Our popular Global Cement LinkedIn group (now with more than 7777 members) is a great place to get a 'reality check' on the cement industry. A few months ago I posted a simple question, 'What is in the future for alternative fuels (AF) for cement?' and we have had a lot of thoughtful comment back since then.*
Pavel Cech, the VP of industrial ecology for SW& E Asia at Lafarge started off by commenting, "In many plants it is already the case that fossil fuels are just used as a sweetener. The fuel mix will always depend on the market conditions and incentives and on process mastery. If a plant struggles to make good clinker with a conventional fuel mix, then good luck with the complexity brought by the real AF stuff!"
Salahuddin Tariq, another member, countered that "In certain countries they are still using natural gas or crude oil like in Saudi Arabia. In India most of the plants are using coal. Usage of shredded tyres and other such waste will continue to be a small proportion in the fuel mix, while the major fuels will remain as coal, gas and crude/bunker oil." Pavel disagreed, saying "My friend, 20 years from now (perhaps only 10), gas and oil as a fuel in a cement kiln will be long gone. Coal will persist a bit longer, but on the basis of sustainability and competitiveness, the fuel mix we know today will have to change. Look what happened to all those Pink Cadillacs and other gas guzzlers: They are like the dinosaurs. For those who launched AF projects on a simple cost-saving basis, the current low crude oil and coal cost impact will be real tough... They should not give up though, but review the true broader benefits of such initiatives."
I suggested that alternative fuels were only really required in markets that were not sold out, and where producers needed to go all-out to reduce their costs, but David Gossmann of Gossman Consulting disagreed: "I have been hearing for over 30 years that you cannot maximise production while using AF, but time and time again as a plant gains the expertise and understanding of their system that comes with use of AF (and raw materials), production levels increase. Understanding your process and pushing the envelope is part of the AF process and that increases production more than any theory around." He added that sometimes AF gets a bad rap, when the finger of blame should be pointed elsewhere: "When you see a production drop while using alternative fuels look real hard at workers and management inside the plant... if they don't like alternative fuels then that may be the bigger reason for the production drop. I can't tell you the number of times I have investigated these sorts of problems only to find the real issue was completely unrelated to alternative fuels." On the other hand, he added, "Set up a proper quality control programme on the front end and none of those problems should ever happen."
David continued, "The cement industry will get priced out of the market for any 'clean' and 'easy' alternative fuels, but not for those with 'high' levels of ash, metals and other constituents that other combustion systems simply cannot tolerate without huge cost to handle either ash or emissions. The fact that the ash becomes part of the product and that the whole system is a giant acid gas scrubber puts the cement industry in a unique position on AF. That is why cement plants continue to dominate in the use of hazardous waste based AFR materials. We often see cement plants that start burning AF only when something clean and easy comes along, only to lose the business a year or two later. It is the tough stuff that really pays and that will not go away, although it is the tough stuff that demands the best and most reliable quality control system to avoid major problems/incidents. The system we designed for quality control 34 years ago tests everything three times and has largely become the default standard for quality control of hazardous waste fuels in the US and elsewhere."
Ricardo Mosci, CEO of RefrAmerica pointed out that "Waste fuels should be called opportunistic fuels. They extended the lives of old US kilns for many years." However, "Proper burning of combustible wastes requires investment with a calculated rate of return. If you do not invest, everything is left to chance. A cement kiln is not a good place to gamble."
Harry Jongen, director at IC&C brought up the cost of energy: "Every plant using less than 85% AF still has a long way to go, the exception being those countries where the fossil fuels have a very low price - for example €0.25/GJ for natural gas in some Gulf countries compared to €8/GJ in the Netherlands! At that level the fuel cost would be about half of the coal price. As gate fees are shrinking and prices of AF are increasing, cement plants should continuously study new alternative materials to keep a technological advantage." Perhaps coal will one day be considered an alternative fuel? To that end, you may be interested to take a look at www.CemCoal.com.
* Comments have been edited.
