Displaying items by tag: Netherlands

UAE: Three mill shells for iron ore processing have been constructed and successfully conveyed to Antwerp today by Hoffmeier. From there, they will embark for a productive life in the UAE.

Netherlands: Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) has appointed Remi Le Grand as Regional Sales Director for Max-AI. He will be responsible for the product sales team and business development in Europe. Previously, Le Grand spent six years in sales with BHS-subsidiary Nihot Recycling Technology based in Amsterdam.

The UK waste fuels industry is facing potential challenge from changing Dutch environmental legislation. As part of its new National Climate Agreement the government in the Netherlands is considering imposing a tariff of Euro32/t on imported refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from the start of January 2020. It also wants to add a CO2 tax of Euro30/t on industrial emitters from the start of 2021.

This is bad news for the UK’s waste export market because 1.28Mt or 44% of exported waste fuels from the UK in 2018 went to the Netherlands. The majority of this was RDF. That was more than the next two biggest destinations, Sweden and Germany, combined. Andy Hill of Cynosure Partners summed up the UK situation in the June 2019 issue of Global Cement Magazine when he said, “The UK generates more far more waste than it has landfill, recycling and alternative fuel capacity combined. Quite simply, that’s why the UK exports and has become a leading force in Europe in terms of RDF and solid recovered fuel (SRF) exports.”

Graph 1: International Waste Shipments exported from England, 2011 – 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.

Graph 2: Destinations of English waste fuels exports in 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.

Waste management companies and their representative associations on both sides of the North Sea are not taking this terribly well. Robert Corijn, chair of the RDF Industry Group, a European waste organisation, summed up his members response by pointing out both the environmental cost of the new legislation and the risk to jobs in the UK. “RDF export forms a vital and flexible part of the UK’s waste management system, supporting over 6800 additional jobs in the UK, and saving over 0.7Mt/yr CO₂e emissions.” Robert Loos of the Dutch Waste Management Association made a similar response questioning what exactly the Dutch government was attempting to achieve.

Steve Burton, one of the directors of UK-fuels producer Andusia, went further by saying that the Dutch had proposed the move on environmental grounds because it has an incineration capacity of 8Mt/yr but produces only 6Mt/yr of waste. “So they think that by setting a tax it will significantly curtail how much gets incinerated in the Netherlands and thus produce less CO₂. All very sensible if you consider CO₂ in isolation in your own country. However, the Dutch Government aren’t looking at the bigger picture…” He then went on to point out that the RDF would then either get burnt elsewhere or landfilled resulting in no overall CO₂ emissions reduction. His further assessment, which you can read here, goes on to speculate amongst other things that Dutch Energy for Waste (EFW) plants could end up having to cut their gate fees by more than the import tariff in order to keep running. The state-owned EFW plants would then made a loss for the tax payers until the market stabilised. It should be noted that the data from the Environment Agency indicates that Andusia exported just under 38,000t of RDF to the Netherlands in 2018.

The more prickly issues of using waste fuels may prove tricky for Dutch legislators. Corijn’s distinction above of using CO₂e for the savings from RDF usage is important in this argument since burning RDF and alternative fuels, either for generating energy or making cement, still releases CO₂. In the European Union (EU) it’s the biomass fraction of RDF that’s important for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the like because biomass emissions are counted as carbon-neutral. Remove this effect and the benefit of waste fuels are more to do with the waste hierarchy and reusing materials rather than leaving them to rot and release methane, a gas with a more potent global warming effect than CO₂. Despite this, at face value, importing rubbish and then burning it to release yet more unwanted CO₂ may seem nonsensical to the parliamentarians. Perhaps the other thing they should consider is that waste-derived fuels are manufactured products to set specifications. On-going arguments around the world about the developed world ‘exporting its rubbish’ frequently ignore this point.

Since the new Dutch National Climate Agreement is currently at the proposal stage it has a long way to go before it becomes law. First it has to be turned into legislation and then this has to be approved by the Dutch Parliament. As indicated so far the waste management industry will continue to fight its corner with vigour.

Netherlands: Holcim Nederland Bouwmaterialen has recevied certification from the Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) for its five concrete plants. The certification process was handled by Kiwa Netherlands.

US: The Netherlands Verder Group has entered into an agreement to acquire US-based Microtrac and Japan’s MicrotracBEL from Nikkiso. Verder's Scientific Division will extend its product portfolio with product lines for particle characterisation by laser diffraction, dynamic light scattering and surface analysis.

“With Microtrac and MicrotracBEL two technological leaders in particle and surface analysis are united under the roof of Verder Scientific. We look forward to welcoming the Microtrac and MicrotracBEL teams to our group. Both companies will have access to additional resources to push international expansion and extend its innovative product range”, said Jürgen Pankratz, chief executive officer (CEO) of Verder Scientific.

