After over 100 years of industrial use, we are transforming the Lagoons at Cledford Lane into a wildlife reserve. At British Salt we are always looking for ways to proactively invest back into the local area and the community. This project allows us to do just that, as well as set a route for other businesses with portfolios of brownfield land to follow.

What is the aim of the project?

The scheme will revitalize the former industrial land to create safe public access to large swaths of the site that have, up until now, been inaccessible. The restoration will protect and enhance unique habitats that have already sprung up on the site and will preserve and enhance the rare biodiversity of the land and secure the future of the site for the next 30 years as a haven for wildlife.

What was the site originally used for?

The 70-acre site is made up of a network of 8 settling lagoons that date back to 1896. Originally used by the soda ash and salt purification industries in Middlewich, the land was used for settlement and storage of non-toxic process waste materials.

Tell us more about the build

In a bid to keep things local and in an effort to mitigate disruption for residents and minimise the works’ overall carbon footprint, the project plans, in part, to use excess soil from the construction of the local bypass.

The land will be regenerated with environmental impact front of mind. Circa 200,000m3 of restoration soils generated from developments in the local area, such as the Middlewich Bypass construction, will be used to ‘cap and restore’ the land, ensuring minimal disruption to local communities while reducing the overall carbon footprint of the project. Water collection system improvements are also planned to ensure that rain falling on the site does not come into contact with waste material. This improvement of the water discharge quality will also improve the long-term health of Sanderson’s Brook, with the aim of supporting the biodiversity of this watercourse.

Why are brownfield projects like this one important?

The restoration of the lagoons is a positive step in the preservation of dwindling biodiversity in the UK, which is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world*. The project is not only an opportunity to create a valuable environmental asset of regional importance, but also a chance for the public to access much of the site for the first time in over a century.

How will the local community be able to enjoy this space?

A set of circular footpaths will connect to existing local routes so local residents, walkers and dog walkers will be able to enjoy the restored site safely and without detriment to the valuable flora and fauna.

How does this project relate to legislation and Biodiversity Units?

We’re working with specialist partners Green Earth Developments (“GEDG”) to deliver this project, which is one of the first schemes to use the provisions of the Environment Act 2021 to deliver Biodiversity Units. These units can assist other developments in the area that now have to deliver a 10% net gain in terms of biodiversity as part of their planning permissions. In essence Biodiversity units from this scheme can be used to offset losses on other sites thus ensuring Cheshire East has an overall net gain.

Our Sustainability Manager at British Salt, Jennifer Haynes, said of the project: “Good stewardship of our legacy assets is a real focus for us and the opportunity to make a positive impact is really exciting. We really hope the approach for this project provides a route for others to follow, showing how industrial businesses can use what they already hold to make a significant environmental contribution.

“We plan to set up a local Liaison Committee to help steer the long-term management of the site ensuring that its place as a Middlewich community asset is assured for future generations.”

Sources

*State of Nature – Natural England, Pete Brotherton, 2023

Storm Christoph, flooding and COVID-19 notwithstanding, the development of the ground-breaking carbon capture and utilisation plant at our Winnington site is continuing to press ahead and is on track to be tested and commissioned in the first half of 2021.

• Carbon Capture Plant Progress Overview

With much of the process equipment and buildings already in place by early winter, the focus of the project over the past 4 months has been on installing 4km of pipework and 14km of electrical cabling needed to operate the carbon capture plant.
The largest pipework installed is the 1.5m diameter ducting that transports flue gases from the CHP plant. To give an idea of scale, that means that in certain sections, it’s large enough to drive a Mini through! Emissions enter the ducting at 100oC and travel 140m to the inlet of the CCU plant. Completion of this pipework marks a major milestone for the project.
Much of the other pipework arrived on site from Studley Engineering in prefabricated sections ready to connect the process equipment together.

• Insulating Tanks for Liquified CO2 Storage

Other major work included commencing insulating the liquefied CO2 storage tanks.

These tanks store the captured carbon dioxide at -24.1oC and 17.3 Barg. To do this, the three 22m long storage tanks needed to be surrounded with scaffolding to enable access and then covered to ensure they are kept dry throughout the process. An outer cladding, supported off the tanks by foam spacing pieces, was then placed around the storage tanks. This work paves the way for a special insulation mixture to be pumped in to fill the gap between the tank and the cladding in early March.

