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US: The US Department of Energy (DOE) has recognised Better Plants partner CalPortland for achieving an energy intensity reduction goal of 28% since 2010. As part of DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative, the Better Plants Program works with leading manufacturers and water and wastewater treatment agencies to boost their competitiveness through improvements in energy efficiency. The cement producer was presented with an award for its efforts at the Better Plants conference in late September 2019.
CalPortland used DOE programs and software tools to help identify energy savings and accelerate investment in energy efficiency technologies and practices. Additionally, the company performed DOE in-plant training sessions driving innovation, cost savings, and the sharing of solutions company-wide to reach its target.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team investigate electrochemical process to make clinker 01 October 2019
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.
Fuchs building new materials warehouse in the UK 01 October 2019
UK: Fuchs Lubricants is building a new Euro5.5m raw materials warehouse at its headquarters in Staffordshire. Work on the project started in August 2019 and it is due for completion in the second quarter of 2020. Once completed it will ‘significantly’ increased the amount of raw materials the business can store on-site.
The warehouse will have a capacity of approximately 4000 pallet spaces, with ability for automatic or manual storage place allocation. Two wire-guided driverless Very Narrow Aisle trucks will operate in the unit. Warehouse Control and Warehouse Management Systems will streamline the process, with benefits including goods receipt entry and booking, a paperless put away process, inventory support and batch traceability.
International Cement Group cancels Schwenk Namibia deal 30 September 2019
Namibia: Singapore’s International Cement Group (ICG)’s intended purchase of Schwenk Namibia for US$104m has fallen through. The company stated that it will not buy the subsidiary of Germany’s Schwenk Zement, whose 1.0Mt/yr total integrated capacity consists of Ohorongo Cement’s Walvis Bay plant, over four months ahead of the deal’s long stop date of 31 January 2020. The deal’s deadline had previously been extended from 30 June 2019 following the Singapore Exchange forestalled the deal due to ICG’s inability to pay for the unprofitable company.
Meetings called for Jura Cement quarry expansion debate 30 September 2019
Switzerland: Extraordinary Community Meetings have been scheduled in the municipalities of Veltheim and Auenstein for 22 and 23 January 2020 for further consultations with groups representing opposition to Jura Cement’s Jakobsberg-Egg quarry development plans in both districts. The company is planning a total 10.5ha expansion across both municipalities and an operational change to material processing, beginning in 2022.