China Builds $21 Billion Facility Converting Coal Ash to Alumina

In a bid to lessen the impacts of coal ash into its surrounding environment, China's biggest coal producer had started building a facility that would pave coal ash to be converted into alumina.

China Shenhua Group is poised to spend $21.4 billion into the project, state-news Xinhua quoted Ling Wen, deputy manager of Shenhua Group, as saying. The facility is located in the Jungar Coal Mining Area in Ordos, a prefecture-level city in north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

In October, the ministries of land resources and finance chose the Jungar Coal Mine as China's first coal mine to use recycled mineral resources.

China Shenhua Group said Ordos could produce 3 billion metric tons of alumina, a raw material used to make aluminum. It is holds one-sixth of China's coal reserves.

The recycling plant project will include a 6,600-megawatt power plant, an alumina plant and a gallium plant. All plants will use materials recycled from coal burning.

Coal ash is a waste byproduct of coal-fired power plants. It contains concentrations of heavy metals and salts that can seep into the environment unless properly disposed of in ponds with liners and covers. The contamination normally gets into groundwater and the soil.