Since accidentally turning on BBC Grandstand at the age of eight, I have been hooked on Formula One (F1). Watching Nigel Mansell breeze to the 1992 World Championship in the dominant Williams FW14B was the perfect introduction for a young lad to this exhillarating sport. The 3.5L V10 Renault engine in the Williams produced 760hp and was one of the most technologically-advanced racing cars ever built.
It's probably fair to say that F1 is a bit of an addiction for me. I have fallen in and out of love with the sport but still feel compelled to keep watching. For some periods the 'racing' has been very bland, with whole seasons lost to dominant teams. (Get well soon Schumi!) There are disputes that take years to resolve and a steady creep to 'new markets' that seem to neither want nor have the money to host this wasteful pastime.
On the other hand, F1 remains the pinnacle of technical racing development and in a quest for improved safety, ever-increasing efficiency and lately a drive towards greener technologies, F1's rule-makers have steadily reduced the levels of 'oomph' in the Formula. In 1994 the engines went from 3.5L V10s to 3.0L V8s. Designers quickly regained the power lost. In 2006 the engine size was taken down further to 2.4L. More recent years have seen kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) to harvest braking energy, rev limiters and limits on the number of engines and gearboxes used. A 150kg/race fuel limit was introduced for the first time in 2013.
In 2014, however, F1's attempt to increase its 'green' credentials and relevance to the road car industry will move to a whole new level. In addition to around six times more energy recovery capability, the engines have been reduced in size again to 1.6L. Turbo chargers will be added to eke out performance. However, reliability is expected to be a problem. One of the hardest new targets to meet is expected to be the new 100kg/race fuel limit.
Combined, these changes will hopefully turn the sport of F1 into a hotbed of development for all types of cars, specifically those on the road. F1 has realised that if it wants to put on races in 2050, public pressure will demand that the show has high environmental standards.
In such an environment, innovation is key. Design one clever system and you have gained some performance (speed); a few clever systems and you will have an advantage; more clever systems and you will be fighting for the World Championship.
Like F1, rule-makers in the cement industry (in the guise of governments in some jurisdictions) have been changing the rules with respect to cement production in the past 20 years, also in the name of environmental protection. The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in the EU means (or should mean) that producers have to become less polluting or pay up. Mercury limits are coming down in the US and NOx, dust and SO2 limits are coming down in many regions.
To counter these changes (and to save money) cement manufacturers have been compelled to turn to efficiency measures. Alternative fuels mean that a plant can recapture some CO2 credits under emissions trading rules, while waste heat recovery (WHR) can recapture heat energy that is otherwise lost to the environment. Meanwhile SCR and SNCR target NOx and better dust controls are being implemented across the board. Install one clever system and you have gained some performance (money); a few clever systems and you have some advantage; more clever systems and you should be making good profits.
However, while the rules that F1 rule-makers are introducing in 2014 will be applied equally to all of the teams, this is not the case in the cement industry. Depending on the location of the plant, different rules apply, putting some at a major disadvantage. In the EU this appears to be coming to an (il)-logical conclusion in cases where plants have to purchase CO2 credits to cover emissions above the ETS cap. The money spent is effectively 'lost' and cannot be invested into environmental abatement technologies, which was the original idea behind implementing the ETS. This means that some plants are stuck in a loop where they spend money on credits every year. With the ETS cap due to decrease, the gap widens and even more must be spent. Carbon leakage has also hit Australia and New Zealand in the past 12 months, with imports from Asia being favoured over long-term investment in integrated facilities.
Is it too much to hope that there will ever be global cement emissions regulations? At the moment, this is far fetched. However, those in the more stringently-regulated jurisdictions can take solace from the fact that there is a movement towards greater regulation in other parts of the world, notably in China and the Middle East.
Only applying environmental rules consistently across the world will give rise to reducing global CO2 emissions. Under these conditions the most viable, efficient and least-polluting cement producers will win out.