An aging giant was shut down at the Lafarge Exshaw cement plant this week as part of a provincial environmental requirement as the company prepares to go online with its expansion.
Sitting in a familiar chair inside the control room, 84-year-old retired Lafarge employee Tony Levstik watched the flame flicker out at Kiln 4, Monday (Nov. 30). As an original operator, Levstik was invited to decommission the oldest of the plant’s two kilns.
The kiln may not show its years in grey and white hair, but after 40 years in production, the colossal 600-foot Kiln 4 became outdated by environmental standards.
Taking over production will be state-of-the-art Kiln 6, which is on schedule to be operational in spring 2016 as part of the company’s multi-hundred million-dollar expansion.
“It’s the dawn of a new day,” said Plant Manager Jim Bachmann at the kiln’s “retirement” party.
Comparing the two kilns, Kiln 6, per tonne of production, will be about 30 per cent cleaner for sulphur dioxide, 75 per cent cleaner for nitrous oxide emissions, and 25 per cent lower in greenhouse gas emission from combustion.
After 44 years at Lafarge, Levstik retired in 1994 after being one of the first generation operators of Kiln 4 in 1975. He said it “feels like home” to be back in the control room and having seen the historic end to the kiln.
“I was a teenager when I came here and I thought I would just stay for the winter,” said the Exshaw resident.
The kiln was completed in ‘75 on a $30 million budget, 300 tradesman worked on it during its peak, two of which lost their lives during its construction, and a strike delayed the project’s completion.
“I was starting (kilns) 4 and 5 on the startup … it was way different (in the ‘70s) you won’t believe it. We were all new, we switched to a computer and it was a different kind of kiln. It went from a wet method to a dry method,” Levstik said.
The dry process was a big leap in technology from the wet process in the ‘70s, and with Kiln 6 going to a pre-heated process, it is the next significant jump in technology for Lafarge in producing product.
Ron Braun, Lafarge vice-president of projects, wearing a vintage red, black and white Lafarge jacket from the era, estimated Kiln 4 produced 15-million tonnes of product during its four decades in production.
It was a historic retirement, said MD of Bighorn Reeve Dene Cooper, and the kiln served Alberta well.
“It certainly provided employment for many, many people … it will be replaced by Kiln 6, which will have an even greater contribution for Alberta than Kiln 4 had, and Kiln 4 had a very significant contribution to Western Canada.”
The plant upgrade will have the ability to produce up to 2.2 million tonnes of cement per year – an economic impact of the plant’s increased production and gross domestic product of Alberta is estimated at $800-million per year.
Fifteen to 20 jobs will be created on-site when completed.
Bachmann said there is no plan currently to dismantle the massive kiln following its decommissioning.
“It’s still a significant asset,” Bachmann said. “Usually, a lot of plants will do a demolition like that if a new line is going in it’s place and since Kiln 6 is (a few hundred metres away) there’s no hurry.”
Lafarge has taken the impact on the community into account and relocated the new kiln farther away from the hamlet of Exshaw.
The last major upgrade to the Exshaw plant took place in 1981.
