Displaying items by tag: CO2

France: Germany-based ThyssenKrupp has won a contract for the installation of a new 4000t/day clinker line at Ciments Calcia’s Airvault cement plant in Poitou-Charentes. The supplier expects the new line to double the plant’s clinker capacity while also reducing its CO2 emissions. It is intended to replace the two existing lines at the site.

ThyssenKrupp will supply a 1200t/hr double-shaft hammer crusher, a longitudinal blending bed, a 370t/hr Quadropol QMR² 45/23 type vertical roller mill and a 10,000t tangential blending silo to process raw materials for the line. A single-string, five-stage Dopol type cyclone preheater with integral calciner will be supplied that is suitable to use with alternative fuels, with the possibility of conversion to oxyfuel in future. ThyssenKrupp plans to preassemble the preheater, reducing anticipated construction time ‘by several months.’ The plant also includes a Polytrack clinker cooler, a solid recovered fuel (SRF) preparation line and dedusting systems. Commissioning is scheduled for mid-2024.

No value for the project has been disclosed by Ciments Calcia or ThyssenKrupp. However, Ciments Calcia previously announced a proposed investment of Euro300m in January 2021.

Belgium: Environmental disclosure organisation CDP has listed Cemex, HeidelbergCement and Holcim among 200 companies on its 2021 Climate Change A List for actions to mitigate their CO2 emissions. Holcim’s Indian subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cements also received A ratings. Both ACC and Ambuja appeared on CDP’s 2021 Water Security A List, while Holcim scored an A-.

Chief executive officer Jan Jenisch said “Building on the launch of our nature-positive strategy this year, we set new and ambitious goals to achieve water security across our operations worldwide, with our colleagues from Ambuja in India leading the way. CDP’s rankings this year are a testimony to the tremendous work carried out by our 70,000 people around the world and a great encouragement for all of us to keep raising the bar.”

India: Dalmia Cement plans to invest US$75.2m in a 2.6Mt/yr expansion to its Bokaro grinding plant in Jharkhand. The company says that the work will increase the plant’s capacity by 70% to 6.3Mt/yr from 3.7Mt/yr. US$33.2m will go towards the installation of new solar power plant. The company will also set up a waste management facility at the site, using US$1.06m of the investment.

Managing director Puneet Dalmia said “As we are further investing in the Eastern India market to participate in its economic growth story, we are also taking our corporate responsibility seriously by placing the utmost importance on environmental protection and social impact. We are confident that the employment generated through our investments and the skill enhancement in our social initiatives will help create a progressive ecosystem where we help people become independent and self-sufficient. We are excited and look forward to partnering with the state to achieve our business, social and sustainability goals.”

India: Udaipur Cement Works has increased its solar power generation capacity by 43% through the installation of a new 4.35MW solar power plant at its Udaipur cement plant in Rajasthan. The 1.4Mt/yr cement plant now has a total solar power capacity of 14.5MW. Udaipur Cement Works says that solar power generated at the plant will reduce it operations’ CO₂ footprint by 14,000t/yr.

India: The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has certified the sustainability claims of Dalmia Cement’s portfolio of blended cements. The portfolio consists of composite cement, Portland pozzolan cement and Portland slag cement. The council employed a full-cycle assessment of the cements’ impacts.

Head of sales, marketing and logstics Sanjay Wali said “We see GreenPro’s accreditation as a milestone in our journey to becoming carbon-negative by 2040. This also reaffirms our blended cement products’ green supremacy, which is accelerating the global transition from a grey to green reality.”

UK: Innovative Ash Solutions has received a Euro588m Scottish government grant to establish a 20,000t/yr ash processing plant in South Lanarkshire. The Herald newpaper has reported that the plant will process boiler ash, cyclone ash and incineration fly ash for use in local cement production. When commissioned in 2022, the plant will eliminate 6104t/yr of CO₂ emissions, according to the operator. The government granted the funding under its Zero Waste Scotland circular economic investment scheme.

The company said “Using this new patented process, which diverts waste materials from landfill and avoids the use of virgin sand, creates a product which is cheaper and will reduce the environmental impact of cement production compared to the use of imported pulverised fuel ash.”

Innovative Ash Solutions is a joint venture of waste management company Levenseat and consultancy Organic Innovative Solutions.

Holcim has announced today that it has concluded the sale of its 75% stake of its Zambian business to Huaxin Cement. Meanwhile, in Tanzania last week, Huaxin Cement officially commissioned a cement grinding line at its Tanzanian Maweni Limestone plant. China produces about half the world’s cement and some its producers are expanding overseas as domestic growth dwindles. These actions and others place increased scrutiny on sustainability issues for Chinese cement producers. Readers therefore may be interested to note the publication last week of a list of the 100 largest Chinese corporate emitters of CO₂ in 2020.

