Cement, Energy and Environment

I f f t I increased at the rate of 5.7% per year. In the past four years, cement price has gone up only 3.8% compared to 8.1% per annum rise in the overall inflation. Being low value and high volume commodity, the freight component of the cement price is roughly 30%. Upward revision of Railway freight and frequent diesel price hike have increased the freight cost substantially. The price of inputs to cement industry like coal, raw material, electricity, etc has gone up significantly, but cement price rise is moderate because of efficient operation and technological improvements taking place in Indian cement industry. The Cement price rise is still much lower than that of essential goods like steel, copper, oil, sand, plastic products and aluminum etc. Cement constitutes only 4-5% of the total cost of Residential Projects. In olden days the cement plant location could be spotted at least from a 10 km distance from it by just looking at trees and plants with shredded leaves or turned brown with dust coating. The cement industry was considered curse to the living beings due to heavy pollution around its surroundings. Now the Cement Industry is not only pollution free but also acts as active sink for hazardous waste materials generated by other industries like chemical industry, power plants and steel industry. Cement kilns are efficient incinerators for hazardous wastes generated by mankind. Harmful chemicals, effluents, municipal solid waste, plastic waste, rubber products like lyres etc. can be efficiently burnt in the cement kiln without any harmful effect to the atmosphere. The Indian industry is slowly emerging as incinerator of wastes which otherwise would pollute the soil, water and air and create harmful effects to all living beings in the world. In reducing green house gas emission, Indian Cement Industry is far ahead of many of the developed countries. India has reduced C0 2 emission from 1120kg/tonne of cement in 1996 to 603kg/ tonne of cement in 2012 which is much below the US emission level of 743 kg/tonne of cement for the same year. This was possible because of efficient operation and increased use of additives in cement. Cement additives like fly ash and slag replace clinker in cement, thus reducing heat consumption for production of clinker. Cement Industry was producing OPC cement earlier and its share in the market in 1995 was about 70%. Now PPC cement is predominantly used by customers due to its superior properties and its market share has gone up more than 70% now. It is scientifically proved that fly ash based PPC is much superior to OPC in concrete durability and resistance to deterioration due to atmospheric attack. Indian cement industry which started modestly in 1914 has met so many hurdles but also grown strength to strength over a period of time. Today it has achieved the distinction of bring the most energy efficient among world cement industries. Even after 100 years, still Indian cement industry is young and raring to reach significant heights in the near future. We as members of cement fraternity are very proud of it. Reference C/1 Publication "Cement Vision 2025 : Scaling New Heights "