Microtrac is a manufacturer of instruments for particle analysis that use laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering technologies. The instruments are used both for industrial applications and material research. Microtrac has two units in the US at Montgomeryville and York in Pennsylvania

MicrotracBEL is a manufacturer of instruments for surface area and porosity analysis applying adsorption technologies. The instruments are used in research intense fields for particle characterisation. MicrotracBEL has three units in Japan based in Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya.

Microtrac and MicrotracBEL will maintain their headquarters in the US and Japan respectively and these locations will also be used to support further expansion of the Verder Group. The existing Mictrotrac and MicrotracBEL management team will continue to be in charge. No value for the transaction has been disclosed.

Netherlands: Ferus Smit has launched MV Shetland at its Westerbroek Yard. The 8000DWT vessel is the third dedicated cement carrier built for JT Cement, a joint venture between Sweden’s Erik Thun and Norway’s Jebsen Cement.

The ship is equipped with a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled propulsion system to reduce its emissions. It incorporates a 200m³ pressurised LNG tank positioned in the foreship. The cement cargo system will consist of a fully automated cement loading and unloading system, based on fluidisation of cement by means of compressed air.

Netherlands: Malvern Panalytical has launched a next version of Epsilon 1 X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer. The upgrade has reduced the product’s size to 0.15m². Its precision has been improved by integrating a high-power X-ray tube and a new detector.

“With the new generation of our compact Epsilon 1 benchtop XRF spectrometers, you can take a small yet powerful lab directly to your sample for fast product screening and process control”, said Lieven Kempenaers, Malvern Panalytical Product Manager for benchtop XRF systems.

The Epsilon 1 product is available in a number of versions tailored for difference applications. The Epsilon 1 Lube Oil delivers ASTM 6481-compliant elemental analysis of unused lubricating oils; the Epsilon 1 Sulfur in Fuels quantifies sulphur content in fuels according to ASTM D4294-10 and ISO 20847; the Epsilon 1 Academia enables characterisation of unidentified samples, using Omnian software for standardless analysis; and the integrated camera in the Epsilon 1 for Small Spot Analysis simplifies the investigation of very small objects, inclusions or inhomogeneities.

Netherlands: LafargeHolcim has been awarded a contract for the renovation of the Afsluitdijk, a sea defence infrastructure projects. The building materials company will use its Holcim Basalton Quattroblock concrete product to cover around 700,000m² of the 32km long dam. In addition, LafargeHolcim has developed a logistics plan where materials are delivered by sea to avoid additional traffic on the dam. The total construction costs for the project is around Euro550m.

To support the project, LafargeHolcim is also investing in the expansion of its Dutch concrete products plant that is part of its Solutions & Products segment. When completed later in 2019, the expanded plant will be able to produce 1000t/day of concrete Quattroblocks for customers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

The Afsluitdijk upgrade is intended to enable the dyke to withstand a one in 10,000 year storm as well as provide protection against rising sea water levels. The project is led by the Levvel consortium comprising BAM, Van Oord and Rebel. Construction started at the end of 2018 and it is scheduled for completion in 2023.

Netherlands: Van Aalst says that NACC Alicudi is the world’s first cement carrier equipped with International Maritime Organization (IMO) Tier III compliant diesel engines driving the bulk handling system. Converted in 2017 with a Van Aalst dry bulk handling system, the vessel became a 120m self-discharging cement carrier, with a cement handling system based on compressors and vacuum pumps, driven by Tier III Scania engines. This has created a ‘unique’ vacuum-pressure system for pneumatic conveyance of cement, fly ash and granulated slag.

Directly after completion of the conversion, the NACC Alicudi entered the trade for a three-year contract on the east coast of the US and Canada, an area that has been a NOx Emission Control Area (ECA) for new built and converted vessels since January 2016. Van Aalst says that this approach fits well with the environmental policies of both NovaAlgoma Cement Carriers and McInnis Cement. The high emission standards of the vessel will enable a shift to the US Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

Netherlands: The Damen shipyard at Oranjewerf in Amsterdam has upgraded the cement carrying capacity of the Lelie C owned by Cebo Marine. Eight new cement silos, with a capacity of 40m³ each, have been installed on the vessel alongside general maintenance.

The silos were previously fitted on the VOS Symphony prior to it going for scrap. Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf removed the tanks, refurbished them and then installed them on board the Lelie C. The shipyard also built a silo foundation and fitted it in the vessel’s hold. 80m of stiffeners were welded into place in the double bottom tanks to provide the necessary support. Alongside this, approximately 100m² of grating walkway was fabricated and fitted on the deck to give access to the manifolds on each of the new silos. The supply and discharge and air pipe system for the two existing silos was also refurbished to accommodate the new capacity.

“Two years ago we installed the original tanks from the Ritske, a vessel belonging to the same client, and now we have repeated the process again, this time on a much larger scale. The Lelie C began her life as a general cargo vessel, but now her transformation into a cement carrier is complete,” said Jeen van der Werf, Commercial Manager at Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf.