With help from a NZ$215,000 co-funding grant from the government’s Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) process heat contestable fund, Fulton Hogan will retrofit its Miners Road asphalt plant with a foaming bitumen bar.
This enables warm-mix rather than hot-mix asphalt production, saving an estimated 277 tonnes of carbon a year, the company says.
“With process heat constituting around a third of this country’s total energy use, and asphalt and bitumen activities contributing around 20% of Fulton Hogan’s New Zealand carbon footprint, the long-term importance of developing lower temperature alternatives should not be understated,” said Fulton Hogan’s NZ sustainability manager Dale Eastham.
Conventional hot-mix asphalt is usually produced at temperatures of up to 200⁰C, while warm-mix asphalt is produced using special techniques and additives to reduce the production temperature to between 100⁰C and 150⁰C.
This significantly reduces CO2 emissions at the plant and wider adoption of warm-mix asphalt would have significant knock-on benefits for the construction industry, says Fulton Hogan.
Fulton Hogan has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 30% by 2030 and has adopted a ‘net zero’ carbon target of 2050. Both of these targets are set against a 2021 baseline.
Consequently the company is rolling out programmes to ‘engineer out’ and drive down emissions through reduced diesel use, investing in modern plant and equipment and encouraging its 5,500-strong New Zealand workforce to find ways to do cut their personal carbon footprints.
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