Displaying items by tag: Emissions

Spain: The Catalonia government has received a court order to close down LafargeHolcim España’s Montcada i Reixac cement plant in Barcelona. The Spanish Collection newspaper has reported that the plant failed to conform to new environmental regulations. LafargeHolcim España has appealed the decision.

The Montcada i Reixac plant currently employs 300 people. A union involved in the issue said that the alleged breach is formal rather than substantive and that an administrative error by the regional government caused the plant to breach the regulations.

China: Hebei province will screen out a total of 1000 existing factories for replacement with less-polluting alternatives under the Chinese government’s 14th Five Year Plan, which covers the period up to the end of 2025. The Xinhua News Agency has reported that factories, including cement plants, will undergo upgrades in order to conform to the plan’s emissions restrictions or close down. The province currently has a total of 233 green factories. Under the 13th Five Year Plan, which concluded in 2020, it reduced its installed cement production capacity by 12Mt/yr.

Germany: Flender has launched the construction of a new 8000m² storehouse at its Voerde, North Rhine-Westphalia, logistics centre. Along with the lease of an additional building from project developer Panattoni, the project will expand Flender’s total storage footprint by 19,000m². The supplier says that the new facilities will reduce the Voerde centre’s CO₂ by optimising its transport routes.

Flender CEO Andreas Evertz said "I am very happy that the expansion of our site in Voerde will allow us to centralise our logistics activities, bringing us another step closer to our goal of operating in a completely carbon neutral fashion by 2030. With the new warehouse space, we are making our logistics processes sustainable and thus reducing a significant part of the previous transport routes and the associated CO₂ emissions.”

France: Germany-based ThyssenKrupp has won a contract for the installation of a new 4000t/day clinker line at Ciments Calcia’s Airvault cement plant in Poitou-Charentes. The supplier expects the new line to double the plant’s clinker capacity while also reducing its CO2 emissions. It is intended to replace the two existing lines at the site.

ThyssenKrupp will supply a 1200t/hr double-shaft hammer crusher, a longitudinal blending bed, a 370t/hr Quadropol QMR² 45/23 type vertical roller mill and a 10,000t tangential blending silo to process raw materials for the line. A single-string, five-stage Dopol type cyclone preheater with integral calciner will be supplied that is suitable to use with alternative fuels, with the possibility of conversion to oxyfuel in future. ThyssenKrupp plans to preassemble the preheater, reducing anticipated construction time ‘by several months.’ The plant also includes a Polytrack clinker cooler, a solid recovered fuel (SRF) preparation line and dedusting systems. Commissioning is scheduled for mid-2024.

No value for the project has been disclosed by Ciments Calcia or ThyssenKrupp. However, Ciments Calcia previously announced a proposed investment of Euro300m in January 2021.

US: The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has fined Lehigh Cement’s Mason City plant in Iowa US$198,000 for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The agency alleges that the company exceeded Clean Air Act emissions limits, failed to submit required reports to the state and failed to conduct required testing of equipment. The EPA also determined that air pollution from the facility may affect nearby overburdened communities. Under the terms of the settlement with the EPA, Lehigh Cement is required to conduct additional air emissions testing to demonstrate ongoing compliance with the Clean Air Act.

US: Inhabitants of Ravena, New York, have reported a ‘gritty, sticky, dusty’ residue in areas of the town to mayor Bill Misuraca. The residents described the apparent dust spill as ‘more stubborn to remove’ than on previous occasions.

LafargeHolcim US, which operates the Ravena cement plant in the town, contacted the mayor about the issue, stating “We take all concerns and complains about the plant very seriously and aim to operate in a manner that causes zero harm to employees, contractors, customers, and most of all, local residents, in keeping with our core values.” It added "The plant will be working with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to collect data on the type and source of these materials."

Canada: St Mary’s Cement plans to apply for a licence to substitute alternative fuel (AF) for a part of its coal, gas and petcoke fuel mix. The plant previously held a two-week AF substitution trial in May 2011. CBC News has reported that the subsidiary of Votorantim Cimentos will present its plan at an evening meeting for the general public on 18 November 2021. The company says that it plans to implement similar AF arrangements to those at its Bowmanville plant, where it uses 90,000t/yr of biomass, wood from construction and demolition and non-recyclable paper and plastics.

Environmental manager Ruben Plaza said "Lower CO₂ emissions is the first consideration and, equally as important, the material has to be approved and available in sufficient quantities with a reliable and sustainable long-term supply."

Pakistan: Members of the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) plan to reduce the CO2 emissions from their cement production. The Business Recorder newspaper has reported that companies will take three routes to emissions reduction while continuing to meet increased demand. These are to increase the efficient use of materials, increase energy efficiency and employ new technologies to capture or eliminate emissions.

President Muhammad Ali Tabba said "In a bid to achieve green growth going forward, the cement industry globally will have to adapt to climate change challenges and rework business models to ensure environmental stewardship and robust growth. The cement industry in Pakistan is committed to playing its role."

World: Three cement producers - Cemex, Dalmia Cement and Holcim – are founding members of COP26’s First Movers Coalition public-private partnership. The partnership plans to use its global purchasing power to create markets for emerging CO₂ emissions reduction technologies, in order to accelerate and scale collective impact towards the global realisation of emissions reduction targets.

The coalition expects technologies currently on the market to account for 82% of CO₂ emissions reduction before 2030 and 50% before 2050, while it expects future technologies to account for 15% before 2030 and 46% before 2050.

Germany: Cemex Zement’s Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg, cement plant is to host a new 100t/day carbon capture installation. Cemex Zement will collaborate with UK-based Carbon Clean on a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the project. The system will combine captured CO₂ with sustainably sourced hydrogen in order to produce green synthetic hydrocarbons. The partners aim to increase the system’s CO₂ capture capacity to 300t/day by 2026, before finally scaling it up to 2000t/day.

Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia regional president Sergio Menendez said “This project with Carbon Clean is the latest development in Cemex’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality at the Rüdersdorf cement plant by 2030, through our pioneering carbon neutral alliance with expert industrial consortiums. Carbon capture will play a fundamental role in the efforts to succeed at this goal and ensure our operations are more sustainable.”