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Adani Enterprises plans 5-MTPA cement plant in Maharashtra

Initial invest will be around ₹1,000 crore for the cement plant, say sources

In order to realise its cement business plans, Adani Group is setting up a 5-MTPA cement plant in Maharashtra with an initial investment of upto ₹1,000 crore, sources in the know of the development said.
Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Adani Cement Industries Limited has identified about 100-acres of land near Shahbaj village, in Alibag taluka of Raigad district near the coastal region of Maharashtra.

“About 25 acres of land has been acquired so far for the cement project, which will have an initial capacity of 5 Million tonnes per annum with an approximate investment of ₹900-1,000 crore,” the source told BusinessLine.
Sources further informed that Adani will also have a captive jetty in the district to source fly ash and clinker besides other dry bulk cargo of raw materials required for the plant. The jetty will have a berth-head besides a conveyor line and mooring facility which will be connected to the plant site with an approach road, sources informed.

An emailed query sent to the Adani Group on the development remained unanswered.
Notably, AEL had announced the incorporation of ACIL on June 11 at ROC, Ahmedabad with authorised share capital of ₹10 lakh and paid up share capital of ₹5 lakh to carry out the business as manufacturers, producers, processors of all types of cements.

Notably, Adani Group Chairman, Gautam Adani had earlier announced the group’s plans to foray into cement business. While announcing his ₹55,000-crore worth of investment plans during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar in January 2019, Adani had indicated to set up “a one million ton of Copper Smelting and Refining project, a Cement and Clinker manufacturing unit in Lakhpat.”
The proposed 10-million tonnes per annum Lakhpat cement plant has been on hold for some time. Adani Enterprises shares traded at ₹1,422 during early trades on BSE on Thursday, down by nearly 2 per cent over previous close.

Second Covid-19 wave expected to reduce quarterly Indian cement sales by 25%

India: Ratings agency ICRA has forecast a 25% year-on-year decline in cement sales during the first quarter of the 2022 financial year to 30 June 2021. Domestic cement demand fell by 4% year-on-year and by 35% month-on-month in April 2021, according to the Press Trust of India. The agency said that this was due to the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak to rural areas and the imposition of numerous regional lockdowns. Pent-up demand is expected to drive a gradual recovery in the second quarter from July 2021. Costs for cement companies increased by 5% nationally year-on-year in April 2021. Increased fuel, power and transport costs all contributed to the rise.

Source : Global Cement

Sulzer Chemtech and Blue Planet to reduce cement emissions with CCUS

Fluid engineering company Sulzer Chemtech is partnering with Blue Planet to drive the optimisation of Blue Planet’s carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) solutions.

Sulzer Chemtech is developing a carbon capture unit that will be installed in Blue Planet’s pilot plant, currently being constructed in Pittsburgh, California, US, and will capture emissions from an adjacent natural gas-fired power plant.

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As part of the pilot project, Blue Planet is developing a CCUS system that removes CO2 diluted in flue gases and uses it directly to form carbonates for mineralization in the form of construction-grade aggregates. According to Blue Planet, this offers a sustainable building block for net carbon-neutral or carbon-negative concrete. As a result, the solution can offset cement’s greenhouse gas emissions by permanently sequestering CO2 in concrete as aggregate and improve the sustainability of cement manufacturing and other CO2 emitting industries.


Image credit: Blue Planet
The facility will leverage Sulzer Chemtech’s advanced mass transfer components that have been specifically developed to support carbon reduction applications, such as MellaPakCC structured packing. This provides high CO2 absorption performance while maintaining low energy consumption. As a result, Blue Planet’s facility will be able to leverage a cost-effective setup to maximize the greenhouse gas reduction from various industrial activities and use for the production of synthetic limestone and other carbonate minerals.

Torsten Wintergerste, president of Sulzer Chemtech, said: “We are delighted to be part of such a cutting-edge project that will help reduce carbon emissions from industrial applications as well as the cement sector. This further demonstrates how our state-of-the-art separation technologies and know-how can support demanding CCUS applications.”

In addition to these solutions, Sulzer Chemtech’s global development team will provide engineering support to further optimise the process steps.

