The Caribbean Cement Company a few years ago was plagued by inefficiency in its operation and high energy cost due to the energy intensive nature of its production process . The company however embarked on a upgrading project, which saw it spend millions of USA dollars to improve its clinker operations and also investment in heating for its clinker energy intensive operations.
The company’s management figured that the cheapest way to improve its energy efficiency was to invest if guess what, yep a coal fired plant.
The Cement Company based in Rockfort has been using coal to fuel its Klins for some time now and I am sure most people did where not even aware of this fact.
Mind you it’s not a Utility sized plant but the process to burn the coal is not too dissimilar with what would obtain in a power plant.
http://caribcement.com/docs/default-document-library/supply-of-solid-fuel—2014.pdf?sfvrsn=2
In more development, the GOJ gave the green light to Jamaica cement company to begin work on a US$340M cement plant, which would have used a 30MW coal fired plant to provide power for that facility.
I may have missed it, but I cannot recall any “noise” from the environmentalist on this issue, so what am I missing ?
Personally I have no issue with power generation from coal and if Jamaica is to become an industrial giant in the Caribbean, coal fired power plants must be a part of the mix.
Filed under: Energy |
Warren's Blog 
I believe the reason why this is feasible with the cement company is that the amount of waste is comparably small and this same waste is used as a raw material in the manufacture of cement.
Let’s say you are right about that for a minute. Can the waste generated from a utility sized coal plant be used as input in the manufacturing of cement.
Of course, we would need to get rid of the Arsenic, mercury etc first.
Hmm