w&p Zement, as part of the Alpacem Group, aims to achieve climate-neutral cement production by 2035. In order to get one step closer to this ambitious goal, the company plans to completely replace fossil fuels such as coal with substitute fuels at the Wietersdorf site in regular operation. As a result, the Wietersdorf cement plant will reduce its fossil CO2 emissions by around 20 000 tpy, which corresponds to the CO2 emissions of 10 000 cars. This is made possible by the investments made in the last five years in state-of-the-art plant and environmental technology at the Wietersdorf site.
"An essential lever for achieving climate-neutral cement production is the reduction of fossil fuels. We are already using substitute fuels instead of coal. As a result, materials that can no longer be used for other purposes – such as recycling – are converted into energy," explains Florian Salzer, Technical Director of w&p Zement. Substitute fuels are mainly quality-assured plastic fractions with significant proportions of biogenic substances such as non-recyclable paper, natural fibers and bio-plastics, which are increasingly used as packaging materials. They have the advantage that they emit significantly less climate-damaging CO2 than fuels such as coal. This not only reduces the CO2 footprint of the cement plant, but also saves fossil fuels.
At the Wietersdorf cement plant, around 80% of the thermal energy required for the manufacturing process is currently generated by the use of substitute fuels, depending on production capacity. Thanks to investments in state-of-the-art plant and environmental technology in recent years and the continuous development of the process, the Wietersdorf cement plant is now in a position to increase the use of substitute fuels in regular operation to up to 100% and thus almost completely dispense with fossil fuels. In the future, the use of non-hazardous substitute fuels is to be increased by 25 000 t to 122 400 tpy. The approved quantity of hazardous substitute fuels remains unchanged. "With this step, 20 000 t of fossil CO2 can be saved in the future. In doing so, we are now setting an important course towards climate-neutral cement production," says Florian Salzer, Technical Director of w&p Zement. Regulatory approval is required to implement this important milestone, which is currently being worked on.
In addition to reducing the CO2 footprint, this project has another positive side effect: The increase in the amount of substitute fuel at the Wietersdorf site leads directly to an increase in crisis resilience.