BridgeGap Engineering Blog » Cement Industry

New MACT Proposal for Electric Utilities Follows Cement Industry

Hannah — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:26:54 +0000

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed another Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule – this time targeting the Electric Utility Industry. The proposal was issued March 16, 2011, and outlines new emissions standards for coal- and oil-fired electric utility steam generating units (EGUs). Primarily, the new rule will lead to a reduction in the emission of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and other heavy metals, as well as hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, and other acid gases.

This proposed ruling follows on the heels of the August 2010 ruling for Portland cement kilns. Just as in the case of cement, the rule will apply to both new and existing EGU’s. For power, the compliance period will deadline in 2015, whereas for cement, the compliance deadline is August 6, 2013. For cement, the new standards were immediately applicable to kilns built after May 6, 2009, which according to the EPA will result in an estimated return of $7-$19 in health benefits per dollar spent in meeting these standards. In addition, the EPA touts several additional benefits. One benefit is that, in power plants, these new standards would prevent 91% of the mercury in coal from being emitted into the air, reduce acid gas emissions by 91%, and reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 55%. A second advantage would be the creation of 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term utility jobs. A third advantage can be seen by the EPA’s estimate regarding the health benefits of the proposed rule: $59-$140 billion in 2016 (2007$).

During the next few weeks, the EPA will hold three public hearings regarding the proposal, and will declare its decision following the 60-day comments period, which began the day of the proposal.

Cemex receives Energy Star recognition

Demosthenes — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:24:17 +0000

Control Engineering reports that Cemex has been awarded the Energy Star Partner of the Year award for a second time. Cemex has been an Energy Star partner since 2004, and in 2009 saved more than 1.1. million MMBTU on energy, cutting an equivalent of 107,500 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

In a time of economic stress, Cemex, arguably under more financial pressure than many cement producers, continues to pursue Energy Star not because of government mandates to reduce emissions, but because it makes business sense. Energy Star provides a disciplined framework for companies to use to pursue energy and emission reductions that improve the bottom line rather than just imposing additional costs. BridgeGap Engineering has the expertise to help cement companies follow the Energy Star path in improved financial performance. Call us for more information and to schedule a power audit.

Lafarge talking about expansion in India

Demosthenes — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:31:47 +0000

Lafarge says they will double their commitment in India over the next five years. Bruno Lafont, Chairman and Global CEO says that Lafarge primarily intends to expand organically through greenfield plant construction, but that they will not rule out acquisitions if the opportunities present themselves. Lafarge expects a consolidation in the Indian cement market in the “mid term” over the next five years. “And, if you are well prepared, you can seize the opportunity. We are open to both the possibilities. Our strategy is to invest in cement, select regions for it and to create excellent positions there,” He went on to add that Lafarge is still focused on preserving capital, and “Our strategy is to give priority to cement sector in emerging markets.” We commented on this emerging market focus by the big producers, and the opportunities it may present in the developed markets, in an earlier post.

2009 Rewind

Demosthenes — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:54:56 +0000

2009 was year where cement industry news was really dominated by three factors: the economy, the Chinese, and the environment. Here are some of the stories we at BGE believe were the most important of the year:

It’s the economy, stupid – The economic collapse and its effect on the cement industry may have started in ernest in 2008, but it really hit high gear in 2009. Cement producers in North America and around the developed world responded with cut backs in capital projects, plant closures (some temporary, some less so), layoffs and other cost saving measures. Producers in North America and Europe continue to postpone investments, preserve cash, and fend off price erosion of their product. The poster child for the pain of a vanishing credit market had to be Cemex. As the fastest growing member of the global cement producers, funded mostly on gigantic lines of credit, they found themselves on the verge of insolvency, sold off a number of strategic assets, and to admirably survive as they managed to renegotiate billions in credit.

Sinoma International becomes the world’s largest OEM – OEM’s responded with traditional “retrenching” moves, cost cutting and layoffs. Shoveling expertise into the street with abandon, a trend that is expected to continue. Those with a small piece of a large pie now found themselves with a small piece of a much smaller pie. Expect at least one of the traditional Euro-American suppliers to fail in 2010. Of course, not all the suppliers played defense. The Chinese OEM’s, Sinoma in particular, took advantage of the increased price sensitivity to become, for the first time in history, the largest supplier of cement equipment in terms of new production capacity OUTSIDE China. In fact, Sinoma sold just under 50% of the capacity sold outside China in 2009, pushing FLSmidth out of the #1 spot it had held for decades and forever changing the competitive landscape of cement equipment supply.

