According to government advisors cement producers pay more in the UK than other nations for their electricity and it's getting worse.
A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report published on Friday 13 July 2012 has shown that firms in the UK will be forced to pay an extra Euro36 in green taxes on top of the market price they pay for every megawatt hour of electricity by 2020 due to climate policies. This compares with Euro22 in Germany, Euro20 in Denmark, Euro19.3 in France and Euro12.7 in China.
As the Mineral Products Association (MPA) put it, "...cement is an internationally traded commodity and, if it costs more to make it here than to import it, then we are threatening a strategic indigenous manufacturing industry for no environmental gain." Or to put it more bluntly, if the cost of importing cement from France to the UK is less than the energy saving then say 'goodbye' to the UK cement industry. The issue raises one of the core problem of any carbon tax in a global economy. If your neighbours don't have the same tax as you then they can undercut you. Similar arguments rage in Australia and the US.
The UK will be the first country with legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020, with a pledge to introduce a carbon floor price of Euro19.98/t in 2013. As Edwin Trout explained in his recent article in Global Cement Magazine on the British Cement Industry in 2011 and 2012 the government took steps to address this in November 2011 with a Euro318m package for energy-intensive industries. Unfortunately as the MPA has now pointed out, the cement industry is ineligible for the first Euro140m of this package because the EU has ruled against such support for the sector in relation to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Unsurprisingly alternative fuels trials are thriving in the UK, such as that at Lafarge UK's Aberthaw plant, which celebrates 100 years of operation this weekend.