The stored CO2 is used to supply our sodium bicarbonate plant. After having been converted back to a gas, the CO2 is transported over half a kilometre to the manufacturing plant in a pipe that has been installed in a trench.

• Strong Progress Despite Severe Weather Conditions

As with any project running at this time of year, the weather has played a part in our progress. In January, the Northwich area was hard-hit by Storm Christoph. The severe flooding that resulted was the worst on record, with the water level rising over 70cm above the previous high-water record.

For the first time in living memory, the building used to house pumps that abstract water from the River Weaver flooded. The photos show one of the project’s two new river water pumps packed in a transport crate outside the building surrounded by water. As a result, it had to be removed and overhauled. Fortunately, the second pump was unaffected and has now been installed. It is now ready to pump water to the CCU plant to aid cooling of the process, and the now overhauled pump will be installed to sit alongside it in the coming weeks.

• Record Investigation Helps Make Crucial Connections

Other challenges included connecting the new drainage system for the plant to the existing network of drainage culverts on the site. Much of the existing network was built in the 1880s when the original soda ash plant was built. Fantastic records of the original plant have been kept. However, in-depth investigation into over 400,000 drawings of the soda ash works and the updates to the site over the past 140 years was required before making the final connections!

Projects Director, Ladan Iravanian, commented:

“Whilst much of the very visual parts of the plant were installed before the winter months, the site over the last couple of months has been a hive of activity. Often, we’ve had over 70 people from many technical and engineering disciplines working together in a COVID secure manner.

“The purpose of this phase of the project is to make sure that the process equipment is mechanically and electrically connected and we are ready to start testing and commissioning the plant in the first half of 2021.”

Our Energy Director Peter Houghton features in the recently published Economist Intelligence Unit report ‘Ready for change: pathways to a low- emissions future’ that focuses on the UK’s 2050 net-zero target.

In June 2019 the UK government announced a target of eliminating net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. Britain’s success in achieving “net-zero” will require businesses across all sectors to make fundamental change.

The Economist report includes feedback from a 2019 survey of 205 senior executives from energy-intensive UK businesses with annual revenue of £100m+ that meet at least some of their electricity needs through self-generation.

The Economist’s survey results are accompanied by in-depth interviews with executives and industry experts, including Tata Chemicals Europe’s (TCE’s) Peter Houghton.

In line with TCE’s example, many firms have already made progress in pursuing low-emissions strategies, influenced by existing regulation; consumer pressure; business benefits such as cost savings and their corporate social responsibility policies. The Economist report examines the various pathways that businesses are taking in pursuit of a low emissions future.

Key Findings

The report highlighted confidence is high amongst these senior executives that these targets will be achieved. Seventy one per cent of respondents (71%) believe that their organisation is very or extremely likely to achieve this goal and just 7% consider it unlikely. The chemical manufacturing sector is extremely optimistic, with 73% of respondents in this sector stating they believe their company is very or extremely likely to hit targets.

Self generation activities in order to meet at least some of the firm’s energy needs was widely adopted with cost savings and environmental considerations cited as key reasons, followed by brand perception as a green, sustainable or innovative company.

Respondents expect that the amount of energy their organisations self-generate will rise in the future.

Businesses are actively driving low carbon transitions to meet climate-related targets, independent of the impending regulatory pressure.

To help meet the climate-related targets, firms are monitoring direct and indirect emissions with varying degrees of success.

Emissions reduction budgets have increased, enabling companies to set climate targets and to monitor their performance against plan in this respect.

The report goes on to explore self-generation as a pathway to achieving lower emissions and climate-related goals.

The TCE Case Study

TCE features prominently in the report as a case study company.

With TCE being cited as ‘something of an outlier’ when it comes to self-generation, the case study sets the scene by outlining how our company meets 100% of its energy needs through on-site generation, whilst supplying other businesses and also selling electricity back to the grid.

It tells how in 2000 a new, large-scale CHP was built to serve our sites, and this was operated by an energy utility (E.ON) until 2013.

Peter Houghton takes over the TCE energy story from 2013 onwards when the company took ownership of the CHP and set up its own energy team supported by E.ON who continues to provide operation and maintenance services.

As Peter outlined:

“Results so far have been exceptional. We supply our own sites and some third parties, along with [meeting] all of our heat requirements—which are extensive, because we are more heat-intensive than electro-intensive.”

Key Driver: Affordable Heat & Electricity

Peter explains how the original motivation for self-generation was the shortcomings of the local distribution system explaining that the driver now is affordable heat and electricity.