Big Brother is watching – The environment and the increasingly large specter of regulation has to be one of the biggest stories of 2009. Environmental sessions were sharply in focus at the IEEE/PCA conference. The EPA made noise about Mercury and they made noise about CO2. Eventually they classified CO2 as a hazardous substance, thereby giving themselves the power to regulate it. New regulations have also been proposed for Mercury and will be a reality sooner rather than later. We have frequently reported on the various environmental issues in this blog as we see it as a major force in the market for years to come.

Modernization of capacity – 2009 certainly wasn’t all bad news for the cement industry. Developing markets continued to show growth and reinforce the long term trends in demand. Additionally, many of the modern, high capacity plants ordered in the last boom came on line in 2009, thus “modernizing the fleet” and providing the ability to produce more cement at a lower cost with less energy and environmental impact. Holcim’s shining star, the 12,000 mtpd Ste. Genevieve plant designed by FLSmidth, came on line in July and quickly met and exceeded production and environmental targets. This facility will help to assure the future of cement manufacturing in the difficult labor and regulatory North American market environment and provide a model for cement plant design going forward.

Cement Industry Update

experts@bridgegap — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:00:13 +0000

CEMEX announced on Tuesday that it had made significant progress in restructuring of its debt. It has managed to move the maturities of about 14.5 billion in dept out from the 2009-2011 time frame out to 2014. The move helps substantially secure the company’s short term financial stability.

Texas Industries is under pressure from an investment fund with a large stake in the company. The fund has stated their intention to nominate three members to the board due to what the fund managers call under performance relative to peers

Adapt or Die

Demosthenes — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:05:27 +0000

Here’s an exercise: Make a list of all the industries that have resisted some fundamental change in their business environment, be it regulatory or market driven, on the grounds that the result would be devastating to the business, the job market and ultimately costly for consumers. The industry was just too big, too important, and society was too dependent on it to accept the consequences of a radical shift. Take your time, I’ll wait…

No doubt you could make quite a list. At some level, this kind of defense of the status quo is expected and one could argue, mandatory.

Now make another list, one that includes all the industries on the first list that successfully avoided or significantly shifted such fundamental change and thrived. Really thrived, not just survived to fight another day. You have 30 seconds…

I’m not sure about you, but my list is empty and I’m guessing if you took more time and DID manage to develop a list, it would be very short indeed.

Such arguments have never successfully prevented or shifted the principal nature of fundamental business environment changes. The list of casualties is long. Textiles, Steel, Electronics, Plastics, Foundries, etc. These industries virtually ceased to exist in the US because they could not or would not adapt to new business realities. Did the labor market suffer terrible losses? You bet. Were big businesses destroyed? Lots of them. Did consumers suffer? Arguably no, in fact in most cases it would be difficult to argue that the consumer is not better off. Further, these arguments have never succeeded in the face of regulatory or trade policy for any significant duration. The court of public opinion is short on patience and, as lawmakers know, short on memory as well.

“So you’re saying the cement industry in the US will inevitably be destroyed?” Not at all, but this is the sort of wrong headed FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that is generated by the strong defensive stance of the industry. To listen to the press releases, one could easily be convinced that failure is the ONLY option for the US Cement Industry in the face of this challenge, but nothing could be further from the truth in my opinion. While industry associations exercise delay tactics that everyone recognizes will be ultimately futile in preventing change, cement manufacturers have choices. They can pursue the path which they have warned will result, and look to outsource production and import more product, or they can aggressively pursue and pressure the OEM’s to develop technologies to abate or offset their emissions at plants in North America. To date the manufacturers have not leaned heavily on the OEM’s to provide solutions to these new environmental challenges. Technologies for mercury abatement and CO2 reduction have not been advanced significantly through any activities by the cement industry, rather technologies from other industries (e.g. power) are being applied (or mandated by the EPA as BACT) without enough thought given to the chemistry of cement. In the current environment, an executive at Lehigh Cement has at least put forth a suggestion for a stepped reduction in Hg emissions limits to allow the OEMs to develop technology over time. This is at least a step in the right direction. None of the OEM’s are taking any risk on anything the industry is not clamoring for. They, themselves, are in survival mode and R&D budgets and staffing levels have been cut.

Consumer impact? Cement manufacturers will take the choice with the lowest long term costs, this much is obvious. History shows us that any negative impact on the consumer will, in fact, be temporary, and the market will continue to maintain pressure on costs.

Cement is the most used manmade building material on the planet, and it provides tremendous value to the world economy. It is undoubtedly of critical importance. Still, if anyone believes that these factors alone are enough to secure cement manufacturing’s future in US industry, I suggest a history lesson is in order.

I, for one, would like to see the PCA acknowledge that change is inevitable and, as a minimum, get behind the suggestion from one Lehigh Cement executive to push strongly for a stepped approach to emissions reductions.

EPA in “listening mode” regarding Mercury Emissions

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:44:52 +0000

The EPA has formally proposed new regulations to limit the mercury emissions from cement kilns to 43 pounds per million tons of production. They arrived at this figure by examining the top 1/8 of kilns in the US (Recall during our earlier post on Keith Barnett’s presentation that MACT Standards, by law, may be no less stringent than the average emissions from the “best 12 percent” or ‘cleanest’ plants already in operation where data is available).

The PCA is pointing out that mercury emissions have more to do with the raw materials available than the overall operation. In a press release they argue the regulations are unfair and overly burdensome. A PCA spokesman estimates that cement imports could rocket to 43% of demand if the regulation is put in place as currently written.

A spokesman for the EPA says they are in “listening mode” at this time and will consider suggestions from the cement industry.

The Dallas News reported from the EPS public hearing, one of three to be held around the country this week on the subject. As might be expected, the members of the public who attended were not sympathetic to the concerns of the industry.

Edgar Stahl, said he was unsympathetic with industry concerns over the rule’s cost. “Put them out of business until they can make clean cement,” Stahl declared.

The EPA’s proposal to require reductions in mercury and other pollutants from cement kilns is called Proposed Amendments to National Air Toxics Emissions Standards for Portland Cement Manufacturing. You can read the proposal and related documents at www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/pcem/pcempg.html.

As recommended by Richard Pleus, Ph.D. Toxicology, who spoke at the recent IEEE Technical Conference on the subject of Mercury Emissions, “We all want to protect human health and the environment, but in order to do so”:

1. Educate yourself (science needs reliable data – not public opinion – to make good business decisions)

2. Get the science right – “all things are poison and nothering is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous”.

one nanogram is equal to one drop of detergent in enough water to fill a string of railroad cars ten miles long.
one part per billion is 1 second in 32 years.

3. Understand whether the problem is local or global (volcanic eruptions in the South Pacific cause mercury deposition along the Northern Pacific coast of the US)

4. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

The EPA will take written comments until Sept. 4; then it will consider the comments and issue a final rule by March 31. To comment on the proposal, refer to EPA docket number EPA-HQ-OAG-2002-0051 and use one of the following methods.

Online: Go to www.regulations.gov and follow the instructions for submitting comments.

E-mail: Send a message to a-and-r-docket@epa.gov.

Mail: EPA Docket Center (6102T)

Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2002-0051

1200 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20460

Welcome Address by Conference Chair Phil Gaynor:

experts@bridgegap — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:38:23 +0000

Phil Gaynor shared his thoughts on the purpose of this conference:

 Knowledge Transfer

This conference is widely acknowledged to be the world’s leading technical conference for the cement industry and the Cement Industry Committee (CIC) has done some neat things, like the concurrent Environmental Workshop, to make this conference even better.

UPDATE: Get ‘play-by-play’ of the 2009 IEEE/PCA Conference in Palm Springs California

experts@bridgegap — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:00:25 +0000

Update : This site and blog are going ‘live’ on Sunday May 31st, from the 2009 IEEE/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference in Palm Springs, California USA. As a courtesy to our customers, we will be posting live updates during the conference to give you a “play-by-play” feel to those of you who could not be in attendance this year due to the weakened economy. So, check this blog early and often!