Canada: Tony Levstik returned to Lafarge to pull the plug on the oldest piece of equipment at the Lafarge cement plant in Exshaw, Alberta, Canada. He was the first operator of the kiln when it was installed in 1975. He said that shutting it down was a lot easier than starting it up.
Kiln 6 is replacing kiln 4 as part of Lafarge's plant expansion project. The new technology will help to control dust and has fewer emissions. It will be approximately 30% cleaner with sulphur dioxide emissions, 75% cleaner with nitrous oxide emissions and have 25% less greenhouse gas emissions caused by combustion. The new kiln will also have better filter technology to help improve dust control. Kiln 4 used the gravel bed filter technology, which was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, but kiln 6 will have a state of the art bag house to collect dust.
"You can't make cement without using a lot of energy and these kilns that we're putting in are a lot more energy efficient, so we won't use as much fossil fuel, as much power to run the new plant," said Lafarge Plant Manager Jim Bachmann. "For a lot of reasons this is an exciting day." Kiln 6 will be operational in 2016.
