Page 46 - 2021 Sustainability Report

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

Our Magnesia Specialties Business

After our cement business, our magnesia specialties We also manufacture magnesia-based products at our
business, which has two plants — one in Ohio and one Manistee, Michigan, facility, which are a relatively
in Michigan — is the second largest contributor to our insignificant source of direct GHG emissions. Notably, our
Scope 1 GHG footprint. This is due almost entirely to products manufactured at this plant help control emissions
the operation of our Woodville, Ohio, plant where we and result in other environmental benefits.
operate six lime kilns of varying ages. The calcination
process at Woodville is very similar to our cement
Some of those applications for our products include:
business, except that Woodville processes dolomitic
component than
limestone, which contains a higher CO 2
the high calcium limestone used in our cement plants.
In contrast to cement, our Magnesia Specialties business Purification of drinking water as well as
cannot achieve GHG reductions through substitution for industrial and municipal wastewater
our calcined lime product since both internal and external
customers require that we maintain extremely high purity
to allow further processing.
Optimization of transformer electricity
transmission
“Notably, our products

manufactured at this plant help
Replacement of hazardous chemicals with
control emissions and result in our non-hazardous magnesium oxide and

other environmental benefits.” hydroxide products

Nevertheless, we have seen a considerable reduction Sulfur oxide pollution reduction
in GHG emissions intensity in our Magnesia Specialties
business in recent years. This is primarily driven through
our investments in modernizing the Woodville plant,
most notably construction of a new, more efficient kiln Nuclear waste neutralization
that was completed in 2012. In 2018, under a consent
decree negotiated with USEPA, the Company committed
to spend an additional +/- $30 million at this site to add
preheaters and other state-of-the-art control technology Improvements in gas turbine electric
to two other large kilns. While primarily designed to generation efficiency
control NOx and SO emissions, based on our initial
2
experience with the first preheater in 2021, we believe we
will see GHG emission reductions although it is too early to
quantify them. This project is in its second phase with an Reduction of chemical usage in pulp
additional preheater and additional bag house installations bleaching and improvements in paper
underway. grade pulp yield, reducing wood demand,
and fertilizers to maximize crop yield and
We are currently evaluating systems to achieve additional to replenish soil nutrients
reductions through implementation of heat recovery
systems, improvements in combustion efficiency through
new product mixes, process changes and upgraded Reduction of sewer system pollution,
equipment, and minimizing the generation of fines and such as hydrogen sulfide gas
other byproducts.

44 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT