects, now in Phase 2 [...] The European Union’s climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard is pushing to increase the 2020 emissions reduction goal from the current twenty percent to thirty percent. The heavy industries, including cement and steel, have lobbied the EU against such drastic cuts successfully in the past (ever since the United Nations talks in Copenhagen failed this previous December) on [...] For the past twenty years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has hosted the Entrepreneurship Competition for new companies founded by MIT graduates in six key areas: products and services, web and IT, energy, development, mobile, and life sciences. The winner of each category competes for the overall grand prize of one-hundred thousand dollars. This year’s energy [...] Sales in India are looking up for Danish equipment supplier FLSmidth, which was hit hard by the global credit crunch (sales plummeted and shares fell nearly seventy-three percent in value). FLSmidth has been dealing in India for over a century and the country is currently its biggest market as well as being its biggest center of [...] French cement company Lafarge set a goal for itself to reduce its carbon footprint by twenty percent by 2010. The company has recently announced that it has beaten its goal by a full year. Lafarge claims to have reduced its footprint by 20.7% as of the end of 2009. Lafarge plans on continuing its green trend [...] One of the world’s most abundant organisms, algae, may be the solution to CO2 emissions for the cement industry. Two Ontario, Canada-based companies have developed a process in which carbon-eating algae is used to scrub exhaust gases of the greenhouse gas. St. Mary’s Cement (SMC), part of Votorantim, and Pond Biofuels have been working on the [...] In September 2009, a group of agencies and industry representatives (including the Cement Energy and CO2 Reduction Group and the US DOE) convened for a two-day conference to discuss reducing the carbon footprint of the US cement industry. The cement industry provides tens of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly, so government agencies are seeking to work with [...] Despite predictions that the global recession is beginning to slowly right itself, many cement companies are still experiencing tough financial situations. Many large producers have posted losses in the 2009 fourth quarter, but are holding high hopes for increased business throughout 2010. French-based company Lafarge posted a loss of $51.76 million dollars (38 million Euros) after earning [...] EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced Monday that the agency would not push through regulations against large greenhouse gas emitters until 2011. Also, Ms. Jackson announced that the agency would raise the threshold for the Clean Air Act on regulating carbon dioxide emissions. The delay comes after multiple groups, including eight Senate Democrats, expressed concern on the potential [...] Members of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), lobbying on behalf of the cement industry as a whole, are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to not add new regulations limiting the amount of mercury and other pollutants emitted from cement plants. Their argument is based on the subsequent rise in production costs which would seriously hamper [...] |
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