17th Global CemFuels Conference 2024
18 - 19 September 2024
The 17th Global CemFuels Conference has taken place in Dublin, with 175 delegates from 33 countries, 30 exhibitors, 22 alternative fuels presentations and more than 12 hours of networking time. The 18th CemFuels Conference will take place in September 2025 in Milan.
Note - this is a draft write-up, which will be edited in the coming days.
Before the conference started, a one-day ‘introduction to alternative fuels short course was given by staff from Alterline. At the conference itself, a major exhibition was staged, with 30 companies representing all aspects of alternative fuels technology.
Day 1
Filipa Rôlo of Cimpor Global Holdings was the first keynote speaker, and gave delegates details of how the Souselas plant in Portugal rose to a thermal substitution rate (TSR) of 65%. The plant has a single operating SLC-D (separate line calciner-down draft) FLSmidth pyroprocessing system, and started using alternative fuels (AF) in 2009, achieving 43% TSR in 2023. One third of the AF is fed to the kiln in the firm of refused-derived fuels (RDF) and liquid AF, with two-thirds of the AF in the form of RDF being fed to the precalciner. A belt drier is used for wet RDF, reducing moisture from 40% to 15%. Improvements to increase the TSR include a preheater modification (riser duct restriction, leading to higher kiln operational stability), an ESP fan rotor diameter increase (leading to an increase in TSR of 1.5%), a bypass installation (to decrease the chlorine content of the hot meal and to reduce cyclone blockages, and which led to a TSR increase of 10%) and a new kiln burner with a satellite burner for solid AFs (installed in February 2024). The TSR is currently limited by permit, to 5t/hour, whereas the new burner can burn 7t/hr. The permit is shortly to be updated. There will also be a new installation for the reception, storage, transportation and preparation of alternative fuels.
Michele Graffigna of Heidelberg Materials next gave an introduction to the company’s decarbonisation plans: including a specific reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 1990 of 47% per tonne of cementitious material by 2030. HM has a TSR of around 30% globally, consisting of around 50% SRF/RDF, 15% tyres, 15% biomass, and the rest being solvents, waste oil and others. The company uses a variety of different technologies to optimise TSR, and is also prioritising the safety aspects of AF use. Further focus is on increasing the quality of SRF being supplied to the main burner, and reducing the proportion of ‘3D’ components which take longer to burn out. The company will increase the use of satellite burners to optimise AF burnout, and will use eddy-current separators to remove aluminium from the AF stream.
Paulo Mazzei, chief business development officer of FCT Combustion, next spoke about the diverse strategies that can be used for cost-effective decarbonisation of cement, including the use of calcined clays, AF and hydrogen. Paulo pointed out that using AF should not reduce production rates, nor upset kiln conditions, while at the same time reducing NOx to as low a level as possible. FCT has optimised the design of its burners, including with the use of ‘lofting air’ to increase turbulence to optimise AF burnout. FCT also offers solutions for clay calcination, which can be used with other supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as slag and ash, and finely ground limestone, to produce very-low-CO2 cements. The clay is calcined at a temperature of around 550-780°C, and temperature control is crucial to avoid over-burning. FCT offers a rotary kiln burner, as well as a the ‘FlashCalx’ flash calciner. Paulo suggested that there are few technical issues with burning hydrogen as an alternative fuel, with the main problem being cost and the current availability of ‘green’ hydrogen. FCT’s burners are already equipped to burn hydrogen, ready for when clean and affordable hydrogen becomes available.
Panu Ärölä of Tana Oy next gave details of Finalnd’s tyre recycling landscape: 85% of collected tyres go for construction materials, primarily for road building, with the rest going to the cement industry for combined energy and iron input, and with tyre derived fuel (TDF) offering a calorific value (CV) that is 25% higher than coal. Tana offers a single-pass diesel or electric shredding solution which provides clean cuts, meaning that the resulting particles are less likely to enmesh and to clog, while at the same time allowing separation of steel from tyres for further resale.
Pietro Cella of Entsorga, in his 15th attendance at the CemFuels conference, gave some details of a case study at Tasca, comparing a bridge crane with reclaimer boxes for alternative fuels. Entsorga has used a range of technologies to turn unsorted municipal solid waste (MSW) into solid recovered fuel (SRF) of much higher calorific (and monetary) value. A good AF storage and feeding plant should be flexible, automated, robust and reliable, resistant to corrosion, safe, and designed to avoid and/or deal with fire hazards. Odours must be controlled. Pietro suggested that storage halls with automated cranes offer large storage capacity, ability to store different AF materials, can be equipped with fully-automatic systems, have low maintenance and have strong odour control, with high value for money, albeit with a large footprint. Fire control can be effected with foam blanketing of AF.
