Displaying items by tag: Emissions

India: The Saffron Growers Association (SGA) has said that cement plants in Kashmir are causing dust pollution, to which the association attributed the decline of the local saffron industry. Down to Earth News has reported that the SGA alleges that the state’s traditional crop has ceased to be profitable because of extra costs arising from the fall of dust during flowering season. The association added that pollutants such as nitrous oxides (NO_x) and sulphur dioxide (SO₂) can also affect saffron’s growth.

The SGA called on authorities to regulate the construction of cement plants and their emissions more closely.

Tajikistan: Cementi Tojik announced the closure of the 1.1Mt/yr Dushanbe cement plant and its disbandment as a company on 26 December 2023. Asia-PLUS News has reported the reason for the company’s departure from the industry as a government regulation issued in mid-2023, which ordered the closure of the plant due to ‘serious’ emissions violations.

Switzerland/UAE: The COP28 UAE Presidency named École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) among its Energy Transition Changemakers in the Heavy Emitting Sectors category. EPFL won the prize for its LC3 limestone calcined clay cement, which replaces 50% of clinker content with calcined kaolinite clay and limestone. LC3 cement reduces CO₂ emissions by 40% compared to ordinary Portland cement (OPC), and is a readily available solution that can be scaled worldwide. EPFL noted the special importance of LC3 cement for CO₂ reduction efforts in developing countries, and sees it as having the potential to eliminate 500Mt/yr of global CO₂ emissions by 2030. In a post to LinkedIn, the LC3 Project said that nine plants around the world currently produce LC3 cement, with a further 20 planned before 2025.

Yemen: Pakistan-based Reon Energy has won a contract to build a microgrid equipped with a 13.5MW solar power plant and a 5.59MWh battery energy storage system for Arabian Yemen Cement. The energy storage system will employ Reon Energy’s SPARK Intelligent Energy Management product. The supplier said that the project aims to reduce energy costs by 20% and lower CO₂ emissions from Arabian Yemen Cement’s operations.

Arabian Yemen Cement chief executive officer (CEO) Waheeb Al-Azab said "Our partnership with Reon Energy signifies a monumental stride towards sustainable energy practices, enabling us to harness solar power, significantly reduce our carbon footprint and optimise fuel efficiency in our operations."

Reon Energy CEO Mujtaba Khan said "This collaboration marks a significant step in our commitment to delivering practical, efficient solutions, tailored to industry-specific energy challenges. We look forward to driving positive change in the energy landscape of the cement industry with Arabian Yemen Cement."

China: China Resources Building Materials Technology (CRBMT) subsidiary Tianyang Cement has concluded a ‘full-process intelligent cement plant’ pilot at its 2.81Mt/yr Baise cement plant in Guangxi Province. Tianyang Cement said that the pilot entailed an upgrade that has more than doubled Baise cement plant’s production volumes and reduced its CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement by 24%. Tianyang Cement says that automation has reduced the plant’s unplanned shutdowns by 56% and improved product quality.

Belgium: The government of Wallonia and the European Commission’s Just Transition Fund (JTF) have awarded funding to CBR Cement, CCB and Holcim Belgique to support the reduction of CO₂ emissions from Wallonia’s cement plants by 50%. The efforts will focus on renewable energy projects, including the construction of new waste heat recovery (WHR) systems. Alongside two steel plants, the companies will share Euro282m-worth of funding for projects across their four cement plants. The L’Echo newspaper has reported that Wallonia will contribute Euro169m, while the JTF will contribute the remaining Euro177m. The projected cost of planned decarbonisation projects in the Wallonian cement and steel industries is Euro346m. The proposed projects will increase the number of people employed across the sectors by 6.4% to 2773.

Canada: Residents of Exshaw and Lac des Arcs, Alberta, near Lafarge Canada’s Exshaw cement plant, have filed a lawsuit over allegedly increasing dust emissions from the plant. Postmedia Breaking News has reported that law firm Napoli Shkolnik Canada said that dust spills occur ‘regularly.’ The plant’s operations allegedly also blacken snow on the ground in the area and have caused ‘severe’ odours and ‘violent’ tremors.

The Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA) has been cheerleading at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai this week with the release of a progress report on the sector’s work towards reaching net zero by 2050. The headline figures are that net CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious material fell by 23% in 2021 compared to 1990 based on Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) data. Energy efficiency improved by 19% and the fossil fuel component used by the cement sector has fallen to 80% from 98% in 1990. The GCCA has described 2020 - 2030 as the “decade to make it happen” and has set some targets to back this up. Its members intend to reduce CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement by 20% by 2030 compared to 2020 levels and concrete CO₂ emissions per m3 by 25% over the same time-frame.

