It is apparent the “greening” of the world is upon us as the politicians and bureaucrats in charge continue to tell us about their belief in “climate change” and the necessity for mankind to contain the emission of CO 2 by eliminating the use of fossil fuels!
The weird thing is they wonder into pits that make absolutely no sense. The latter includes telling all sectors of our economy what they must do to contain those emissions. They have applied their stupidity now to the manufacturers of cement and presumably bricks. As it happens our township sits on an immense amount of limestone and a cement plant, Lehigh Hanson (LH), has operated here for decades as noted in an article about their contribution to the local hospital foundation. One should suspect the new hospital planned for the county will require a considerable amount of cement and bricks but depending on when the build starts the energy used to produce the cement will be the epitome of what eco-warriors consider “green” and reputedly non-emitting.
The following screenshot of part of a public announcement by LH discloses what their future energy source may be instead of natural gas.
According to the above, future energy used by LH to produce cement will be 200 tonnes per day of what are referred to as ALCF’s (Alternative Low Carbon Fuels) consisting of; wood from construction and demolitions, non-recyclable paper and plastic, textiles, tire fibre, fluff, as well as non-recyclable household waste. The “daily throughput” of 200 tonnes per day might mean the local community of less than 25,000 people will have to UP their generation of those “energy” sources to at least 3 tons of garbage per resident annually or will it be imported driving up the costs of producing the cement?
The other issue not mentioned, concerns what the emissions will be after conversion, versus those from the natural gas previously used and that may be a concern!
Residents of Bowmanville raised the alarm a year ago about the use of ALCF as noted in an article on DurhamRadioNews! “Some local residents say the Ministry of the Environment has failed to protect people living in Bowmanville, after St. Marys Cement plant was given the go-ahead to burn more types of waste as fuel.” The article went on to state; “The group says the cement plant is “putting out approximately 14 times more dioxin, 29 times more cadmium, 82 times more mercury, and 260 times more lead than Durham-York incinerator. They’re calling on local decision-makers to “find their voices” and fight against this expansion.”
Surely the local politicians in Bowmanville and those resident in the Provincial Government researched the potential pollutants before granting approval to St. Mary’s Cement or was it driven by the Federal Government who are pressing to eliminate natural gas due to its classification as a “fossil fuel”?
We should surmise it’s the Federal Government with PM Justin Trudeau and his minion, Steven Guilbeault, holding the title of Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, as the driver of this conversion!
Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives 
All this because scientifically challenged fools have been brainwashed to believe that CO₂ can change “climate”, whatever that means. “Greenhouse gases” only exist in greenhouses. This is proven by the Ideal Gas Law: PV=nRT.
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It is a matter of policy that Ontario does not allow te use of old tires as fuel for cement kilns, and for good reason. Similarly, incinerating garbage is clearly a mistake and costly to clean emissions of Furans and NOx, as Algonquin Power, now Emerald, has discovered, and has challenged Covanta.
The whole well-intention WTE experiment of recent years has bankrupted many companies in search of the great silver bullet, and yet …
This has become a politicized issue used by certain clever polemicists to stir up know-nothings into stiffling much needed R & D into advanced RNG technology, such as advanced AD for organics and low temperature pyrolytic gasification. CO2 and CH4 have been successfully demonized to the point that even sequestration is suspect because … wait for it … natural methanogens in the earth convert CO2 back into methane, showing that Natural Gas is actually a renewable.
Fear-mongering tactics and use of rent-a-mob “pitchfork people” has also spooked government environmental bureaucrats and our elected officials, generally poorly educated in matters of science and critical thinking into regressive policies. We can clearly see the result is the Talibanization of environmental science and the wilful gradual impoverishment of our once optimistic nation. As for motive, just follow the money.
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This so classic of the flip-flopping of government today in pursuit of the “green”. What the cement industry is doing and planning to do more of is essentially burn garbage to produce energy. The kicker is, getting the okay for new facilities to burn garbage, as opposed to burying it in the ground, has been basically verboten in Ontario for nearly four decades. My how times of changed. I can recall when our community needed a new landfill back in the 1980s. One of the ideas put forward was a closed-system trash burning facility. It would not only mean no need for a massive regional landfill site, but also produce energy with a co-generation system providing steam for local businesses and homes near the plant wishing to use it for heating, and electricity. The cost at the time, some $2 million, was inline with the costs of numerous studies and approvals and work needed to locate and open a new landfill. Sadly, the provincial government at the time said absolutely NO, in fact they were trying to reduce the use of existing facilities, burning trash was bad for the environment. Fast forward from 1985 to 2022, and now burning trash is apparently good for the environment.
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