“Grid electricity is very expensive, as it includes all the subsidies for nuclear and renewables, as well as the rapidly escalating cost of the UK’s transmission system. This is a major burden for energy users who take a grid supply.”

Ofgem Proposals

Peter also highlights how self-generation underpins our ability to compete in our markets, but keeping up with energy policy and its potential impact on this model is a headache.

The company is concerned by proposals put forward by Ofgem, the UK electricity and downstream gas regulator, to force self-generators like TCE to pay for the UK’s transmission system, despite not using it.

As Peter explains:

“We don’t think that’s right, and we don’t think it’s in line with government strategy. We’re active in supporting the UK government to shape the future energy policy, as it’s a prerequisite for a thriving UK industrial sector.”

Peter continues to explain how the absence of clarity and coherence holds businesses like Tata back from making certain investments. And, although TCE has recently announced plans to build Britain’s largest carbon capture plan, which is set to reduce the firm’s overall carbon footprint by 10%, it still finds itself constrained in other areas, such as energy storage, that could also make a substantial difference.

Status Update & Conclusion

The Economist report continues to examine how companies are mapping the journey to net zero and concludes with a status report at time of publication:

It highlights how new policies have already emerged as a result of the UK’s net-zero target and is clear that many business-driven decarbonisation initiatives are already in action and there has been a definite step change in energy efficiency. However, it’s apparent that business leaders are not complacent about the scale of the challenge that lies ahead. While they may be confident about their own company’s abilities to reach the net-zero target by 2050, they are less confident about their industry as a whole.

The Economist cites that the signs are positive that cheaper renewables, more accessible battery power, newer technologies such as carbon capture, and a drive to tackle direct and indirect emissions will put more ambitious low-carbon and low emissions targets within reach.

It is crystal clear that low-emissions strategies are now a vital part of business planning and target setting will have the potential to stimulate new thinking about how operations, products, services and supply chains must evolve in the years to come.

To read the full report, please see here: https://impact.economist.com/

British Salt gas introduced a range of iodised salt products.

Salt fortified with iodine is a well-established way of helping people to get the required levels of this important nutrient in their lives. The UK is currently in the top 10 iodine deficient countries in the world, but British Salt is playing their part in turning this around, they have now introduced a range of iodised salt products of different concentrations and pack sizes, to meet end-user requirements.

British Salt’s Iodised Salt is made using the highly stable potassium iodate and is suitable for a wide range of applications including bread manufacture as well as iodised table salt. Available in a range of iodine concentrations, their offering is designed to suit the requirements of the market and end-user application.

With British Salt’s Ladan Iravanian president of the EU Salt Association in 2019, there was extra interest at TCE and British Salt in the topics being discussed at the conference.

Being the authoritative voice of the salt industry in Europe, The EU Salt Association represents the industry and helps to advocate and promote the importance of salt. British Salt also won the Safety Awards that is known to be a cornerstone of every EU Salt Association Conference. Read more about the key topics at the conference were:

• The Future of Salt
• Salt and Safety
• Circularity & Salt
• #SaltMatters

Tata Chemicals Europe (“TCE”) has unveiled plans to build the UK’s first industrial-scale Carbon Capture & Utilisation (“CCU”) Demonstration Plant, which will reduce its carbon emissions, whilst ensuring a secure, sustainable supply of carbon dioxide – a raw material critical to the business’s international growth.

The first large-scale CCU project of its kind in the UK, the project also marks a world first in capturing and purifying carbon dioxide from power generation plant emission gases to use as a key raw material to manufacture high purity sodium bicarbonate. The project will help pave the way for other industrial applications of carbon dioxide capture and is an important step in decarbonising industrial activity and supports the Government’s recently announced target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

With planning permission granted earlier this month, the CCU at TCE’s Northwich industrial site, is scheduled to commence carbon dioxide capture operations in 2021. Supporting the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy, the £16.7m project will be funded by TCE with the support of a £4.2m grant from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through the Carbon Capture and Utilisation Demonstration (“CCUD”) Programme.

Tata Chemicals Europe is the UK’s only manufacturer of soda ash and sodium bicarbonate and is one of the UK’s leading producers of salt. The high-quality products made by TCE are essential input materials used in glass, food, pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing sectors. The CCU project supports growth of TCE’s largest export product; high-grade sodium bicarbonate used in food and pharmaceutical applications.

