A new type of turbine, utilizing supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO₂) instead of traditional steam, is being tested at Sandia.  These turbines use the S-CO₂ compressed at 73 bar and at 33 °C and run on the Brayton Cycle (where steam turbines utilize the Rankine Cycle).  The benefits of this new type of system lie in footprint in the plant along with initial investment.  The use of the Brayton Cycle allows for a drastic reduction in turbine size.  A 300 MWe S-CO2 turbine has an outside diameter of approximately 1 meter and needs only three stages of turbomachinery.  The corresponding steam turbine would require a diameter of five meters with 22-30 stages of turbomachinery.  This reduction in size translates to a decrease in the initial investment on the system.

Any plant that could employ this system successfully should see the device pay for itself over a short interval of time.  Depending on the turbine size chosen, a plant could remove itself from the grid by generating all its own power needs and perhaps even sell power back to the utility companies.  With the ever-changing technology, what was once a headache for the cement industry might turn out to be a godsend for the financial competitiveness.

Information gathered for this article appears in the January 2012 issue of Mechanical Engineering, the official magazine of ASME. The article was entitled, “Mighty Mite” and was authored by Steven Wright.

Quebec has previously demonstrated its commitment to proper environmental stewardship through its introduction of the “carbon tax” on the transportation business sector.  By 2008, Quebec managed to reduce emissions by 1.2% over 1990 levels despite its population growth of 11% over the same period.

The new system will be introduced in two phases to ease the burden on industry.  2012 will be a trial year where caps will be established on companies emitting over twenty-five thousand tonnes annually, but they will not be required to meet the cap for the first year.  In 2013, however, companies that break their limit will face heavy fines as well as having their cap lowered for the following year.  It is Quebec’s goal to reduce emissions by 20% compared to 1990 levels by the close of 2020.  Minister Arcand, during a press conference, said, “The cap-and-trade system is recognized as one of the most effective and least expensive ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”  He does admit, though, that the price of certain consumer goods may rise slightly due to the enactment of this law.

The Cement Association of Canada (CAC) is showing reserved appreciation for the new legislation.  The CAC is concerned that the regional law will have dire effects on the bottom line since neighboring provinces and states do not share similar legislation, but is grateful for the government’s two step introduction of the new restrictions.  CAC President Michael McSweeney said, “We understand Quebec’s decision to develop a cap-and-trade system and, given the potentially significant competitive and economic impacts of the program on our industry, we appreciate this staged approach…We reiterate our commitment to continue working with our government colleagues to develop measures that will ensure our common environmental and economic objectives are met.”  Minister Arcand continues to reject the idea that it will have any negative impact on the industries economic performance.  He said, “Because Quebec is acting as a pioneer, Quebec companies will be among the first to profit from the advantages of a system of capping and trading of greenhouse gas emission credits. They will be the first to adapt to the realities of the new carbon-free economy.”

Our old friend Calera was among the recipients of this grant, receiving nearly $20 million of the DOE money.  The basic outline of Calera’s plan is straightforward: take the carbon dioxide (CO₂) rich flue gas and bubble it through seawater rich in magnesium hydroxide [Mg(OH)₂] to form carbonates.  The process mimics coral reefs and is claimed to already working at a small northern California plant where Calera says it captures thirty thousand tons of CO₂ every year.  Despite early criticism and on-going skepticism, Calera and one of its chief backers, Vinod Khosla, are excited about the company’s prospects.  In regards to Calera’s process, Khosla said that it’s the “only viable solution to carbon sequestration.”

Calera, however, will be facing competition in the field of “carbon capture and reuse” from some of the other grant winners.  Other winners are pursuing biofuel and thermoplastic polymers for their pilot facilities.  US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, “These innovative projects convert carbon pollution from a climate threat to an economic resource.  This is part of our broad commitment to unleash the American innovation machine and build the thriving, clean energy economy of the future.”  Other companies receiving grants are Alcoa Inc., Novomer Inc., Touchstone Research Laboratory Ltd., Phycal LLC, and Skyonic Corporation.

Europe’s heavy industry, though, is threatening ‘carbon leakage’ if concessions are not made for them, two proponents of which are Arcelor Mittal and Lafarge.  Carbon leakage is the act of moving plants and jobs from highly regulated regions to areas with more relaxed rules and regulations.  Arcelor Mittal specifically told the EU Commission that under the new regulations ninety thousand jobs might be eliminated in Germany alone due to the harsh economic backlash of new regulations. 

There is no doubt that ‘leakage’ is an important issue given that CO2 emissions are a global (versus local) problem.   A report from the Corporate Europe Observatory, however, claims that companies like Lafarge and Arcelor Mittal have exaggerated the negative effect that such environmental regulations have on European business.  In addition, others have argued that the industrial giants stand to make considerable profits from the excess carbon dioxide permits already granted to them free of charge by the Commission.  Arcelor Mittal alone stands to make approximately one billion pounds profit from the sale of its permits.   

The debate in Europe is shaping up to be the OK Corral of the emissions battle overseas.

C-Crete’s play in this space is a special type of nano-engineered, carbon negative cement that has improved strength over traditional cement.  C-Crete’s co-founder Natanel Barookhian said, “For many years, the world has been looking for simple, scalable solutions to reduce the global carbon footprint and limit its impact on the environment. We at C-Crete Technologies have developed a method for tackling this issue by targeting the production of cement, one of the most widely used materials on earth, while improving all of its core properties. We believe our technology will make a significant impact on the world.’’

