Ash and slag from thermopower plants can be used to make unburned bricks

Nguyen Tien Thanh, director of the the Mong Duong 1 Thermopower Plant, said at a workshop held in late August 2017 that the plant faces closure as the ash and slag cannot be treated or sold. If so, VND37 trillion worth of the state’s investment capital will be lost.

Thermal power is one of the major sources of ash residue. To produce 1 kWh of electricity with coal, 0.2-1.5 kilograms of ash and slag will be produced. 

It is expected that Vietnam will have 43 thermopower plants by 2020, so the treatment of ash is an urgent task.

According to MOC (the Ministry of Construction), the biggest problem is that many cement and unburned brick manufacturers use ash and slag from thermopower plants as production materials that do not meet requirements in Decree No 38 dated April 2015 on ash and slag.

An official from MOC said that building material manufacturers can master the technology that uses ash, slag and gypsum instead of other input materials to make unburned building materials. However, the amount of treated ash to be put into use remains limited. 

A report from the ministry estimates that only 30 percent of ash, or 5 million tons, is consumed every year.

According to Dao Danh Tung from the Building Material Institute under  MOC, the policies applied in the past did not force emission facilities to use ash and slag and the facilities only had to satisfy environmental standards. 

Therefore, thermopower plants just needed to find storage grounds to put the ash.

However, treating ash and slag from thermopower plants is now urgent. If all the thermopower plants are built as planned and if the ash and slag cannot be treated, the volume would be 61 million tons by 2018 and 109 million by 2020. 

The figures would be 248 million tons by 2025 and 422 million tons by 2030. By that time, thermopower plants will need vast land areas for storage grounds. 

“There is a risk of thermopower plants having to stop operations,” Tung said.

Nguyen Van Thanh from Vung Ang Thermopower Plant complained that a plan to cooperate with cement manufacturers to treat ash and slag was stopped by the police, which affirmed that treatment was carried out without permission.

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Xay Dung