TCE is the largest single site user of liquid carbon dioxide in the UK. Food grade liquid carbon dioxide is an essential raw material, used to manufacture high-grade sodium bicarbonate, which is primarily used in the pharmaceutical and haemodialysis sectors.

Global demand for this grade of sodium bicarbonate is growing as more of the world’s population has access to healthcare; TCE already exports 60% of its sodium bicarbonate to over 60 countries across the globe. The CCU project will be a springboard for TCE to unlock further growth into its export markets.

In a unique application of CCU technology, the TCE plant will capture carbon dioxide from the flue gases of TCE’s 96MWe gas-fired combined heat and power plant (“CHP”), which supplies steam and power to the company’s Northwich operations and other industrial businesses in the area. The CCU plant will then purify and liquify the gas for use directly in the manufacture of sodium bicarbonate. Deploying CCU technology will reduce emissions, as captured CO2 will be effectively utilized in the manufacturing process rather than being emitted into the atmosphere.

The CCU plant will be capable of capturing and producing up to 40,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide and will reduce TCE’s carbon emissions at the CHP plant by 11%.
Already one of the most efficient power plants in the UK, the CHP plant is a low-carbon source of electricity, currently producing half the amount of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated compared to a typical gas fired power station. Once the CCU plant is operational, this will reduce the CO2 per kWh electricity generated even further.

The project will be completed over the next two years, the CCU plant is to be designed and delivered by TCE alongside a leading supplier of CO2 capture and purification technologies.

TCE has a strong track record of carbon reduction: following investment in its steam turbines in 2015, the business already produces Europe’s lowest carbon intensity soda ash and sodium bicarbonate. In another move to reduce its carbon footprint, TCE is also investing £7.2m this year in state-of-the-art boilers at subsidiary, British Salt.

Commenting on the project, TCE MD, Martin Ashcroft, said:

“The CCU demonstration plant will enable us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing supplies of a critical raw material, helping to grow the export of our products across the world. Implementing this industry leading project, with such strong environmental and operational benefits is hugely exciting, and we’re pleased to be working closely with BEIS to deliver the demonstration plant.

“We hope that this project will demonstrate the viability of CCU and pave the way for further applications of the technology to support the decarbonization of industrial activity. Our parent company, Tata Chemicals Ltd, has supported this innovative project, enabling our UK operations to continue to reduce its carbon emissions. This project is a great example of business and Government working together to rise to the challenge of decarbonising industrial production.”

In April 2018 the publication the Government’s ‘Clean Growth Strategy’ set a framework for growing national income, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions. To help enable this goal, the Government committed to spend up to £100 million from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Energy Innovation Programme to support Industry and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) innovation. With the objective of improving business and industry efficiency, and further reducing the cost of deploying CCUS, the Carbon Capture & Utilisation Demonstration (CCUD) Programme – announced in the Clean Growth Strategy – provides grant funding to innovation projects that significantly reduce the cost of capturing and utilisation of CO2.

Commenting on the project, Chris Skidmore, Energy & Clean Growth Minister said:

“Cutting edge technology to capture carbon will cut emissions as we work towards a net zero economy, while creating new jobs – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.

“This innovative project from Tata Chemicals Europe represents a major milestone in efforts to rollout carbon capture at scale by the 2030s.”

Tata Chemicals host an annual event to recognise Lean Six Sigma project excellence and share knowledge from across the global reach of the Tata Chemicals business. Each year, Tata Chemicals brings top performing teams from each of its business units to present their best project. These awards have traditionally been for large scale manufacturing projects where production processes have been significantly improved.

This year, in recognition of a unique data digitisation project, Rob Hudson and Alex Paterson from Tata Chemicals Europe attended the event and presented the digitisation of multiple reporting and monitoring activities within TCE’s Energy Business Unit. The output of this project provides management with real time information on energy generation activities and integrates energy market intelligence to improve decision and increase forecasting accuracy.

At the 2018 event held at Tata Chemical’s North American Soda Ash production facility in Wyoming, Rob and Alex didn’t scoop the main prize, awarded to colleagues from Tata Chemicals in India who completed a revolutionary project on the bromine production plant at Mithapur, in India’s Gujarat State. However, due to the groundbreaking nature of the work at TCE, the panel created a new category for digitisation projects and awarded the inaugural prize to Rob and Alex.

