Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for Cement Making

Abstract

As U.S. manufacturers face an increasingly competitive global business environment, they seek opportunities to reduce production costs without negatively affecting product yield or quality. Uncertain energy prices in today’s marketplace negatively affect predictable earnings, a concern for publicly traded companies in the beer industry. For public and private companies alike, increasing energy prices are driving up costs and decreasing their value added. Successful, cost-effective investment into energy efficiency technologies and practices meet the challenge of maintaining the output of a high quality product despite reduced production costs. This is especially important, as energy-efficient technologies often include “additional” benefits, such as increasing the productivity of the company.

Energy efficiency is an important component of a company’s environmental strategy. End-of-pipe solutions can be expensive and inefficient while energy efficiency can often be an inexpensive opportunity to reduce criteria and other pollutant emissions. Energy efficiency can be an effective strategy to work towards the so-called “triple bottom line” that focuses on the social, economic, and environmental aspects of a business. In short, energy efficiency investment is sound business strategy in today’s manufacturing environment.

Voluntary government programs aim to assist industry to improve competitiveness through increased energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. ENERGY STAR®, a voluntary program operated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, stresses the need for strategic corporate energy management. ENERGY STAR provides guidance, energy management tools, and strategies for successful corporate energy management programs. This guide reports on research conducted to support ENERGY STAR and its work with the cement industry. This research provides information on potential energy efficiency opportunities for cement plants. Besides technical information, ENERGY STAR provides tools to facilitate stronger corporate energy management practices in U.S. industry, including plant energy benchmarks. ENERGY STAR can be contacted through www.energystar.gov for additional energy management tools that facilitate stronger corporate energy management practices in U.S. industry.

This report reflects an in-depth analysis of the cement industry, and identifies energy savings and carbon dioxide emissions reduction potentials. In this analysis, the cement industry (Standard Industrial Classification 3241) includes establishments engaged in manufacturing hydraulic cements, including portland, natural, masonry, and pozzolana cements.

The production of cement is an energy-intensive process. Annually the cement industry spends over $1 billion energy purchases. The production of cement results in the emission of carbon dioxide from both the consumption of fuels and from the calcination of limestone. This report briefly describes the various stages in the cement production process. Details on energy consumption in the U.S. cement industry in 1999 are provided, followed by an assessment of various energy efficiency measures applicable to U.S. cement plants.