(Colorado) -- The Holcim Portland cement plant near Penrose, Colorado, owned by Swiss-based international cement giant Holcim, is reportedly the first cement plant in the United States to go solar.
The item wouldn’t even be news, if not for the fact that cement-making facilities are among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, second only to power plants and oil refineries. Not only do cement plants produce record amounts of carbon dioxide by burning cheap, high-sulfur coal to heat kilns, but they also emit mercury, one of earth’s most toxic metals and the one most implicated in neurological defects.
Given that, the Penrose cement plant deserves a pat on the back for adding solar energy to its Colorado facility. Particularly when one considers that cement is the second-most widely used substance on the planet, after water. In 2008, world production of cement was 2,840,000,000 metric tons.
The Holcim Penrose plant’s 528 solar panels, rated at 100.32 kilowatts, provide about 156, 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or enough to run the plant’s administrative offices. This is enough energy to power 14 average homes, and also enough to prevent 112 metric tons of carbon dioxide being generated by local utility Black Hills Energy.
Black Hills Energy, whose electricity generation mix is 49 percent coal, 20 percent natural gas and 19.4 percent nuclear (with 6.9 percent hydro and about 3.1 percent renewables), could use a little greening, and the Penrose Holcim plant is certainly the best place to start, since those 112 metric tons of are the equivalent of removing more than 21 cars from the road or planting 2,876 trees.
The panels are arranged in four units, jointly covering an area 190 feet long by 150 feet wide. Each unit contains 24 conventional solar panels made with polycrystalline silicon cells under glass inside an aluminum frame. Concrete footers, made with Holcim cement, support the units.
According to Black Hills Energy, the Holcim plant is its biggest user, consuming about 10 percent of the utility’s total electricity generation. Holcim is also reducing its carbon footprint by burning alternative fuels (that is, other than high-sulfur coal) to manufacture cement. One of these fuels is used tires, of which Holcim burns an estimated 4 million per year.
Holcim and 17 other major worldwide cement producers agreed, on May 20 of 2009, to reduce emissions by 25 percent. Called the Cement Sustainability Initiative, the agreement aims to meet international greenhouse gas reduction targets before carbon emissions taxes, or trading, is instituted.
Of course, with all that in mind, one wonders why Holcim didn’t go bigger. As one of the world’s leading cement producers, if Holcim is expected to meet emissions targets by trading in renewable energy certificates, what better place to start than with a mega-solar system on the order of 2 or 3 megawatts.
Because frankly, in the world of future emissions credits, 100 kilowatts is scarcely more than a token gesture toward clean, renewable solar energy.
By:Danny Vo
Source: http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/2031002-world-leading-cement-maker-goes-solar-in-colorado.aspx