Tim Hamer of Vecoplan spoke about new multi-purpose shredding solutions for AF. The simplest option is to use a single-step shredder, for up to 20t/hr, down to 50mm particle size. One step up is a two-step shredding with a wind-sifter, using a preshred and a reshred process. Two separate reshredders may be used to increase capacity, while non-ferrous and high-chlorine separation steps may be used to increase capacity and quality of the resultant materials. The new VEZ 3300 shredder features a frequency-controlled 355kW high-torque ‘HiTorc’ motor without gearbox, allowing start-up with a full machine, but with high electrical efficiency. A new development is an automatically-adjustable hydraulically-driven counter-knife bar.
Luc Reibel of Walter Materials Handling then spoke about technologies for dosing coarse AF, specifically the use of automatic cranes. Anti-sway control allows smooth acceleration and deceleration of grab cranes, improving cycle-times and increasing capacity and throughput. Energy regeneration is also used to reduce the electrical consumption of the system. A real-time SCADA-based, automatic inventory system allows first-in first-out stock control. A twin ‘Doseahorse’ feeder can be used to feed two separate lines from a single AF store. Double airlock values, for up to 500m3 per hour, can be used for final dosing of AF.
Laurent Desroches presented Veolia for the first time at the conference, pointing out that the company has 220,000 employees worldwide, in 58 countries, and a revenue of over Euro43bn each year. The company produces AF in north and South America, throughout Europe, in Morocco and in Türkiye, in Japan and in Australia, with 530,000t of AF going to the cement industry, of which 350,000t is in Europe. The company produces fuels using MSW, commercial and industrial by products, sorting residues, furniture materials, wood byproduct materials, sludges, tyres and hazardous wastes including oils and solvents. The company operates around 30 SRF production sites around the world. Laurent mentioned that the company increasingly removes plastics from burnable fuels, due to EU regulations, in order to decarbonise incineration, and to promote chemical recycling, even though this typically reduces the calorific value of the SRF. Laurent mentioned that mature markets, no new feedstocks and high competition means a very ‘tense’ market with volatile prices. By 2030, only 10% of the ‘waste’ produced in the EU will be allowed to be landfilled, so there may be an increase in material flows towards the circular economy, including to AF for cement and lime. He pointed out that a number of factors have conspired to reduce the price of EU ETS credits, including decreasing gas prices, relatively warm weather in Europe, reduction in nuclear power and increasing amount of renewable power. The low penalty cost of carbon emission may reduce the speed of industry decarbonisation.
Kåre Helge Karstensen of SINTEF, the Norwegian research organisation, next spoke about the role of the cement industry in co-processing non-recyclable plastic waste. Over 8Bnt of plastics have been produced since the 1950s, with around 6Bnt still in the situation of ‘waste.’ Norway made the decision more than 30 years ago to use only cement kilns for waste disposal, rather than to use incinerators, so that it has a long history of co-processing. China, Vietnam, Thailand, India and the Philippines produce over 200,00t of plastic waste per day, but the TSR of Asian cement plants is probably less than 3%. Kåre pointed out that a new international agreement will be signed in 2024 to reduce plastic pollution, albeit with some signatories against cement kiln co-processing. He countered by saying that plastic use as fuel for cement represents a complete and final disposal solution, with no residues, no hazardous emissions, offers efficient energy recovery, reduction of fossil fuel usage, reduction of CO2 emissions and cost efficiency. Thailand alone has around 190Mt of plastic waste in 2500 dump sites, which are starting to be mined for non-recyclable plastics for fuel. Interestingly, one Indian cement plant uses waste-derived fuels to generate up to 50MW of energy for the plant. He suggested that the cost of processing and utilising waste in the cement industry is around US$25/t, compared to around US$62/t for incineration solutions.
Luigi Di Matteo of the Di Matteo Group, “A German company with an Italian name,” as Luigi put it, introduced his company’s solutions for unloading, processing, storage, conveying, dosing and feeding of alternative fuels for the cement industry. Luigi mentioned the AirSep air separator, which is used for disagglomeration and separation of AF particles, increasing quality and burnability, and rejecting non-combustibles.
