Displaying items by tag: GCW106

India: Shree Cement started clinker production at its Bangur City, Ras unit in Pali District in state of Rajasthan on 20 June 2013. The plant has a production capacity of 6000t/day. Shree Cement has eight cement plants in Rajasthan and one grinding unit in Uttrakhand, with a production capacity of 9Mt/yr.

US: Texas-based cement producer Capitol Aggregates Cement is preparing to retrofit a carbon capture plant to its cement plant. The project, in conjunction with Skyonic Corporation, is expected to profitably removal more than 300,000t of CO₂ from the plant's emissions.

"The Capitol SkyMine plant will mark the first time that carbon-negative chemistry has reached the commercial stage," said Joe Jones, founder and CEO of Skyonic. Skyonic Corporation has secured US$128m funding to support the project from new investors Cenovus Energy, BlueCap Partners, Toyo-Thai Corporation and Energy Technology Ventures. The funds will also help support Skyonic's other global projects, research and development and operations expenses. In addition the US Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory will provide US$28m towards the project.

The retrofit plant is expected to directly capture 83,000t of CO₂ from the Capitol Aggregates' emissions. In addition by using this captured CO₂ to make products that would otherwise generate additional CO₂ , the plant will offset an additional 220,000t/yr, once fully operational in 2014. Skyonic is also expected to create more than 200 jobs through the plant's construction and ongoing operations.

Skyonic's electrolytic SkyMine(R) technology will selectively capture CO₂, acid gases and heavy metals from the flue gas and mineralise the captured pollutants into safe, stable, solid products. Skyonic state that their carbon capture process does so at a lower cost than its competitors. The plant is expected to turn a profit from the sale of these products within three years.

Egypt: The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company has signed a contract with Italgen, a subsidiary of global cement producer Italcementi Group, to produce electricity from wind energy. The contract authorises Italgen, which has been studying the possibility of incorporating wind technology since 2008, to become the first private investor to enter the Egyptian National Grid and construct a wind energy park in the area of Gulf El-Zeit, according to a statement.

Electrical energy generated from the wind park will be transmitted to plants run by Suez Cement, another Italcementi subsidiary, and will help in the reduction of CO2 emissions. The first phase in the project will represent an investment of around Euro120-130m. It will equate an installed capacity of 120MW and is expected to cover around 40% of Suez Cement's power needs. After the completion of the second phase, electrical energy is estimated to reach a capacity of 400MW.

US: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fined Ash Grove Cement US$2.5m and is forcing the American cement producer to invest US$30m in pollution controls at its plants in nine US states that are alleged to have violated the Clean Air Act.

The EPA and the US Department of Justice announced the penalty jointly on 19 June 2013. The EPA said that the action would reduce thousands of tonnes of harmful pollutants at plants in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Texas. In addition Ash Grove Cement will spend US$750,000 towards mitigating the effects of past excess emissions.

Ash Grove acknowledged the agreement in a statement and said that it is striving to comply with environmental regulations at all its facilities. It disputes that it violated the Clean Air Act, saying it opted to enter this agreement with federal regulators rather than face rising costs in time and financial resources that would have accompanied further discussions with the EPA.

"The agreement with the EPA will allow Ash Grove to move forward and provide an environmentally sustainable product that is the foundation of our economy," said Charles T Sunderland, the company's chairman and chief executive officer.

The EPA said that its agreement with Ash Grove Cement, lodged on 19 June 2013 in the US District Court for the District of Kansas, is the first settlement with a cement producer that also requires injunctive relief and emission limits for particulate matter, a combination of combustion gasses and fine dust. There is a 30-day public comment period before final court approval.

The US$2.5m penalty will be distributed to eight states and one agency that took part in the agreement: Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Washington and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Ash Grove will also spend US$750,000 on a project to replace old diesel truck engines at its facilities in Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas, estimated to reduce smog-forming nitrogen oxides by approximately 27t/yr.

France: On 20 June 2013 France-based cement producer Vicat announced that it had begun 10 days of trials at its Créchy cement plant in Allier with the aim of producing a new, low-CO₂ type of cement known as ALPENAT®.

The trials, which aim to produce 10,000t of ALPENAT, are a first step towards full industrial production following years of research by Vicat into lower-CO₂ cements. It is claimed that ALPENAT has embodied CO₂ levels that are 30% lower than that of conventional cement.

While Vicat is currently keeping chemical and technical specifics out of the public domain, it reports that ALPENAT achieves its lower CO₂ emissions via two methods. It reports that it has: 1. Reduced the temperature required in the kiln and; 2. Reduced the levels of limestone included in the cement raw mix, which reduces the CO₂ released in the decarbonation step.

In addition to its good environmental credentials, ALPENAT is also presented by Vicat as a high-performance cement. It allows faster setting, an increase in resistance at seven and 28 days compared to OPC in the same strength class (42.5 or 52.5) and improved durability. It has already proven its strength over two years at the Vicat Montalieu cement plant, where a ramp for 100t dumper trucks has been constructed out of concrete made from ALPENAT.

Vicat says that the research that led to ALPENAT was made possible by its focus on research and development, mainly at its Isle d'Abeau laboratories.

The Vicat announcement about ALPENAT comes hot on the heels of trials conducted by Lafarge, which recently presented details of its Aether® cement clinker to the cement industry. This belite-based cement was featured in the May 2013 issue of Global Cement Magazine.