When I say do some research - it goes beyond google. Not sure what they teach at engineering school these days but in my studies research papers were key..
I see brown coal fly ash is not even good for cement production.
Rather than focus on use for cement production, focus on the main game - Mg. Victorian Brown Coal fly ash is about 13% - 17% MgO which translates to about 8%-10% Mg. That's why you need around 10 tons of brown Coal fly ash for a ton of Mg. If it's from anthracitic coal it's lower. Have a read of:
G. J. PERRY
1, , D. J. ALLARDICE
1' , and L. T. KISS
2 ,(2023)The Chemical Characteristics of Victorian Brown Coal
1Victorian Brown Coal Council, 136 Exhibition Street, Melbourne 3000, Australia
2 State Electricity Commission of Victoria, Herman Research Laboratory, Howard Street, Richmond 3121, Australia
download at :
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/bk-1984-0264.ch001
Power cost has been in negotiation. Yes there was a plan to use solar power from up the road however an agreement could not be reached which tells me either the intended solar farm cost of production was too high or they were not in the market realm however I think from memory it was more a problem of not being able to supply enough to power the kiln. It was more feasible to purchase power or supplement it from gas driven. They have not disclosed any info on cost of power which is fair enough because they should not lock themselves in at this point. Once the demo plant is operating they will have a better idea of how much they need and extrapolate to the 10,000 tpa plant for better deal.
Yes, China has cheaper power but the Govt is already lifting prices so it's getting more expensive. The ridiculous global paranoia about China is in our favour. European countries do want to label their goods "clean and green" and without a "made in China label" and make no mistake the woke greenies will be tracing their source of Mg.
The main game and big money is the Ni Slag 100,000tpa plant. The slag has about 15-25%Mg however it can vary greatly from 5% to over 30%. LMG has already signed supply contracts for the type of slag they want. The by products are ideal for market use (the SCM) and years ago when I worked in the industry there was great interest by cement, and brick production companies. At the time quarries were abundant and cheap but that is drying up now and they have to pay a lot more for the raw material.
Note that the fly ash Mg production has Si and Ag-Lime as by products which is an ingredient for extracting Mg from the Ferronickel slag(it reduces temperature to break down the olivine produced in the Ni-slag drop out from extracting Ni). see "The Utilization of Slag in Civil Infrastructure Construction - Nonferrous metal extraction and nonferrous slags" by George C Wang(2016).
I have said before that the greatest risk to this company is its leadership/management. DP should focus on his Board role and appoint a new CEO. There seems to be a good management team under the CEO - the latter being the weakest link. The Board looks impressive but they need to grow some gonads and make the CEO accountable.
Hope that helps
(20min delay)