Lars Jennissen of the N+P Group asked how we can still get high quality alternative fuels in the light of changing waste availabilities and waste qualities. More plastics are being taken out of waste, affecting CVs, while more processing capacity is coming on stream. More consumers are coming to the market - waste to chemicals for example - particularly for biomass, and this is distorting existing markets. MSW waste-splitting technology can be used to generate paper and plastic feedstock, and an organic fines fraction. Another fraction can be derived from MSW fines, in the form of ‘bio fibre.’ N+P produces ‘SubCoal’ hygroscopic and transportable pellets, and quality is of paramount importance, with increasingly sophisticated equipment being applied to the process, including the use of AI. The pellets are then easily milled to produce very fine and easily burnable AF, with less than 2% moisture content.
CemFuels Awards dinner
At the end of the first day of the conference, delegates were transported to The Merry Ploughboy pub for an evening of Guinness, hearty food and traditional Irish music, after which the CemFuels Awards were presented following a global online voting process.
Mannock and its new FuelFlex pyrolyser from FLSmidth was awarded the prize for ‘best AF project,’ while Irish Cement was awarded ‘AF user of the year.’ N+P won ‘best AF supplier’ for the fifth time, and delegates from Molinari were delighted to win the ‘most innovative technology for AF use’ award, for the MT-series ‘hollow-rotor’ single-shaft shredder. Alterline won the award for ‘outstanding contribution to the promotion of alternative fuels.’
A number of people were recognised for their contribution to the world of alternative fuels for cement, with the award of the Global CemFuels ‘Personality of the Year’ - including Matthias Schumacher of aixprocess GmbH, Clelia Di Matteo of Di Matteo Group, Marco Egger of Lindner -Recyclingtech and Giuseppina Carnimeo of Ecopneus Scpa. In addition, Paul Brown of Global Cement and CemFuels was recognised for his huge contribution to the sector over many years. Finally, the location of the CemFuels conference in 2025 was announced as Milan, to general acclaim. All agreed that the night out had been a roaring success.
Day Two
At the start of the second day, Beumer’s Jan Tuma spoke about his company’s ‘real case studies’ in the alternative fuels sector. The first was from a UK cement plant, in which 25t/hr of coarse fuel is fed to the calciner. Completed in 2023, Beumer’s scope of supply included a BG OptiFeed gravimetric unloading station, with gravimetric screw conveyor technology and a U-belt conveyor. An automated overhead crane takes material from two bays and feeds it to the BG OptiFeed, which is 4m in diameter. The material - with a mean density of 100kg/m3, an average moisture of <30% and average size of 125mm (3D) by 300mm (2D) - is then transported over a distance of 100m at a height of up to 22.8m over a road, after which it is fed to the calciner. Tuma said that one particular challenge of the project was to find an appropriate feeding point in the calciner, a very congested area of the plant. Tuma also described the use of the BG OptiFeed in case-studies from Poland, Iraq and Lithuania. In Lithuania, a cement plant wanted to start feeding alternative fuels to its main burner. The project, completed in the summer of 2024, comprises two hoppers for front loaders, a chain belt conveyor, star screen and pipe conveyor. The system feeds material with an average density of 150kg/m3, an average moisture content of <15% and an average size of 25mm (3D) and 50mm (2D).
RUNI’s Torben Dysager started his presentation by pointing out that many countries have little to no municipal solid waste (MSW) sorting facilities. In countries where MSW sorting in its infancy, simple screening and sorting often result in materials that are not suitable as alternative fuels. Dysager outlined that, in Thailand, screened sorted MSW can have a moisture content of at least 50%. This can be reduced to around 36% by spreading it thinly in storage facilities and rotating the material over a period of seven days. Wood-fired drums can be used to reduce moisture levels to 28%, but they consume significant fuel and emit CO2. Instead, RUNI’s screw presses can be used to reduce moisture from 50% to 32% without any heating. Dysager presented a very recent Thai case-study - from August 2024 - that produced sufficiently calorific alternative fuels. As one screw press can produce 5-6t/hr it is common for dual or quadruple machines to be supplied. To illustrate this point, Dysager showed images from an OYAK Cement in Türkiye, which had installed four RUNI screw presses in 2022 and added two more in a subsequent extension. A video from the plant showed water dripping from the underneath of the screw press like rain.Dysager also discussed the dewatering of paper recycling rejects as a potential alternative fuel available around the world.
