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Among other emissions, Carbon dioxide is a headache for many cement producers. Finding the right balance between environmental-responsibility and financial-stability is difficult. For industrial plants shifting towards carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), economic performance suffers due to the high cost of installing and running the necessary equipment. However, a way of offsetting those costs is now in development at Sandia [...] Earlier this week, the government of Quebec announced its voluntary implementation of a cap and trade system that takes effect in 2012. Environment Minister Pierre Arcand announced the plan on Wednesday amid praise from environmentalist groups. Quebec is third in a series of Canadian provinces and American states to enact a regional system instead of waiting [...] Cement industry giant Lafarge announced on Thursday a set of new goals in order to continue its agenda of reducing CO2 emissions. The goals are divided into two main areas: straight emissions reductions and a sustainable construction development. In developing the first goal category, Lafarge worked within a framework developed in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] Michael Rock, an economics professor at Bryn Mawr College, held a lecture this past week concerning America’s lack of continued green technology development. He fears that we are on the way to losing our place as the forerunner of this industry just as we did in the automobile industry. Daniel Weiss, director of a DC-based climate [...] 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 [...] |
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