News

AGL Energy has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Nu-Rock Building Products, a waste site remediation firm, to examine the viaability of converting coal ash into construction bricks at Bayswater power plant using their waste recycling technology.

Nu-patented Rock’s technology permanently turns enormous amounts of solid and liquid industrial waste into a variety of environmentally friendly construction materials.

Markus Brokhof, AGL’s Chief Operating Officer, stated that the MOU with Nu-Rock will investigate creative ways for AGL to recycle waste, as well as ways to turn the company’s thermal power plant sites into an ecosystem within a circular economy.

“This technology is a great example of using various value streams, as we produce energy at Bayswater to power the state, our coal ash waste can be recycled for the better by Nu-Rock into bricks that can be used in local construction projects,” Mr Brokhof said.

“Our feasibility study with Nu-Rock will determine whether we can implement this technology at Bayswater, which if approved would provide up to 30 full time local jobs for the first facility which will be the nucleus of our industrial waste cluster.

“We have a very clear plan to rejuvenate our thermal sites into low carbon industrial energy hubs, and this technology would complement those plans, as an operations-led facility at the Bayswater site reducing the volume of coal ash going to landfill.”

Nu-Rock Founder and Managing Director, Maroun George Rahme added: “We are working closely with AGL to develop a process to turn by-product they generate by manufacturing products that using less than 3% of the Embodied Energy to manufacture, are carbon negative, up to 4 hours fire rated, up to 50% lighter and less expensive than conventional materials that cannot meet our standards, to be able to build a better future leaving no legacy by-product behind and stopping the need to quarry virgin materials to make conventional products that cannot be recycled completely at the end of their life”.

Publication: Newcastle Herald
Written by: Matthew Kelly
Date: April 2022