Olaf Michelswirth, Intercem Engineering GmbH presented two case studies at the Solnhofen Portland Cement Plant in Bavaria, Germany and of an European Customer with a project in progress respectively. At Solnhofen he described a truck receiving station and dosing unit for AF for the feeding of the rotary kiln at the plant with the aim of increasing the rate of AF into the rotary kiln, the flexible feeding of the individual qualities and the homogenization by weighing of each individual fuel of the total output of the fuel calorific values. Feeding very small quantities of two types of pulverised coal with a wide variety of alternative fuels allowed the plant to increase its TSR from 60 - 65% to 90 - 95%. During audience questions Michelswirth noted that the plant already had a bypass system in place and was using high-quality AF to support the high TSR. For the unnamed European customer the objective has been to reduce the CO2 emissions from an existing plant with four rotary kilns. Intercem Engineering’s role has been to engineer, supply, and install a new AF unit at the site to receive, store and dose ‘fluff.’ At the time of the presentation commissioning is expected to start shortly. The project comprises a truck receiving station, an AF storing facility with automatic retention, an AF screen tower, a transfer tower, an air-supported belt conveyor and a dosing tower with dosing units. When asked where demand for AF engineering projects were greatest in the world Michelswirth said ‘Asia’ where his company is starting to work on various projects. Meanwhile in Europe the challenge is working on optimising the final 5% of TSR.
Alexander Sharabaroff, International Finance Corporation discussed how his organisation has been supporting the cement sector’s drive towards net zero through its IFC Cement Decarbonization Tool. It is intended to support companies at the plant level by identifying decarbonisation opportunities and eventually facilitating sustainable finance. Typically the IPF aims to support projects above US$40m. This finance is dependent on whether a project is so-called ‘Paris-aligned.’ The tool itself has been in development for about two years. It is an spreadsheet-based model that requires local operational data from a cement plant. It estimates scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and allows for the selection of up to five decarbonisation measures: AF; power mix; blended cement; waste heat recovery; and select equipment configuration. It then determines CAPEX and payback estimates. For AF the tool models coal, petcoke, wood, tire fluff, pecans, RDF, HFO, natural gas and hydrogen. However, additional AFs can be added if a chemical analysis is supplied. Analysis of the data by the tool takes up to four weeks but can be much shorter. The IFC presents its findings in the form or a presentation and report that provides a techno-financial viability analysis. The tool has been validated by the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA) who were hired by the IFC to review and validate the tool. The tool has been deployed to two clients - one in the Middle East and one in Latin America – with different sizes in the market. The IFC is expecting considerable demand for the tool but may ration its usage to support its own decarbonisation goals. Finally, the IFC is looking to give the IFC Cement Decarbonization Tool a new name and any suggestions are welcome!
After lunch Michael Frank O'Grady, Breedon Cement and Joana Bretz, Trie presented a case study of how the two companies had tackled AF-exacerbated kiln ball challenges at the Kinnegad cement plant. Kiln balls can potentially cause considerable damage to a cement plant. The classical approach is to place a cement plant on an AR vs SR graph. However, Breedon Cement’s Kinnegad plant has struggled with kiln balls since production started in the early 200s and they have become more prominent since the AF TSR rate started to rise above 60%. The plant had a period of three months during which there were 52 incidences of kiln balls occurrence.
Bretz then explained that kiln balls can be caused by both combustion and raw materials chemistry. Her company, Trie, previously helped a company in Australia with kiln balls. It uses CFD modelling augmented by its own machine learning model. For the Breedon project Trie carried out a base case and five models. For the model (WI3) examined in the presentation, Trie fed the meal to the top of the calciner, included an old SRF injection system and reduced the cold air inlet flowrates. The modelling showed in the base case that not all of the RDF was not burning completely. With the new model the pant was able to significantly reduce its SNCR usage and there was a 25% NOx reduction. The new model reduced kiln ball formation because it improved combustion in the kiln and showed that buildups of TiO2 above 0.5% on XRD analysis increase the likelihood of kiln balls appearing. In conclusion Bretz warned that following the received wisdom of what causes kiln balls doesn’t always explain why they might form as the study showed. O'Grady added that work on the issue at the plant is still in progress.