Commenting on the event, Rob Hudson said:

“The opportunity to travel to Wyoming and see the Soda Ash production facility at Tata Chemicals North America was fantastic and seeing the work being done by our colleagues across the world and learning about how they drive continuous improvement was inspirational. Building our network across the global business will only help foster a spirit of collaboration and best practice sharing”

Commenting on the award, Alex Paterson said:

“We are delighted that the data digitisation project was recognised by both our management team and the event panel. We were given the freedom to find a solution to a problem, and in finding this solution, we’ve also created a method to implement digitisation projects in other areas of Tata Chemicals Europe.”

Often, nature can provide the ideal analogy for the business environment. In the natural world, ecosystems thrive through the balance struck between organisms relying upon each other for inputs, outputs and by-products – checks and balances essential to maintaining the health of the ecosystem.

Just as ecosystems in the natural world are complex networks of interconnected activity, the same is true of Tata Chemicals Europe. It is really no different: the production of sodium carbonate (soda ash), salt, sodium bicarbonate (bicarb) and energy all operate together, creating the ecosystem that generates stability and opportunities for growth. And it’s not just linking of products in production systems; the wider economic environment also influences the health of the company. Soda ash is a commodity, heavily influenced by the global economic cycle, British Salt and bicarb production operate in very different markets, meaning that together the risks to the overall business are reduced.

So, who does what for who at TCE?

• The Lostock soda ash plant provides the raw material for bicarb production at Winnington
• Lostock also provides British Salt with soda ash that is used in brine purification
• The energy plant provides low carbon electricity and steam for both soda ash and bicarb production
• British Salt, bicarb, energy and soda ash all operate in markets that have different influences, helping to smooth the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle for TCE as a whole

A key pillar of the TCE ecosystem is the manufacture of soda ash. There are two methods of soda ash production; the mining and refining of the mineral trona in operations such as those undertaken by Tata Chemicals in Wyoming, USA, some of which TCE supplies to its UK customers, and the synthetic route employed by TCE in the UK where, in common with other European countries, there are no trona deposits.

How is Synthetic Soda Ash Made by TCE?

The synthetic soda ash process requires raw materials to produce both light and heavy soda ash, including salt, limestone, water, coke, ammonia, heat and electricity.

The reaction route used to turn salt and limestone into sodium carbonate is known as the Solvay Process. It is a continuous process and the first step involves burning limestone to produce carbon dioxide. This is then bubbled through a salt solution which has been pretreated with ammonia. The resulting reaction produces sodium bicarbonate crystals which are filtered from the reacted solution and heated to form sodium carbonate product.

This stage of the process also produces carbon dioxide gas which is recycled to join the carbon dioxide stream coming from the burnt limestone. The reacted solution, left over when the crystals have been filtered, is heated to recover the ammonia, which is then recycled to treat the fresh salt solution coming into the process.

The initial output is a low-density soda ash (light ash). As well as being sold to industrial customers for use in a range of applications, some of the light ash is redissolved, recrystallised & dried to form a high-density ash (heavy ash) at Lostock. TCE also use light ash to purify brine at British Salt and it is the input material for the production of sodium bicarbonate at both Lostock and Winnington. Around 22% of the light soda ash produced at Lostock is used for bicarb production, demand for which is growing globally every year.

Where does the steam from the Winnington CHP plant fit in?

The soda ash process requires a considerable heat input, mainly to produce the light and heavy ash crystals, but also to recover ammonia, after the main reaction has taken place.

TCE have a dedicated, natural gas-fired Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant to provide all the heat required to carry out these operations. Not only does Winnington CHP provide this heat in the form of steam, it also provides electricity to power compressors, pumps, filters and control systems used in the production process.

What proportion of energy that TCE generates is used at TCE sites?

The high demand for heat and electricity in the production of light and heavy soda ash at Lostock and bicarb at both Winnington and Lostock creates the main base load for the energy generation plant. In fact, out of the 53MW and 150 tonnes per hour of steam TCE generates every day, 90% of the steam and 25% of electricity is used by our own energy intensive production plants. The remainder goes to other local customers sharing our site or to the local electricity grid.

Following the reconfiguration of the CHP in 2015, its normal operating efficiency now exceeds 80%, which is best in class. This means the manufacturing sites are provided with the heat and electricity that has a low carbon footprint, whilst supplying excess electricity to the local network.

In this short summary, we’ve covered how TCE operates in its own robust ecosystem that supports each pillar of the business where together strength, reliability and opportunities for future growth are created. If you’d like to know more about our business please contact us on sales-tcel@tatachemicals.com