Displaying items by tag: Plant

Israel: Nesher-Israel Cement Enterprises has applied to the Environmental Protection Ministry for permission to replace petcoke in the kiln lines of its 5.0Mt/yr integrated Ramla cement plant in Central District with increased refuse-derived fuels (RDF) volumes. The Times of Israel has reported that the company has also applied for a relaxed emissions licence permitting higher metal levels than it may currently emit. Environmental advocacy organisation Adam Teva V’Din said that the Ramla plant’s emissions exceeded permitted mercury levels on 19 occasions in the first half of 2019. The organisation said that a permit of the kind applied for by Nesher-Israel Cement Enterprises would violate the Clean Air Act. The company said, “The intake of alternative raw materials and alternative fuels takes place only after rigorous laboratory tests to ensure conformity of the material to both the production process and regulatory requirements.”

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas has announced plans to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its 1.6Mt/yr integrated Alcalá de Guadaíra cement plant in Andalusia by 40% through the substitution of biomass for coal in its kiln lines. The company said that it regretted the confusion caused by “manipulation of information” around the plans in a local environmental group’s communiqué. It said, “the plant has all the permits and the cement group is looking forward to this new challenge.

Belarus: Krasnoselskstroymaterialy has announced that its US$7.8m refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant at its 1.6Mt/yr Krasnoselskstroymaterialy plant will be completed in September 2020. The plant is installed with equipment worth US$4.5m from Czech suppliers. The Ministry of Construction and Architecture has said that waste from the Grodno Recycling and Mechanical Sorting Plant will replace Belarusian peat and Russian coal as the cement fuel in the plant’s kilns, fulfilling Krasnoselskstroymaterialy’s goals of renewability and national self-reliance.

Ministry of Construction and Architecture energy conservation head Sergey Nikitin said, “The transition to RDF will create an opportunity to reduce the cost of cement production in the future, strengthen the financial and economic situation of the Krasnoselskstroymaterialy enterprise and create additional competitive advantages over producers operating on traditional fossil fuels.”

Ghana: The Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) is due to begin commercial production of refuse-derived fuel (RDF), a form of fuel obtained from recycled waste that can be used by the cement industry. The venture, according to ACARP, will considerably augment the coal needs of local cement producers when commercialised, at a much lower price than coal. The RDF will comprise a combination of highly-combustible waste and textile waste, with this type of waste constituting about 30% of the material handled by ACARP.

Michael Padi Tuwor, ACARP’s General Manager, said that the recycling plant currently handles 600t/day of waste, recycling around 80% of it. He said that RDF would represent a major new opportunity for ACARP, but was unable to put a figure on exactly how much would be produced going forward.

El Salvador: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim subsidiary Holcim El Salvador has announced that it substituted 26,000t of refuse-derived fuel at its 1.7Mt/yr integrated El Ronco cement plant in Metapán, Santa Ana department, in 2019, up by 30% year-on-year from 20,000t in 2018.

In 2019 Holcim El Salvador produced 1.2Mt of cement. The company is currently investigating the possibility of installing a US$5m solar power plant at the El Ronco cement plant. It has signalled an intention ‘in the long term’ to resume operations at its 1.6Mt/yr Maya cement plant, mothballed in 2008, at an estimated cost of US$20m.

China: Huaxin Cement says that it has disposed of 55t of medical waste from coronavirus-infected hospitals in Wuhan province at its 3.4Mt/yr Yangxin cement plant in Hubei province. Xinhuanet News has reported that the plant’s precalciner and rotary kiln have safely processed the batch, from its delivery in sealed trucks, through the combustion of the waste and its packaging, into cement.

Spain: Holcim España has reported that it has achieved a 10,000t reduction in CO₂ emissions at its 1.5Mt/yr integrated Carboneras plant in Almeria in 2019 by the 30% (60,000t) substitution of alternative fuels for coal throughout the year. Agencia Efa newspaper has reported that the switch was the result of a Euro0.88m upgrade to the kiln line as a part of LafargeHolcim’s Euro20m investment in measures to reduce its Spanish carbon footprint by 90,000t/yr. This also includes the introduction of plant-derived biomass to the Carboneras line by the end of 2020, at an estimated cost of Euro3.1m.

Bolivia: Empresa Minera Industrial’s 0.1Mt/yr integrated cement plant has resumed operations across both dry lines following a fuel shortage. Tinformas has reported that a natural gas shortage caused the suspension of operations in November 2019 following an attack on a pipeline.

Mexico: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim’s US subsidiary Geocycle has signed an agreement with the City Council of Macuspana in Tabasco for the removal of 21,600t/yr of inorganic waste for sale to cement producers as alternative fuel (AF) for calciners. The company has inaugurated a US$1.3m waste processing plant for the purposes of meeting its commitment. Geocycle Mexico general director Sven Ritschard said, “This typifies the circular economy and is positive for all parties involved.” The waste would otherwise have gone to landfill.

India: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) in Andhra Pradesh has started transporting refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from its recycling unit at Ajit Singh Nagar to UltraTech’s Balaji cement plant. Under the agreement between the city and the cement producer the plant takes 50t/day of RDF according to the New Indian Express newspaper. The city authorities sort dry waste into RDF and the cement company handles the transportation.