Stéphane Poellaer and Michael Hinkel, Alterline then addressed a list of frequently asked questions about using alternative fuels in cement production. What is the quality required for AF? In the main burner the quality of AF needs to improve for higher TSR levels and moisture and ash content levels need to drop. It is a similar situation for feeding into the calciner but AF of lower quality can be used up to about 75%. Above this AF of the same quality of the main burner should be used. He then discussed how a cement plant can tackle chlorine input to the kiln system with solutions such as CKD extraction, hot meal bypass and gas bypass. Would an increase of TSR impact my clinker production capacity? Hinkel said “yes” but only if the exhaust gas system is the main bottleneck of the kiln system or if the kiln system needs to run on high availability. Should cement companies pay for waste to be pre-processed? Poellaer said that there was no simple answer. It depends on the duration of the pay-back, the availability of local suppliers playing a role and many other factors. He then explained how the added value of AF might be calculated. He also warned that users should avoid mixing the cost of MSW and RDF because the latter is a fraction of the former that varies depending on the preprocessing method. Due to this, very generally, producing RDF from MSW without a gate fee is not profitable. Charging US$12 – 20/t of MSW starts to make a financial case for using it as a calciner AF. Spending money on design safety and fire protection was viewed as an obvious concern to safeguard a company’s personnel, the local environment, a plant’s equipment, clinker production and one’s reputation. Main AF-related safety risks include fires at the preprocessing and calciner/kiln feeding points, chemical exposure with some hazardous wastes and fire risks from handling dusts and powders. When addressing whether to use AF at the main or a satellite burner Hinkel recomended that a maximum TSR may be reached by combining of solid AF injection in burner centre and satellite burner. What are the main causes of failure for feeding line? The pair said that the design must be adapted to the AF being co-processed, geometrical design and slopes of equipment such as hoppers should be considered, thought should be given to the management of oversized and heavy materials and fire and other safety risks should be planned for. What are the main causes of failure of an AF project? The pair concluded that a lack of global approach or a failing to take account of local specificities can affect a project.
Marcus Brew, UNTHA UK then spoke about maximising margins from alternative fuel production following a study his company ran where it spoke to over 40 companies globally. Brew started by presenting the company’s 50-year history with over 15,000 shredders installed. Its involvement with AF runs back to the late 1980s. He identified that the sector has no single concept of ‘best practice’ due to a fragmented market, differing terminology, definitions and specifications in different countries, differences between individual cement kilns and different corporate strategies. As he put it, “ambiguity is not a new problem.” His response was to be flexible with both input materials and throughputs such as tackling new materials like mattresses, pulper ropes, wood, production waste and hazardous waste. On the output side this flexibility then should be extended to particle precision and specifications. He suggested that waste is caried but it can be shredded to achieve predictable results. From here he argued that produced AF in a single pass with the right equipment could reduce operating costs. He also mentioned electric shredders and how the need for them had been raised in the survey.
Robert Uveg from CRH Central and Eastern Europe and Tomas Tanczos from Danucem Slovensko gave a presentation about the installation of a belt dryer for SRF in the Rohoznik cement plant. They talked about how the Slovak waste market is still developing, with limited capacity and treatment options for waste, and how the focus is shifting towards extracting energy from waste rather than sending it to landfill. In 2018, Danucem came up with the idea of installing a belt dryer at the plant. By 2019, they had observed a subsidiary in Romania that had successfully implemented a similar dryer. In the years following, a feasibility study was conducted but certain delays arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, which affected project costs and prices for materials like steel. The project was commissioned in March 2023. The pair told us about Danucem's roadmap to achieving 100% alternative fuel (AF) usage, by significantly reducing petroleum coke consumption and, of course, installing the dryer. The system works by directing hot air from the clinker cooler stack into a mixing chamber that removes moisture from the fuel. This process, while efficient, faced challenges such as blockages at the dryer outlet and issues with flame shape. Danucem's facility has managed to increase the thermal substitution rate (TSR) at the plant to over 80%, with a capacity of 12t/hr. The plant uses a system of burning solid recovered fuel (SRF), utilising a Hotdisc and calciner feeder. When asked about the differences between the dryer at the Rohoznik cement plant and the dryer at the Romanian plant, Tomaz said that the Rohoznik dryer is larger and manages moisture differently by not venting it into the clinker cooler, thereby avoiding potential clinker quality issues.
Michael Suppaner began the penultimate presentation on the cement industry of 2050 with an image of directors Rob McCaffrey and Paul Brown’s faces digitally altered to represent how they would look in 26 years time..! More seriously, Michael moved on to talk about the main achievements that had already been made in decarbonising the cement industry, like improving the efficiency of cement kilns through upgrades and optimisations, as well as substitution of fossil fuels with MBM and pozzolan. He presented some interesting statistics on the progress of European countries and non-European countries with regards to thermal substitution rate: countries outside Europe had a TSR of only 0-40%, whilst Europe is the main driver for decarbonisation, with 60-100% TSR. Cement demand is projected to increase until 2040, and then plateau until 2100, so more cement will need to be produced – how do we produce it sustainably is the ultimate question. He also presented his expectation of cement plant production processes in 2050, and he stated that they would be ‘unrealistic’ and a ‘dream’. However, a lot of progress has been made since the beginning of decarbonisation in the 1990s and when Michael is asked “Will the cement sector be net zero in 2050?” he is able to say that they are close.
