Energy-intensive industries (EIIs) are expected to implement a massive transition toward the decarbonisation pathway. The aim, according to the European Union guidelines is to become carbon neutral by 2050. But how EIIs should stay competitive with their production processes?
A clear and consistent long-term strategy is required. This is what some industries from the magnesia sector are implementing. They are replacing fossil fuels with biomass to reduce carbon emissions, currently resulting from solid fossil fuels (MgCO3, pet coke).
Grecian Magnesite (GM) is experimenting with a new low-NOx burner which allows quantifying the carbon reduction potential of various biomass mixtures. Through the analysis of its Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), it’s revealed that even with a 100% pet coke feed of the new NOx burner, NOx emissions are decreased by 41% and CO and SOx emissions increase only slightly.
Moreover, a further 21% of NOx emission reduction is achieved by applying a biomass and pet coke mixture as fuel input. This happens because 50% of the required energy input results from biomass and, simultaneously, CO emissions and SOx are additionally reduced by 13% and 50% respectively.
The sustainable impact of applying biomass has been confirmed by the LCA results.
Full analysis and results are available in this paper.
