Vinh Tan Power Center in Tuy Phong District, Binh Thuan Province consists of 5 thermal power plants, 4 of which are already in operation with a total capacity of more than 6,260 MW.
The 4 plants in the past 5 years have released about 11 million tons of ash and coal slag, but only about 1 million were processed, according to Binh Thuan Province’s Department of Industry and Trade.
The remaining by-products are left in landfills built by the plants’ investors, the 2 largest of which cover an area of 98 hectares and can hold up to 16.8 million tons of waste.
While only 9,8 million tons of ash and coal slag are residing in these 2 areas, the rest of the landfills are overflowed.
Since the amount of ash buried are too large and not properly processed, the environment and surrounding residential areas are being affected.
Over the years, Binh Thuan Province and district-level agencies have suggested utilizing waste from thermal power as construction materials.
According to Deputy Director of Binh Thuan Province’s Department of Industry and Trade Ha Le Thanh Chung, although the investors at Vinh Tan Power Center have encouraged functional units to collect the ash and slag, results are not as good as expected.
The reasons for this are difficulty to transport them from the thermal plants to cement production facilities due to great distances, and sea transportation of this type of material is quite costly.
Furthermore, there are very few facilities that can repurpose ash and coal slag as building materials, not to mention it is not a common practice in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the use of ash and coal slag in concrete roads is also problematic, said the provincial Department of Transport. There have not been technical instructions in the national standard on ash, thermal slag, coal-fired thermal power for roadbeds, so actual construction must wait until lab tests and field experiments have been conducted.
Administrative roadblocks also hinder the use of flue ash in roller-compacted concrete, since according to the current standards on mineral admixture in roller compacted concrete, fly ash replaces only 5% of the total volume of mineral additives.
In lights of these complications, the People’s Committee of Binh Thuan continues to direct related agencies and find businesses to collect ash and coal slag, as well as propose measures to prioritize this material in building roads in accordance with current regulations.