World’s First Rechargeable Cement Battery Could One Day Power Cities

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have created the first rechargeable cement battery. One day, the work could lead to large concrete buildings that store and deliver energy like giant municipal batteries.

The cement batteries have an iron-coated carbon fiber mesh that acts as the anode layer on top of a conductive cement-based mixture sandwiched by a nickel-coated carbon-fiber mesh cathode layer. The team added a small amount of short, electroplated carbon fibers to the cement mix to make it conductive.

For many years, researchers have pushed for more sustainable building materials, but the Chalmers group started working on futuristic building materials several years ago.

Research of concrete batteries is rare. The few previous efforts to make cement-based batteries weren’t rechargeable, and the output was meager.

The batteries from Chalmers have a lower average energy density than commercial batteries, 7 watt-hours per square meter (or 0.8 watt-hours per liter). However, the researchers believe their battery still outperforms previous concepts by more than 10 times.

The applications are many, including powering LEDs, providing 4G connectivity in remote areas, and even supporting infrastructure monitoring systems. For example, they could use solar panels to power sensors used to detect cracking or corrosion.

The ability to help monitor infrastructure seems particularly timely as a massive crack in the Interstate 40 bridge linking Arkansas and Tennessee shut down the major thoroughfare. Luckily, a routine inspection caught the “significant fracture,” but concrete batteries could one-day power sensors on parts of the bridge that are crucial for its integrity.

The proof of concept was still relatively small. The sample size was smaller than the multimeter, so it will take a bit of scale to get it to a 20-story building.

When it comes to alternative energy, what is one of the biggest arguments? Where are you going to store peak time power to be used during downtimes? The answer could be as simple as a massive battery building created to power our concrete jungles.

The Swedish Energy Agency funded the research, and the findings were published in the scientific journal Buildings.

Credit: Thomas Insights

Heavy losses for Gaza farmers. Price of cement jumps by 27%

May 30, 2021. More than a week into the ceasefire, Israel continues to severely restrict travel to and from Gaza and is prohibiting all exit of goods, as well as entry of fuel for Gaza’s power plant, construction materials, and other items.

May 30, 2021. Israel has not yet restored operations at Erez and Kerem Shalom since closing the crossings completely on May 11. More than a week into the ceasefire, Israel continues to severely restrict travel to and from Gaza and is prohibiting all exit of goods for sale outside the Strip, as well as entry of fuel for Gaza’s power plant, construction materials, and other items. Israel also continues to limit access to the “fishing zone” it enforces in Gaza’s sea space to a maximal distance of just six nautical miles off shore. The Union of Agricultural Work Committees reports that the Israeli navy has been firing at fishing boats and their crews within this area of sea as well.

Since May 25, Israel has allowed travel through Erez in rare cases, mostly to foreign staff of international organizations and foreign journalists. Patients seeking may exit Erez only in emergencies, in extraordinary circumstances and mainly by ambulance. Among the many patients denied access to medical treatment under Israel’s current policy at Erez are cancer patients in need of treatment that is not available inside Gaza. In an urgent appeal (Hebrew) to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and Defense Minister, Gisha and partner organizations cautioned that this conduct is illegal and extremely unreasonable.

At Kerem Shalom Crossing, only food, animal feed, and humanitarian aid for international organizations is being allowed to enter the Strip. The Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza told Gisha that as a result of Israel’s ongoing ban on exit of goods from Gaza, the local market has been flooded with surplus produce, causing heavy financial losses for farmers and suppliers, who are forced to sell at a loss, or destroy their crops.

Israel’s restrictions on the entry of construction materials have driven the price of cement up by 27 percent. The ongoing prohibition on the entry of fuel for the power plant has led to a decrease in Gaza’s overall power supply and impaired the functioning of the health, water and sanitation systems. Today, the Israel Electric Corporation completed repairs to power lines inside Israel that were damaged during hostilities. According to an update released by the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO), Gaza residents are now receiving 165 megawatts of electricity, which is about a third of actual demand and enough for just six consecutive hours of power followed by 12-hour outages. A GEDCO spokesperson told Gisha that there is an acute shortage in materials required to repair the remaining damage caused to Gaza’s power grid.

source :reliefweb.int