Displaying items by tag: Licence

India: Birla Corporation has been granted use of two coal mines in Madhya Pradesh. Accord has reported that the mines will provide ‘cost optimisation and fuel security’ to Birla Corporations and its subsidiaries in their central Indian operations.

Ireland: The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted a licence to CRH subsidiary Irish Cement for the incineration of refuse-derived fuel (RDF), including tyres, plastics and animal tissues at its 1.0Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Mungret, County Limerick. The Limerick Leader has reported that it will be the second of Irish Cement’s two plants to transition from fossil fuels, after its Platin plant in Meath. The company has said that the intended upgrade is vital to the plant’s future and will create security for its 80 employees, in addition to generating 60 jobs throughout the course of its installation. 4500 people supported Limerick Against Pollution (LAP) in lobbying the EPA against granting its permission following the decision of the Irish planning appeals board An Bord Pleanála in favour of the installation. LAP has 28 days in which to appeal the EPA’s ruling. A protest march will take place in the city of Limerick in October 2019.

The company’s 2009 incineration licence for its Limerick plant expired due to inactivity. It announced its renewed intention for RDF usage at the plant in December 2015.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos’ Salto de Pirapora integrated plant in São Paulo has recevied environmental clearance to burn municipal waste. The plant processed 17,900t of waste in 2018 during a testing phase. It has the capacity to process up to 65,000t/yr. From 2016 to 2019 it invested US$12m on upgrading the unit to accept alternative fuels. It now plans to spend US$43.5 over the next four years.

The cement producer is also running trial co-processing projects at its plants at Rio Branco do Sul in Paraná, Cuiabá in Mato Grosso, Sobral in Ceará and Brasíliain in the Distrito Federal. The company had a thermal substitution rate of around 30% in 2018 and it processed 0.85Mt of biomass, tyres and municipal waste.

Ireland: The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) says it requires more information on Irish Cement’s plans to use alternative fuels and raw materials at its Limerick plant before it can grant it a licence. The request has delayed the decision by the environmental body on whether the cement producer can co-process alternative fuels at the site.

It has asked the cement producer to provide more information on: waste acceptance capacity; raw materials, intermediates, products used or generated on-site; best available technology; emissions to atmosphere; human health; hydrology and hydrogeology; appropriate assessment; accidents and disasters; and baseline reports. The EPA added that before it could conduct a licence review it must out a ‘thorough’ environmental assessment of the proposals in the review application, including an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and an appropriate assessment. The EPA also said that it had received over 3500 individual public submissions on the application by Irish Cement.

Irish Cement wants to implement a Euro10m upgrade to its plant. This will include the development of land to facilitate on site handling, storage and introduction of alternative fuels with conveyor, storage tanks, uploading station, handling building, cooling tower and associated ancillary work. It first announced plans to co-process alternative fuels at the plant in late 2015.

Portugal: Cimpor has appealed a judgement by the Supreme Administrative Court cancelling permits to burn alternative fuels at its Souselas cement plant. The North Central Administrative Court cancelled the environmental licences, originally granted by the former Environment Minister Nunes Correia, in March 2016.