The rapid growth of the Indian cement industry has seen the construction of many new efficient plants. The annual gains in output and supply to the market are clearly visible. However, further room for improvement still exists as the uptake of alternative fuels remains limited. Hazardous and municipal solid wastes offer a solution that not only solve some of India’s waste management issues, but also reduce the cement industry’s coal requirements and associated CO2 emissions. By Ritu Bharadwaj and Somnath Bhattacharjee, Institute for Industrial Productivity, India.
To shortlist the most promising alternative fuels within India, a framework was developed to rank potential candidates. The framework offered weighted parameters to enable researchers to shortlist the most suitable options (see Table 1). Based on the chosen criteria, possible alternative fuels were rated on a scale of 1-100 and based on the final score, a final ranking was drawn up (see Table 2).
