SP Deolakar explains the concept of greenhouse gases, talks of sustainable development and how all these issues should be handled with respect to the manufacture of cement, in his new book Designing Green Cement Plants.Pradeep Kapoor reviews the book.
In recent years, a lot of attention is being focused on manufacturing cement in an even more environment friendly manner. Efforts are being made for reducing the adverse effects of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, and for ensuring development in a sustainable manner. In the years to come, this issue is likely to attract a lot more attention from the policy makers and the general populace, too. It will become practically impossible to construct new cement plants or to operate existing plants unless they meet the civil society’s requirements of sustainable development and low generation of greenhouse gases. Designers, manufacturers and operators of cement plants will have to understand this subject and its implications, and equip themselves to fulfill the requirements of the emerging statutory regulations and the requirements of civil society.
Keeping this requirement in mind, SP Deolalkar’s Designing Green Cement Plants is a timely and welcome publication, which brings under one cover, all the relevant issues associated with this very important and very sensitive subject.
The author has explained the concept of greenhouse gases, of sustainable development and how all these issues should be handled with respect to the manufacture of cement, in a most coherent manner…
The book is divided into eleven sections, with each section having a number of chapters. Each section deals with a particular aspect of a green cement plant and the various chapters of each section go into sufficient details to enable the reader to fully understand the subject. ASII- relevant issues like blended cements, raw materials, alternate fuels, waste heat recovery systems, cement substitutes, etc, have all been covered. The book also contains chapters on capital costs and costs of production associated with green cement plants. An interesting chapter is on Carbon Capture and Storage System in which the author discusses future possibilities anchored in technologies already developed or under development. It is evident that with the passage of time, regulatory requirements would become increasingly stiff and such futuristic technologies would become integral part of cement plants.
The author, SP Deolalkar, has spent his entire professional life designing, manufacturing, installing and operating cement plants. The wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise that he has garnered in a lifetime has been distilled into this brilliantly produced and eminently readable book. Actually, this is a must read book for anybody connected with designing, manufacturing, operating modern cement plants anywhere in the world. It is a worthy successor to the author’s first book, Handbook for Designing Cement Plants.
Book reviewed by: Pradeep Kapoor, Former Managing Director & CEO, FL Smidth. Former Vice Chairman/Managing Director/CEO, ABG Cement.
About the author
Deolalkar is a first class graduate in Mech. and Elect. Engineering. He is also a Graduate of the British Institute of Management. He joined the Associated Cement Companies, in 1956 and has been associated with the cement industry ever since, a long innings of over 50 years. He has had firsthand working experience in cement plants, in the operation, erection and commissioning of new plants. He later worked with ACC-Vickers-Babcock, a subsidiary of ACC engaged in manufacture of Babcock boilers and cement machinery. Since 1986, Deolalkar has been working as a consultant, first as a Chief Executive of Bhagwati Priya Consulting Engineers , and later for Deolalkar Consultants, a proprietary consultancy company in Hyderabad. Deolalkar was associated with a number of institutions related to the cement industry at the national level like the Bureau of Indian Standards (earlier known as ISI), National Committee for Science and Technology and National Council for Cement and Building Materials. He was a member of the Research Advisory Committee of the NCCBM. In 2008, he wrote his first book Handbook for Designing Cement Plants. It was well received by the cement industry. His second book, Nomograms for Design and Operation of Cement Plants was a sequel to his first book and is complementary to it.