Displaying items by tag: US

US: A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have demonstrated an electrochemical process to make clinker in a laboratory. A paper on the work by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, with postdoctoral researcher Leah Ellis, graduate student Andres Badel and others has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

In the new process, pulverised limestone is dissolved in acid at one electrode in an electrolyser and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released in a pure, concentrated stream. Lime is precipitated out as a solid at the other electrode. The lime can then be processed in another step to produce clinker.

Benefits of the new process include potentially substituting fossil fuels with electricity supplied from renewable sources and the production of a pure source of CO₂ that could be captured with less or no scrubbing compared to conventional clinker production.

Germany/US: HeidelbergCement has purchased Giant Resource Recovery’s 1.2Mt/yr integrated Keystone cement plant in Bath, Pennsylvania for US$151m. HeidelbergCement CEO Bernd Scheifele has called the cement plant, which has 90 years’ experience as a supplier to the Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey markets, ‘an excellent strategic addition’ to the company’s North American market presence.

US: The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will host the 6th International LafargeHolcim Awards, North America, in 2020. The awards seek sustainable design in the construction sector and are open for entries until 25 February 2020. Reed Kroloff, Rowe Family Dean of the College of Architecture, IIT, heads the panel of nine judges.

US: Cementos Argos has won its case before the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Spartan Construction accused it of unlawfully selling cement at a lower price to a competing buyer in the US Virgin Islands. Mondaq reports that Argos traded with both Spartan and Heavy Materials on St. Thomas between 2010 and 2013, when Spartan withdrew its ready-mix concrete business from the island. Only the latter received a 10% volume discount. The court found Argos not in violation of competition law due to lack of proof of harm attributable to discriminatory prices.

US: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s 0.9Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Odessa, Texas, will run entirely on wind and solar power. Adpren has reported that the company engaged an unnamed energy provider on a 10-year power purchase agreement for the entirety of its electricity consumption, beginning in July 2022. This will cut 45,000t/yr of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and represents a saving of US$4.6m in energy costs over its period of effect, a saving of 22% annually compared to Grupo Cemento’s current bill.

US: Charah Solutions has been awarded an extension to its contract to provide byproduct sales and material handling operations for Luminant’s Miami Fort Power Plant and Zimmer Power Plant in Ohio. Charah Solutions will continue to manage and market coal combustion products produced by these two units. It currently sells and markets grade Class F fly ash from the two power plants via its materials network to concrete product manufacturers and ready mix concrete producers in the Midwest, Northeast and South regions of the country.

In addition, Charah Solutions will continue all other coal combustion residuals material handling and disposal operations at both locations, including landfill management and byproduct loadout, as well as the operations and maintenance of the plant flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) system at Miami Fort.

US: Nano Graphene has launched a concrete admixture. OG Concrete Admix improves concrete’s water resistance by a factor of four and more than doubles the strength, while significantly reducing cracking.

In GrapheneCA’s promotional material, it mentions a lowered carbon footprint amongst the benefits of its admixture for concrete producers, with less cement being required in the production of concrete using OG Concrete Admix.

US: LafargeHolcim’s plans for a solar power station for its Hagerstown cement plant have stalled, after Washington County denied its contractor Greenbacker Renewable Energy Corp the expected tax break for the project.

A break from personal property tax levied on equipment, of the sort granted to other solar energy projects, would have resulted in taxes of approximately US$1.6m instead of US$2.9m over its 25 years in effect, CommsMEA has reported. The County’s decision hinged on debates over the number of long-term jobs created by the project. Greenbacker previously argued that the long-term job security of LafargeHolcim’s 108 Hagerstown employees was embellished by the move towards improved sustainability and the stabilisation of energy costs.

The motion, proposed by Commissioner Randy Wagner, failed for lack of a second. This followed after a commissioner recused himself from proceedings because, as a financial advisor, he stood to benefit from the project through the investments of his clients.

Ireland: CRH’s revenue for the six months up to 30th June 2019 was Euro13.2bn, up 11% from Euro11.9bn over the same period in 2018, with a 36% increase in EBITDA to Euro1.54bn from Euro1.13bn in the first half of 2018.

In its interim results, CRH attributed increased cement volumes in the US to synergy delivery and strong price realisation in spite of adverse weather conditions in its key markets, noting ‘a strong contribution from our Ash Grove acquisition,’ obtained at the end of June 2018.

A general improvement in cement pricing in the EU28 saw operating profits ahead of the first half of 2018, with increased demand in the French market from non-residential and civil engineering sectors offsetting the effects of reduced residential demand. The UK market reversed this trend, with operating profit behind 2018 due to higher input costs and volume pressure.

In addition to operating profit improvements reported by subsidiary businesses in the Philippines, CRH group benefited from its share in profit after tax of China’s Yatai Building Materials and India’s My Home Industries Limited, both of which enjoyed improved operating profits compared to 2018.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has appointed Libby Pritchard as Director of Construction Materials Safety & Policy in its PCA Government Affairs team. She will also hold the same position in a joint role at the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association.

Previously, Pritchard worked as a social scientist at the National Science Foundation (NSF) responsible for writing briefs highlighting NSF-funded projects for dissemination to US Congress and conducting data analyses. She also worked as the Environmental Services & Land Use Coordinator at Wildish Sand & Gravel and was chair of Oregon Concrete & Aggregate Producers Association ESH Committee from 2017 - 2018. Pritchard holds two Masters of Science degrees in the fields of Geography and Water Resources Policy & Management from Oregon State University.