A new use for old car tyres

By Morten Andersen

At Vasavadatta Cement’s production plant III in Sedam, India, 30 percent of its current consumption of coal will be replaced with old car tyres. This will happen when the company has installed a new piece of machinery called ‘HotDisc’ from the Danish company FLSmidth. The machine effectively restricts the formation of harmful
substances when car tyres are combusted.

The production of cement requires large amounts of energy. So it is attractive for factories to replace expensive fossil fuels with waste which is cheaply obtained – and in some countries companies can
even earn money for accepting waste. It is also climate-neutral to use waste, since it will produce greenhouse gases in any eventuality. “To put it in layman’s terms, we build houses from waste by including it as part of cement production, instead of dumping it in a disposal site where it will emit CO 2, methane and other greenhouse gases,” says Lars Skaarup Jensen, who heads the department for utilisation of alternative fuels at FLSmidth, which is the world’s leading provider of technology for cement production.



Great potential for climate benefits
According to a report carried out by the environmental organisation WWF in collaboration with the world’s largest cement producer, France’s Lafarge, global production of cement will cause the emission of four billion tons of CO 2 in 2030.

Put another way, it will save the equivalent climate impact of Spain’s total current emissions if the cement industry can reduce its emissions by 10 percent. That is a realistic goal, says Lars Skaarup Jensen: “Today, less than five percent of the energy required for the production of cement comes from alternative fuels. That percentage will definitely increase in the coming years, both in regard to production economics and in the interests of climate protection. Our ambition is to be the world’s leading supplier of solutions in alternative fuels for the cement and mineral industry. We will also actively help to increase the use of alternative fuels by advising our customers on opportunities in the area.”

In addition to a number of European projects, FLSmidth has recently delivered HotDisc systems to customers in Slovenia and Mexico, and hopes are high for orders from India and China.

This article is from Focus Denmark Magazine, June 2011