Cement Energy and Environment

CEMENT COULD MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE A study commissioned by the China Emission Accounts and Datasets (CEADs) group in association with the University of East Anglia has claimed that cement structures are a substantial - but overlooked - absorber of carbon emission. The study indicates that existing cement stocks absorb around 1 billion tons of atmospheric C02 each year on an annual basis. The mortar, concrete, and rubble from demolished buildings can gradually absorb C02 through a process called carbonation. As C02 from the atmosphere enters tiny pores in the cement, it comes in contact with a variety of chemicals and water trapped there. The ensuing reactions convert the C02 into other chemicals. It is estimated that 4.5 gigatons of carbon (GtC) has been reabsorbed in carbonating cement material from 1930 to 2013. A gigaton is a unit of explosive power equivalent to 1 billion tons of TNT. This reabsorption in carbonating cement material from 1930 to 2013 might have offset 43 per cent of the C02 emissions from production of cement over the same period. The findings were published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The researchers focused on four raw materials concrete, mortar, construction cement waste and cement kiln dust. Courtesy: Indian Cement Review, Volume 31, December 2016, Pg. 16 News Brief RIO TINTO EMBRACES AUTOMATED MINING Any story on mining will not be complete without covering the latest happenings at the Rio Tinto mines in Australia. This is the mine which is transforming the mining industry through innovations like driver-less trucks and many others. It's approaching Christmas 2015, and Rio Tinto's ··steel ballet"" - embodying the largest civilian robotics project on Earth - has safely, economically and with choreographed precision , delivered a million tonnes of iron ore from 20 mines to ships bound for customers worldwide in a single day. Though the goal sounds awesome , the technology and systems that will help deliver it are already hard at work: the Mine of the Future TM is fast becoming the mine of the present. Autonomous trucks roll smoothly from rockface to crusher or dump, while automated drilling rigs sink elaborate shot-hole patterns to be charged by a robot explosives truck for the next, scientifically– shaped blast. Soon, driverless ore trains will ferry their loads through the iron-red folds of the Pilbara Ranges. All this is taking place under the watchfu l eyes of new-age ""miners·· in a cyber-age operations centre located in Perth, 1,500 km away. Reinventing mining In its proving phase at West Angelas Pit A, the Mine of the Future TM has shifted 60 million tonnes of rock - and any questions about the technological gamble of reinventing the ancient art of mining are swiftly being answered. The feat was accomplished methodically, in complete safety and with 70 per cent fewer humans working in the danger zone. In three years, its ten autonomous trucks have traversed a distance almost equivalent to going to the moon, and back, without a human hand laid on the steering wheel. 39