The new developments for the cement sector at COP28 so far have been the launch of separate but apparently similar initiatives to help decarbonisation through coordination between nations. The Cement Breakthrough Agenda, backed by the government of Canada and other partners, follows the creation of the Breakthrough Agenda at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) whereby designated governments lead so-called ‘Priority Actions’ to decarbonise various sectors. The idea is to collaborate on measures such as policies, regulations and technologies to help reduce the cost of future investment in decarbonisation. The priority actions will be developed in 2023, worked towards in 2024 and then revised on a regular basis thereafter. The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also launched the so-called ‘Climate Club’ on 1 December 2023 to help developing nations invest in technologies to decarbonise sectors such as cement and steel production. The intention is to set up the technical groundwork for a standardised calculation of CO₂ intensity in selected products, such as cement and steel, set definitions on what net zero is for these sectors and then set up a platform to connect countries with funding and technical support from governments and the private sector. Neither the Cement Breakthrough Agenda nor the Climate Club has mentioned funding though.

Additionally, Holcim announced that it had become a founding member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s SMI Circularity Task Force. The group aims to promote the circular economy to the private and public sector. Holcim was keen to point out that it is already recycling nearly 7Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste, with a target of 10Mt/yr pencilled in by 2025.

Other groups are not as upbeat as the GCCA though. The Global Carbon Project, for example, has estimated in its annual Global Carbon Budget that global fossil CO₂ emissions are set to rise by 1.4% year-on-year to 36.8Bnt in 2023. This figure includes both the CO₂ released by cement production and the CO₂ uptake from cement carbonation. Ongoing research by Robbie Andrew, a greenhouse gas emissions scientist at the CICERO Center for Climate Research in Norway and the Global Carbon Project, found that process emissions by the cement sector fell for the first time since 2015 in 2022, to reach 1.61Bnt. This decrease was most likely due to China’s falling cement production in 2022, stemming from a downturn in the local real estate sector. However, both the data from GCCA and the Global Carbon Project may be right simultaneously as they look at the emissions of the cement sector in different ways.

The GCCA’s job is to advocate for the cement and concrete sector and it is presenting itself well at COP28. Since its formation, it has set up roadmaps, encouraged collaboration and innovation, and is now reporting back on its progress. Net zero remains the goal by 2050, but the GCCA is being upfront about the role carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is expected to play after 2030 and the lack of any full-scale CCUS units so far. Yet it is tracking what has happened so far through the Green Cement Technology Tracker in conjunction with Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT).

As for the rest of COP28, various reports have been aired in the international press about whether the conference will call for a formal phase out of fossil fuels in some form or another. Whether it actually happens is another matter entirely, especially considering that the president of COP28 is the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and any eventual language would likely be vague. Yet the work by the GGCA and others has started to make the unthinkable a little more thinkable.

World: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has published its Cement Industry Net Progress Report 2023. The report highlights the work of the GCCA and its members to lower their CO₂ emissions since signing the 2050 Net Zero Roadmap in October 2021. Initiatives include carbon capture and storage, renewables and alternative materials. These strategies have contributed to a 23% decline in cement and concrete’s CO₂ emissions between 1990 and 2023.

GCCA president and Cemex chief executive officer Fernando González said “We are pleased to present this report, which captures the progress our industry is making towards net zero. But it will take the combined efforts of industry, governments and societies around the world to deliver on this commitment.” He added “This is the decade to deliver, and my number one priority is to facilitate the GCCA roadmap levers, designed to make full decarbonisation of our industry possible.”

The Cement Industry Net Progress Report 2023 is available here on the GCCA’s website.

Australia: Western Australia’s environment minister Reece Whitby has questioned the efficacy of tests submitted by Cockburn Cement in relation to its Munster lime plant in May 2023. The tests showed successes in odour reduction during sand feeding at the plant’s Kiln 6. Business News Western Australia has reported that the government and an independent expert have raised ‘areas of concern’ as to whether the trial represents normal operating conditions for the kiln.

David Scaife, who represents Cockburn District in the Western Australia Legislative Assembly, said "My gripe is not with the workers, it is with the senior management and the directors of Cockburn Cement and its owner, Adbri, who have refused to do the right thing either by moving the lime manufacturing operations to its Kwinana facility or at least making the investments necessary to eliminate the odour."