Pavel Hanzl, Market manager of Carmeuse Europe will be presenting at MINEX Europe Forum on behalf of the European Coal Combustion Products Association.
ECOBA members consider coal combustion products useful raw and construction materials and communicate this message to active parties in Europe, e.g. power plants producers and authorities.
CCPs are produced with the production of electricity in coal-fired power plants. “CCPs” are a synonym for the combustion residues such as boiler slag, bottom ash and especially fly ash from different types of boilers and the desulphurisation products like spray dry absorption product and FGD gypsum. In 2016, about 40 million tons of CCPs were produced in Europe (EU15). The production in all the European member states is about 140 million tones.
CCPs are mainly utilised as a replacement for natural materials in the building material industry, in civil engineering, in road construction, for construction work in underground coal mining as well as for re-cultivation and restoration purposes in open cast mines. By this, they help to reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions to atmosphere for mining and production of products which are replaced and to save natural resources.
Over the last decades, the production of these CCPs has been increased in the member states due to legal requirements for flue gas cleaning based on legal requirements based on the Large Combustion Plant Directive which is meanwhile replaced by the Industrial Emission Plant Directive. The IED is about minimising pollution from various industrial sources throughout the European Union. Parallel to the revision work on this Directive the European Commission and the Council put the EU-20-20-20 targets into force aiming at reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, increased shares of renewables and improved energy efficiency by 20% each. This leads to reduced production of CCPs in some countries and problems in serving the existing market needs.
Also the utilisation of CCPs is being influenced by Directives and environmental regulations. The Waste Directive defines by-products and end-of-waste materials besides waste. The environmental regulations have to be considered in the product/waste discussion following the revision of the Waste Directive. A consistent evaluation scheme is the most import