"An essential lever for achieving climate-neutral cement production is the reduction of fossil fuels. We are already using substitute fuels instead of coal. As a result, materials that can no longer be used for other purposes – such as recycling – are converted into energy," explains Florian Salzer, Technical Director of w&p Zement. Substitute fuels are mainly quality-assured plastic fractions with significant proportions of biogenic substances such as non-recyclable paper, natural fibers and bio-plastics, which are increasingly used as packaging materials. They have the advantage that they emit significantly less climate-damaging CO2 than fuels such as coal. This not only reduces the CO2 footprint of the cement plant, but also saves fossil fuels.
At the Wietersdorf cement plant, around 80% of the thermal energy required for the manufacturing process is currently generated by the use of substitute fuels, depending on production capacity. Thanks to investments in state-of-the-art plant and environmental technology in recent years and the continuous development of the process, the Wietersdorf cement plant is now in a position to increase the use of substitute fuels in regular operation to up to 100% and thus almost completely dispense with fossil fuels. In the future, the use of non-hazardous substitute fuels is to be increased by 25 000 t to 122 400 tpy. The approved quantity of hazardous substitute fuels remains unchanged. "With this step, 20 000 t of fossil CO2 can be saved in the future. In doing so, we are now setting an important course towards climate-neutral cement production," says Florian Salzer, Technical Director of w&p Zement. Regulatory approval is required to implement this important milestone, which is currently being worked on.
In addition to reducing the CO2 footprint, this project has another positive side effect: The increase in the amount of substitute fuel at the Wietersdorf site leads directly to an increase in crisis resilience.