The Chinese Cement Association (CCA) website carries some highlights on the work by from the cement sector’s perspective. China Venture Carbon and Caixin compiled the list of publicly listed companies using a mixture of freely available data such as sustainability reports, by adjusting public data or by making estimates. The companies covered released 4.42Bnt of CO₂ in 2020 or 45% of the Chinese total. The 15 cement firms in the top 100 were responsible for 893Mt of CO₂ or around 9% of the national total. This ratio is in keeping with the usual 5 – 10% share of global CO₂ emissions attributed to cement production.

Graph 1: Global gross CO₂ emissions by large cement companies in 2020. Source: China Venture Carbon/ Caixin, corporate sustainability reports. Note: Includes all reported direct and indirect emissions for all company business lines.

Many of the Chinese cement companies already release sustainability data each year so this data isn’t exactly new. Yet seeing it all in one place like this is illuminating. Unsurprisingly, on the cement side the ranking is a list of producers ordered roughly by production capacity. The world’s biggest cement producer CNBM is also the cement company that emits the most CO₂. It released 255Mt of CO₂ in 2020. If it were a country, for example, it would be around the 20th largest emitter in the world with a similar output to France or Thailand. In China CNBM is then followed by Anhui Conch, BBMG, Tangshan Jidong Cement and China Resources Cement (CRC).

Graph 1 above also includes the total gross CO₂ emissions for other large cement producers outside of China in 2020 for comparison. These figures are estimates compiled from company sustainability reports and they attempt to cover all direct and indirect emissions across all business lines not just cement. Similar to the Chinese list, generally, the less CO₂ a cement company emits on this graph the less cement it produces. It is also worth noting that 2020 was an unusual year given the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Generally this reduced global manufacturing output but there was wide regional variation.

The other interesting point to note from the China Venture Carbon-Caixin project is that they re-ranked their list by carbon emission intensity, measured as emissions as a proportion of revenue. This totally changes the ordering. Where before the 15 cement companies were fairly evenly spaced out amongst power generators, coal producers and petrochemical companies, now all of them are in the top 50. As the CCA notes in its commentary, “The emission intensity of electricity and cement is much higher than that of other industries. The top 30 companies in terms of carbon emission intensity are almost all power and cement companies.” Whilst most of these companies are probably safe for the time being, given their size, what this might mean for smaller Chinese cement companies with high emission intensity in light of the Chinese government’s energy efficiency drives might be seen as worrying.

Promoting gross CO₂ emissions by cement producers is generally avoided by cement producers because it makes them look bad! It prompts an argument with the environmental lobby and doesn’t recognise the essential nature of cementitious building products to society. However, to their credit producers are publishing the data. The preferred metric for the non-Chinese multinationals is specific emissions per tonne of cement as this better shows the hard-work made to reduce emissions. However, this risks a credibility gap from the outside world, if specific emissions go down but total emissions keep rising each year. In the meantime though the more data the better from China and everywhere else.

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies plans to expand its low-CO2 cement’s presence in and beyond France through the establishment of 15 – 20 new licenced plants before 2030. The Les Echos newspaper has reported that the company plans to raise Euro25m, of which it will invest Euro15.7m in international licencing contracts for its technology. In 2026, it expects the contracts to derive 10Mt of its revenues, 7.7% of its target for the year.

Germany: Cemex Zement has partnered with sustainable technology supplier Orcan Energy for the establishment of a waste heat recovery (WHR) plant at its Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg, cement plant. Orcan Energy will supply six generator modules for the installation. When commissioned in mid-2022, the WHR plant will cover part of the plant’s energy consumption. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy contributed 50% of funds for the project.

Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia regional president Sergio Menendez said “Efforts to achieve carbon neutrality at our Rüdersdorf cement plant by 2030 continue apace, and this project to install a WHR system is the latest significant milestone in our journey. It further demonstrates the value of forming expert alliances to investigate and then implement innovative technologies that will ensure the decarbonisation of our operation.”

Philippines: Singapore-based Blueleaf Energy says that it has secured a 20-year solar power supply with Holcim Philippines. The companies have signed a power purchase agreement whereby Blueleaf Energy will finance, build and operate a total of 29MW of solar power infrastructure in Norzagaray, Bulacan, and Bacnotan, La Union. These will supply 15% of the energy requirements of Holcim Philippines’ Bulacan and La Union cement plants respectively. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2024.

Holcim Philippines president and CEO Horia Adrian said “Reducing the carbon footprint of our operations is one of our key sustainability commitments. This year, we have made great progress in this area by stepping up production of blended cements and replacing coal with alternative fuels. Shifting to renewable solar energy will help us further improve as an environment steward and a partner in building progress in the country sustainably.”