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Santee Cooper, cement companies recycle emission waste byproduct
By Rachel Pleasant
Staff Writer
Santee Cooper Power is perfecting the art of turning nothing into something. Earlier this year, it was announced that Texas-based American Gypsum Co. would build a $125 million gypsum wallboard plant in Georgetown County.
The company entered into a long-term agreement with Santee Cooper Power to turn synthetic gypsum, a byproduct the utility company produces every day, into wallboard.
This development is the latest installment in a program the utility company started in 1999 to put its gypsum to good use.
Cement companies Lafarge, with a facility in Harleyville, and Holcim, with facilities in Georgetown and Holly Hill, have signed on to use gypsum in their products.
Gypsum is produced from Santee Cooper’s environmental control technology in which scrubbers remove sulphur dioxide from coal, eliminating it from the utility’s emissions, says Laura Varn, a Santee Cooper spokeswoman.
Santee Cooper currently produces 300,000 tons of gypsum annually, all of which is being sold to Lafarge and Holcim and then recycled. By 2007, Santee Cooper expects to produce between 600,000 and 700,000 tons. The extra gypsum will be sold to American Gypsum Co.
“We’re putting more scrubbers in the power plants, and our system is growing,” she says.
The partnership with these companies, Varn says, is only logical.
“Otherwise the gypsum would go to a landfill,” Varn says. “You’re able to take a byproduct that is otherwise a waste and provide it to companies that make it a useful product.”
The idea of turning waste into something useful is also a priority at Holcim, which buys about 100,000 tons every year from Santee Cooper.
“All Portland cement requires gypsum as a raw material,” says Dave Melcher, Holcim’s quality control manager. “Our company wants to take as much material out of the landfills.”
Buying synthetic gypsum rather than natural gypsum makes no difference in the final product, Melcher says, but the Santee Cooper program, in addition to its environmental benefits is also cost-effective.
“It has a significant economic advantage over importing it from Spain or Italy,” or finding a natural source of gypsum, which is what many cement companies have to do, Melcher says.
Santee Cooper declined to disclose what it charges for the gypsum.
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