Displaying items by tag: Ecocem

Egypt: Lafarge Industrial Ecology (Ecocem) has signed two major contracts to manage and operate existing refuse-derived fuel (RDF) platforms in Suez and Qalyubeya in Egypt.

In an effort to continue its efficient waste management processes, the company has signed a year agreement to renovate and upgrade the platforms in Suez and another separate 10-year agreement to manage and operate the existing platforms in Qalyubeya. Lafarge Ecocem has already added a new production line to the Suez platform and plans an additional line within one year of signing its contract with the governorate. The plant will produce 42,000t/yr of RDF and the investment will total US$1.66m.

Ecocem has also already added an extra line to the Qalyubea plant, in addition to renovating one production line. The company's future investments in the governorate will increase the RDF production capacity by 32,000t/yr to 280,000t/yr. Both investments at the Qalyubeya plant were funded by GIZ and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with a total Investment of US$1m.

"In line with our 'Building Egypt 2030' campaign, Lafarge is committed to help solve the issue of waste in Egypt and to continue taking the necessary steps towards sustainable development," said Hussein Mansi, CEO of Lafarge Egypt. "At Lafarge Egypt, we feel it is our responsibility as a leader in building solutions to be the major proponents in waste management and plan to continue finding many opportunities to make a difference."

Building on its waste management strategy, Lafarge Ecocem is committing to several additional long-term contracts with different governorates to help convert municipal solid wastes to alternative fuels. In addition, in March 2015, Lafarge Egypt and Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding S A E signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a waste management framework of municipal and agricultural waste.

Lafarge Egypt and Ecocem have implemented many projects over the past three years in order to increase the use of alternative fuels and aim to achieve an average fuel substitution rate of 25% by the end of 2015. More than 260,000t of waste have been processed and fired in Lafarge's Sokhna plant since 2013, an equivalent of 100,000t of fossil fuels.

Ireland: Ecocem has accused the Irish cement industry of failing to align its CO₂ emissions with the European Union carbon 2050 roadmap. The producer of GGBS (Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag) cement made the comments in a document detailing its response to the Irish government's Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development Bill 2013. The EU carbon roadmap suggests cutting emissions in Europe by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

In its document Ecocem also attacked the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), saying that it provided strong incentives against promoting decarbonisation of the cement sector. It added that a transition to a low-carbon cement and concrete industry could create up to 1200 new jobs within five years.

Ecocem says its product has a carbon footprint of 19kg of CO₂ per tonne of cement, compared with about 750 kg of CO₂ per tonne it says is produced by the traditional Irish cement sector.

Ireland: The chief executive of Ecocem, which has 'green' cement plants in Ireland, France and the Netherlands, has called for an 80% windfall tax on cement manufacturers in Ireland, which are currently making profits from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Donal O'Riain says that the Irish cement sector has lost 75% of the demand seen during the boom years of the mid-2000s and that 'anomalies' between its current output and the ETS mean that the Irish economy is losing out.

It is thought that the over-allocation of carbon credits, which now far exceed production requirements, have cost the Irish exchequer Euro120m since 2005 and could cost double that in the seven years to 2020. The Irish cement industry currently gets tens of millions of Euros every year in 'profits' as a result of the scheme.

Previously, the Irish Department of Finance increased the tax on profits from the sale of the credits, from 12.5% to 30%, by ruling that they have to be taxed as a capital gain rather than at the corporation tax rate. O'Riain said they should be taxed at up to 80%. He said that a system that was designed to encourage cement producers to reduce their CO2 emissions was instead incentivising them to produce CO2 at the public's expense.

O'Riain has called on the Irish government, while it holds the European presidency, to change the rules governing the ETS system. He said one of the effects of the way the system operated was to subsidise those plants using environmentally unfriendly practices. "Every 1t of polluting cement in Ireland is sold with a taxpayer subsidy of 17% of the selling price," said O'Riain.