C-Crete is one of the growing number of start-up companies (Calera, C-Fix, CeramiCrete, etc) who are focused on replacements, alternatives, or supplements for traditional cement. This niche is beginning to attract a fair amount of attention from venture capitalists.  Also, after ignoring the possibility that the cement manufacturing process might be fundamentally changed in no less significant a way than refrigeration changed the ice harvesting business, the traditional producers and industry insiders are now taking notice. While fly ash and similar materials have long been recognized and utilized, research into “manufactured” supplemental cementitious materials is now being directly funded by cement producers.  These materials may never entirely replace cement, unquestionably one of the most cost effective and flexible building materials available, but environmental challenges make research expenditures a wise investment in the future.

Congratulations to C-Crete on this important recognition.  As the issue of CO2 emissions related to the manufacture of cement attracts more money and institutional research interest, the cement industry is certain to change.  Those who recognize this inevitibility and invest in developing a vision of the future stand to gain much.  Those who ignore the signs may go the way of the icebox.

Success came for the French company after it spent nearly 800 million Euros over the last five years to reduce its plants’ footprint.  This money was partially spent in the development of new products with higher levels of sustainability.  Their goal was to help reduce not only their footprint in production, but also of the buildings where their products were being used.  An example of one such product is Thermedia 0.6B which is the first in a line of structurally insulating products.  In addition to money spent, Lafarge has maintained strong ties with the Cement Sustainability Initiative in order to affect a broader change across the entire cement industry.

Despite the positive steps taken by Lafarge, many European-based heavy carbon emitters have come under criticism regarding their manipulation of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) set up by the European Union.  The system works on the principle that companies are granted carbon permits for their emissions which they can buy or sell depending on whether they meet or exceed their quota.  However, due to the economic recessions, the heavy CO₂ producers (energy, steel, and cement sectors) fell short of their forecasted quotas.  These companies now stand to make millions or billions of Euros from the sale of excess permits.  Lafarge alone had excess permits valued at 140 million Euros last year.  Critics are infuriated that these companies can get away with doing nothing to reduce their environmental impact, yet make millions of free money for it.  These critics want the ETS system to be re-evaluated and changed.

Whether Lafarge’s CO₂ reduction stems from actions taken by the company or simply from decreased demand is yet to be seen.  However, you cannot ignore the fact that less CO₂ is being released into the atmosphere from Lafarge plants.  No matter what the cause, the environment has come out ahead.

Along with China, other Asian nations such as Korea and Japan are leveling off and reducing their CO₂ emissions while US emission levels continue to rise.  China is taking the lead in developing electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels in an effort to reduce their overall carbon footprint.  Chinese car producers have plans in place to export electric vehicles to the US by the end of the year at nearly half the price of comparable US-made models.

What has America been doing in response?  Not a whole lot.  Despite the fact that clean energy-related jobs grew nearly three times as much as traditional jobs over the last decade, America is still falling behind in renewable energy.  America’s solution so far has been to try and pass legislation limiting carbon emissions.  Such a bill failed in Congress about a year ago and another similar bill (proposing either a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax) is being formulated by a tri-partisan Senate committee now.

Is legislation by itself enough to help reduce our carbon footprint?  That is hard to answer.  However, DuPont has decided to not sit around and wait for laws to be passed.  They have actively committed their company to reduce their carbon footprint and develop new technologies to stimulate green industry, including developing new solar panel materials, biofuels research, and environmentally-friendly refrigerants.  DuPont has the right attitude in taking an aggressive approach at improving our world.  If America continues to remain relatively passive about climate change and greenhouse emissions, we will be left in the energy “dark ages” by countries that have taken a proactive role in changing the status quo.  All industries in America, from small businesses to the giant cement industry, should be looking for ways to improve their energy efficiencies in order to help keep the US on the forefront of clean energy technology.

For now, only part of the exhaust is diverted to the test facility, where homegrown algae from sunlight and the nearby Thames River absorb the CO₂ and emit oxygen in return.  The algae are continually harvested and dried using the plant’s waste heat.  Pond Biofuels utilizes the harvested algae to create an alternative fuel for the plant to use in its kilns and to make a biofuel to be used in SMC’s trucking fleet.  This new process allows the CO₂ to be continuously recycled, vastly reducing the plant’s carbon footprint.  The two companies hope to be able to scale up the facility to accept a plant’s entire emissions.  SMC environmental manager Martin Vroegh said, “It’s a small model of what a big full-scale facility could be.”

The development of this algae process comes under the looming threat of carbon prices being set across the globe.  When these prices are introduced, even a moderate $30 per ton of CO₂ would mean that consumers can expect to see a fifteen percent jump in price at the register.  Concerning carbon pricing, Vroegh said, “The amount of exposure to carbon pricing we face as an industry is very high.  If we want to be around tomorrow we have to be sustainable. This project helps us achieve that” and “This is a made-in-Ontario solution to a global problem.”  The world, and especially the energy-intensive cement industry, will be watching as SMC and Pond Biofuels work to improve upon and expand their process.

The industry only consumes about 1-2% of US industrial energy use, however as a result of the calcination process needed to produce cement clinker, it produces about 5% of CO₂ emissions.  It comes down to the fact that for every ton of cement clinker produced, a ton of CO₂ is also released.  The conference suggested several short term improvements as well as longer term improvements.  A comprehensive report is expected to be released in the coming months.

Cement is the building block of the nation’s construction industry and it will remain vital to infrastructure development for the foreseeable future. Existing cement processing methods will need to be transformed in order to meet the Obama Administration’s ambitious U.S. climate goals.  Concerted R&D efforts are required.  We’ll continue to keep you updated on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program and its cooperative efforts with established cement industry leaders, such as Lehigh Hanson, CalPortland, Lafarge, Cemex and the Portland Cement Association.