Radley Lakes - check this out and spread the dirty news

The Fly Ash can be converted to a replacement for Portland Cement.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash

Basically you take Fly Ash and some Alkali - say Sodium Hydroxide, which is also produced as waste from some industrial processes - and cook them up. The result is a substitute for Portland Cement. This is not a cheap exercise. But the results can be sold. With the need for construction materials the results can be sold at a profit. Literally some punter pays to take away your waste.

Has anybody thought of doing a cost benefit analysis of the Fly ash to Cement production route? It will turn out to be reasonably profitable (it actually only needs to break even). Because Shareholders have a right to be consulted. A perceptive group of shareholders could demand to see the justification for, literally, sticking profit into a hole in the ground. (contact Mark Thomas - I'm sure he'll tell you how to become a shareholder in any one of a number of Businesses).

Do not get me wrong, Direct action might be the only viable means. But not all direct action involves racing headlong into conflict. Sometimes it makes sense to push others in the right direction.

Conditioned fly ash is a by-product of coal-fired power stations that has been stored in lagoons and stockpiles. This practice has existed

for over 50 years and it is estimated that over 120 million tonnes could be recovered for use in concrete. This compares favourably with the 15 million tonnes of Portland cement produced in the UK each year.

Increased use of conditioned fly ash in concrete will contribute towards policies of sustainable development by:

• reclaiming a material that has previously been landfilled
• reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions
• reducing natural aggregate usage
• reducing Portland cement consumption
• improving some aspects of concrete durability and prolonging service life of structures.


 http://www.flyash.com/resourcelibrary.asp?category=Fly+Ash+Basics&Submit=search
 http://www.castlecement.co.uk/health3.htm



The Great River Energy Cooperative
North Dakota  tlacanne@grenergy.com
Minnesota  landerson1@grenergy.com
 http://www.greatriverenergy.com/about/_images/046973.pdf
 http://www.greatriverenergy.com/about/_images/2005_annual_report.pdf

Great River Energy is a charity. They return their profits to their members by reducing fees. In order to reduce costs and make best use of their Greenhouse Gas Emission Allowances they decided to sell as much of their Fly Ash as possible. From Investing in some storage facility they have gone to Two Million Dollars revenue on 417,000 tons of sales.

"A record 417,000 tons of fly ash were sold from Coal Creek Station in 2005. In the past, Great River Energy had to pay to dispose of the unused ash. Now, fly ash is a reusable byproduct that adds more than $2 million in revenue. "( 2005 Annual Report Page 7)


2004 Annual Report
Since 2003, Great River Energy has been a champion of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Coal Combustion Products
Partnership (C2P2) to promote the benefits of coal combustion products — including fly ash.As a C2P2 champion, Great River Energy has set goals to increase the use of fly ash. Over 389,000 tons of fly ash was sold in 2004 for use in concrete and the balance of the fly ash produced was put to beneficial use on site. Fly ash sales have steadily increased in recent years. In 2003,Great River Energy built a fly ash dome — with a capacity of 85,000 tons — to store fly ash during the winter months when construction activity slows down.

2005 Annual Report
We sold a record 417,000 tons of fly ash from Coal Creek Station in 2005. Fly ash is the lightweight, fine ash produced when coal is used to generate electricity. Instead of storing the fly ash in landfills near the plant, we sell it to concrete producers, generating another source of revenue for Great River Energy. (CFO Statement)


Not Only would selling the Fly Ash result in a profit in financial terms it would put any Carbon Trading participant into a Carbon Surplus once they successfully argued the environmental benefits. This would be easy since:

"One way Great River Energy is improving its environmental performance is by selling virtually all of the fly ash from its largest power plant for beneficial reuse instead of storing it in landfills. When fly ash is used as a replacement for portland cement, approximately one ton of CO2 emissions is avoided for every ton of fly ash used." (2005 Annual Report)


Fly Ash sale as a building material is thus an environmentally less destructive option than Portland Cement. There is a market for over 12 Million Tonnes of POrtland Cement in the UK (Source  http://www.castlecement.co.uk/new/pdf/business/Cement/flyash.pdf) so, NPower stand to capture up to 5% of that Market. At the same time as capturing 5% of the market they reduce their Carbon Dioxide debt by half a million tons. Which, in turn allows them to trade an extra half million tons of Carbon Credits. Money into the ground. And that ignores the possibilities of international sales. In America, there is an increasing recognition that there is a shortage of Fly Ash for building,
( http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/97/97ub/robl.pdf) and on that international market this is worth $70-$130 per Ton. ( http://www.teriin.org/pub/articles/art273.pdf) so, it is becoming clear that NPower intend to waste 35 to 65 Million Dollars worth of capital assets.


Is it viable?
Lots of People are interested in trading Fly Ash. Particularly around the Gulf. Lets face it, capitalism is not interested in where it makes money so long as it does make money. ( http://www.bulk-online.com/Forum/showthread.php?threadid=5106)


NPower can no really argue that they would be involved in the sale of Fly Ash for building. They do have an Ash Sale Arm and they are not using it: NATIONAL ASH. National Ash is a division of RWE npower, which is one of the UK's leading Energy Companies. All ash sales are handled by a team of dedicated professionals who are committed to excellent service in ash supply and technical back up, not only in the UK but World wide. For further information and orders please contact National Ash on:

Tel.: 0800 7312865
Fax: 01757 613831

Contact: Alison Thompson
National Ash
Drax Business Park PO Box 3
Selby North Yorkshire
YO8 8PQ
E-mail:  Alison.Thompson@RWEnpower.com
Email:  natash@rwenpower.com
 http://www.natash.co.uk/index.asp

Or perhaps those down South do not wish to talk to those up North. Perhaps they find it amusing to sit on 35 to 65 Million Dollars worth of
capital assets that could be sold on the world markets. Perhaps these industrial wreckers are content to destroy the corporation from within. Perhaps they are secret Primitivist Anarchists wreaking revenge. OR maybe just failures at capitalism.

The burial of half a million tons (or sixty five million dollars revenue) of capital assest is gross financial mismanagement. The business systems are in place to dispose of the waste and transform it into something more or less mroe useful. Both China and Dubai are experiencing shortages of this commodity. Frankly, this kind of mismanagement shows just how inefficient NPower really is. With foresight and planning they could have avoided filling seven other lakes - say half a million tons each at a total loss to the company of up to half a billion dollars. Not to mention the cost of actually creating and filling the sites. It makes no environmental sense and it makes no financial sense.

find those responsible for the decision and beat the living crap out of them (joke honest)

I reckon both lobbying and direct action have an equal and dependent part to play here, since even if the net cost of recycling the ash through sale to concrete manufacturers is about the same as landfilling our beautiful ponds, the lazy jobsworths at the energy company are more likely to carry out doing what they have been without serious cost pressure.

Just as in the earliest days of Direct Action by environmentalist groups, the main function of D.A. will be to increase the cost of continuing to destroy our environment, forcing the irresponsible energy company decision makers to take a new view for their shareholders.

Simply put, if Direct Action makes it more expensive to landfill while the shareholders have been presented with the economic case for recycling light ash through sale to concerete manufacturers, then the shareholders will see that the directors of the energy company are in breach of their duties - which is to "to act in the best interests of the company at all times". Following this, they can vote out various people at the AGM.