Water conservation is on the agenda this week with two water-related news stories from the multinational cement producers.
First came a story that Lafarge Canada is preparing to run a trial using waste water from hydraulic fracking at its Brookfield cement plant in Nova Scotia. Currently the plant uses 35ML/yr of fresh water from a nearby lake to control temperatures of its rotary cement kiln. Potentially some of this water could be replaced with water produced during the fracking process. This water would then evaporate and be emitted from the stack.
The background to this pilot project is that the Nova Scotia regional government introduced a two-year moratorium on fracking in 2012 while it reviews the situation. Given the high level of public debate on fracking, any process using waste products from it is going to receive a high level of attention. One of the major arguments against fracking concerns the toxicity of the fluids used. Hence Lafarge stressed in their statement how safe the waste water would be before it would even be used in the plant. Safe enough to drink apparently.
Focusing on the industrial aspects of the pilot for cement production, it will be fascinating to see what effects the fracking waste water might have even just as a coolant on plant equipment. Among other contaminants, fracking waste water often contains high levels of salt. Managing a transition from a fresh water coolant source to a saltier more corrosive one may pose the first of many challenges.
Later in the week Cemex announced the latest stage in its work on water conservation with the implementation of a corporate water policy. The policy aims to focus on resource availability, resource quality, and ecosystem integrity. It continues Cemex's Water Project, developed in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Notably Cemex's water policy aims to maximise efficiency by managing water consumption with increased captured recycled or captured water usage given as an example. How Cemex might use recycled water from a contentious industrial process such as hydraulic fracking is not specified. However, the policy does aim to actively reduce pollution and limit the effects of discharge upon water ecosystems from its operations.
Water policies such as a Cemex's are great for an industry that often has an image problem in the eyes of environmentalists. Linking cement production to fracking runoff will not improve this image. Yet placing science before lobbying is the way to go. Bring on the results of the pilot.
