Bowen visits green cement plant at coalition n-power site

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has wasted little time in visiting one of the key sites proposed for a nuclear power station by the Coalition – Port Augusta in South Australia.

But Bowen was not there to spruik nuclear power, but to highlight the green cement and green concrete plant being built at the former Playford power station site by the Hallett Group.

Hallett Group CEO Kane Salisbury welcomed Bowen and SA Minister for Energy and Mining Tom Koutsantonis to the Hallett Green Cement Transformation Project which is centred on a 6MW electrolyser.

Salisbury said: “We’re going to dig out the old flyash pan and take out 20 million tonnes of flyash and turn it into a cement alternative.

“So Hallett Group, we’re really proud of this project that we’ve been working on for a long time – we think it’s going to really help to decarbonise the industry here in South Australia and beyond.”

Bowen, fresh from announcing an agreement to fund construction of solar asnd wind power to take SA to 100 percent renewables praised Hallett for cutting emissions and creating green concrete.

Bowen said: “And that’s what this transition is all about – the site of an old coal-fired power station which employed a lot of people but reached the end of its life several years ago, and now this whole precinct’s being transformed.

“Not just by you – by you and by others into a renewable energy hub, a green cement hub and a critical minerals hub.

“And this is what the future is about – real plans being delivered now that will be important in our emissions reduction and important in jobs creation.”

Bowen contrasted what was happening on the ground with ‘a fantasy of a nuclear plan in this area, which I dare say this is a concrete plan compared to a fantasy plan’.

Hallett will process fly ash as well as waste from the Nyrstar Port Pirie multi-metals smelter to supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) that can replace greater than 50 percent of traditional high CO2 emitting clinker-based cement.

Koutsantonis said: “This site here where the Port Augusta power station once sat is now at capacity in terms of our renewable transmission lines to Adelaide.

“So the idea you can just plug in a nuclear power station here is just folly.

“The real plans are the ones that Chris and I have to make sure that we continue to grow our renewable resources and continue to firm those renewable resources and store them.”

Further reading:
Hallett Group doubles down on decarbonisation at Port Augusta
SA gets enough solar and wind to be 100% renewable

Image: Hallett Group