Mixed Feeling in the UK Over Alternative Fuels

South Ferriby, North Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, was put on the radar of the cement industry as Cemex’s plant achieved production over a three day period using nothing but alternative fuels to fire the kilns.  The fuel, known as Climafuel, is gathered locally from residential and commercial waste that would otherwise be sent to a landfill.  In [...]

Holcim Makes Progress to Reduce CO2 Emissions

On January 10, 2010, Holcim Vietnam signed a contract with a Chinese contractor to construct a heat recycling power plant at their Hon Chong Cement Plant.  The contract, valued at US$9 million, will allow for the construction of 6.3MW plant that will use excess heat from the cement kilns to operate.  China’s Sinoma Energy will equip [...]

China Unveils Kiln Fired with Solid Waste

China’s Tongling Conch unveiled a new technology earlier this year that allows for the reduction of landfills while maintaining plant productiveness.  The Tongling Conch Municipal Garbage Incineration Demonstration Project is under construction in the mountain village of Tongling in the Anhui province.

The project is the first municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration kiln in the world.  The [...]

Beginning of an Era

As widely reported this week, the EPA has passed a long anticipated set of rules regulating the emission of mercury and other pollutants from cement plants. Reactions have been predictable:  dire predictions that the regulations “can’t be met” with existing technologies for certain plants and claims of the billions of dollars the new regulations will cost the industry.

Industry spokespersons [...]

Calera Receives Extensive DOE Grant

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 [...]

Roanoke Cement Continues the Earth Hour Trend

Back in March, in celebration of Earth Hour, Roanoke Cement Company (RCC), a subsidiary of Titan America, decided to switch off the lights on its pre-heater tower indefinitely as part of its plan to reduce energy consumed by the plant.  RCC is back in the news again as it takes another step towards reducing its carbon [...]

Emissions Cuts and Scare Tactics

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 [...]

MIT Entrepreneurship Award Given to Cement Start-up

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 [...]

Fly Ash Debate Continues

Talks are still underway concerning government regulation of fly ash by-product.  Members of the Portland Cement Association (PCA) are part of a coalition of various industries that are reviewing the legislation in attempts to find a universally satisfying proposal.  The legislation is expected to take one of following three paths:

1)      Classify the fly ash as hazardous except [...]

Lafarge Testing Biomass Fuel

As part of its aggressive emissions reduction goals, Lafarge’s plant in Bath, Ontario, Canada, began research and testing of new biomass fuels for its kiln in the middle of 2008.  Lafarge partnered with Performance Plants, Inc. to develop a string of seeds that are heat and drought resistant and that can grow on otherwise unproductive farmland.  [...]