David Chambers led the final presentation of the conference about the CRH Irish Cement Platin Works in Dublin, the location of the conference’s field trip. The plant has had three kilns built on its site over the years, one is currently mothballed and another is decommissioned. The kilns are equipped with technology from FLSmidth and Polysius. Despite its overproduction of cement, David said that the plant has seen a reduction in unplanned downtime, down from 993 hours in 2013 to 183 hours in 2023, which has led to an improvement in the reliability of clinker production to nearly 1000t in recent years. Platin’s decarbonisation efforts include reducing clinker content using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), alternative fuels (AF), and enhancing energy and heat efficiency in the plant. David mentioned that energy costs in Ireland are the highest in all of Europe, so energy efficiency is particularly important at the plant. The company is exploring sources for calcined clays and other alternative raw materials, as well as considering new technologies like carbon capture. David detailed Platin’s AF journey, which began in 2011 when it obtained a license to burn alternative fuels, with a more expansive license granted in 2021. Looking to the future, plans include the burning of meat and bone meal (MBM) in its kilns, expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2025, as well as aiming for a 90% substitution rate by 2030. He also talked about how important it was that the plant had good relations with the local community. Ireland has very strict planning laws, where anyone can object to construction plans for any reason, which can delay projects by years. The plant achieves this in one way by hosting students for visits at the plant, of which 500 visited in 2023. It also visits residential communities in the vicinity of the plant, to warn them of any potential disruption or noise from quarry blasts.
Prizes and farewells…
Delegates gathered together for one last time at the Farewell reception, where the conference prizes - based on delegate votes - were awarded. There was a tie for third place for the ‘best presentation,’ shared between Filipa Rôlo of Cimpor and Michele Graffigna of Heidelberg Materials. In second place was Michael Suppaner of A Tec for his paper on alternative fuels in 2050, while Michael O’Grady of Breedon Cement and Joana Bretz of Trie won first prize for their joint paper on the influence of AF on the formation of kiln balls - a problem that obviously resonated with the audience.
Irish Cement Platin field trip
Many delegates took the opportunity to visit the Platin plant of Irish Cement on the conference field trip. The visit was kindly and professionally hosted by many plant staff, who made delegates feel warmly welcomed, and who answered the many questions of the well-qualified visitors.
Conclusion
This 17th Global CemFuels Conference brought up a number of issues, foremost among them being that the technology for AF use is now becoming well-tested and reliable, at least in Europe. However, it is not just technology that is required for successful use of alternative fuels - there must be an incentive for the potential fuels not just to be dumped in a hole in the ground, there must be collection systems in place, there must be financial rewards for all steps of the fuel preparation business, there must be legislative support for AF use, and you must have your neighbours and other stakeholders on your side as well. Although some of these factors are becoming established in the US, the use of AF is still in its infancy there (apart from those plants that are owned and run by Europe-based multinationals, which have already seen the many benefits of using AF). However, the strongest message that arose from the conference was that Asia has the greatest potential for the use of AF as fuel in the cement industry - and the lowest possible starting base, with many plants wholly fixed on the use of coal as a fuel - and AF-use being only a distant possibility (if it has been considered at all). Food for thought!
The 18th Global CemFuels Conference on alternative fuels for the cement and lime industry will take place on 17-18 September 2025 in Milan, Italy.
What did the delegates say about CemFuels 2024 in Dublin...?
Nice atmosphere
It was extremely well organised
Great team! Thx U
Warm atmosphere
Well organized.
Awesome event for awesome people :p
Superb experience! Really the organizers are always making it even better every year.
Excellent welcome and ambiance
Appreciated the work load that Global Cement Magazine invested into the event!
Thank you Global cement team!
Real global show!
Good job. Keep on organising
A high-quality event with thoughtful preparation and concrete outcomes.
Keep continue great work.
It was amazingly good
Great spirit!
Good job
Well done! I enjoyed, like the past years. Global Cement is tbe best!
Very good atmosphere and excellent networking
