Sustainable Development Goals
PROJECT INFORMATION AT A GLANCE:
Project Status:
Historical reference; completed in 2012
Organizations Involved:
KEPCO, Kumho Petrochemical, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Gangrim, TDR, CM Shredders
Services / Equipment:
Due Diligence, Supply Chain Management, Packaged Solutions
At Kumho Petrochemical’s South Korean cogeneration project, it took approximately two years of tire-feed refinement to control the steel wire that could foul the combustion system. At the same time, competition for scrap tires exposed the limits of a fuel strategy built around a finite domestic resource. Klean’s involvement brought together the decisions that connect those two realities: technology selection, tire preparation and the supply chain needed to keep an industrial plant running.
The scale was substantial. The first phase combined two boilers, each rated at 250 tonnes of steam per hour, with a 119 MW steam turbine. A subsequent expansion added two 400-tonnes-of-steam-per-hour boilers. Electricity and process steam served industrial customers whose operations depended on reliable utilities.
This case demonstrates why Klean’s experience extends from selecting shredders to evaluating the commercial consequences of plant scale. A tire becomes a useful industrial fuel only when its preparation, delivered cost and dependable supply match the plant consuming it.
A large tire resource with existing customers
Klean’s original project assessment described a South Korean market generating more than 500,000 metric tonnes of scrap tires annually, with approximately 70% already being recycled or recovered. Tire-derived fuel (TDF) was an established outlet, competing with other uses for that material.
Kumho’s opportunity was to substitute prepared tire fuel for part of its coal consumption while supplying electricity, steam and purified water to businesses in the Yeosu Industrial Complex. Industrial demand gave the project a clear purpose and an established market for its utilities.
The fuel market presented a different challenge. Existing recycling activity meant that a national scrap-tire total could not be treated as an uncommitted supply. A large new consumer would have to compete for tires, develop imports or broaden its fuel mix. Increasing plant capacity could strengthen energy production while making the fuel supply more expensive and difficult to secure.
Klean’s approach connected the Detailed Feasibility Study (DFS) with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the financial and environmental case together. The appropriate recovery route depended on the local resource, industrial customers and practical alternatives for those tires.
Select a combustion system with room to change the fuel mix
Following approximately two years of planning, circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) was selected for the coal and TDF cogeneration application. Sumitomo Heavy Industries, drawing on its Foster Wheeler CFB technology experience, supplied the boiler technology.
Fuel flexibility was a central reason for that choice. Alongside coal and prepared tires, the technology offered routes to suitable biomass and other approved solid fuels. This gave the operator options as availability and delivered fuel prices changed.
The first phase entered commercial operation in May 2009. Its two boilers provided a combined 500 tonnes/hour of steam-generation capacity. The later two-boiler expansion provided a further 800 tonnes/hour of steam-generation capacity, illustrating the industrial scale of the utility system.
Klean’s original account described a planned TDF substitution range of approximately 20–30%. Achieving that ambition depended on both fuel supply and preparation. The boiler’s ability to accept a fuel did not determine how much could be procured economically.
Make the tire-processing equipment fit the receiving plant
For the KPC application, Klean selected the tire-processing equipment. This equipment decision formed part of the connection between the scrap-tire supply and the fuel required by the combustion process.
Klean’s project account records approximately two years of fine-tuning the tire-chip feed, with particular attention to controlling steel wire to prevent fouling. The original preparation concept used approximately 2-inch tire chips; the operating work demonstrated why nominal chip size alone was insufficient to define an acceptable fuel.
That experience has direct value for developers. Shredding determines what reaches the next process. The remaining wire, consistency of the prepared material and behavior of the feed system affect whether downstream equipment can operate reliably. Choosing the preparation line requires an understanding of the plant it will serve.
Understand how a major fuel buyer changes the market
Klean’s assessment found that the project’s appetite for alternative fuel put pressure on South Korea’s tire market. Scrap-tire prices rose, imports became difficult to sustain at the intended scale, and the actual tire contribution remained a small share of the fuel mix described in the original account.
This is where the choice of a flexible combustion system mattered commercially. Biomass and other suitable recovered fuels offered alternatives to relying on domestic tires alone. The project demonstrated both the utility of CFBC and the limits of expanding a tire-fuel strategy beyond the supply that the market could support.
Industrial energy integration with a clear lesson about scale
The cogeneration development supplied industrial utilities while making productive use of heat alongside electricity generation. Klean’s original account reported the following approximate benefits of the integrated energy approach:
These are the approximate performance benefits presented in the original case; the applicable fuel mix, heat demand and comparison basis determine the result for each project.
The utility network also supported year-round supply through multiple sites and backup facilities, reduced reliance on remote power transmission and provided local generation to help meet seasonal peaks.
For Klean, the lasting value of the assignment lies in the relationship between those industrial benefits and the constraints encountered upstream. Bigger is not always better when expansion increases competition for the very fuel intended to improve the economics. The two-year preparation experience also showed how a seemingly small detail, such as wire remaining in tire chips, can become a major operating issue.
Klean brings that experience to equipment selection and project development: understanding how the collection market, preprocessing system and final energy customer affect one another before a client commits to the plant configuration.
1. Fuel preparation affects the performance of the entire plant.
Klean’s equipment selection and the two-year tire-feed refinement experience connect shredding decisions with downstream operating reliability.
2. A large waste market can still be a constrained supply market.
Existing users, imports and competition for tires shaped the practical fuel strategy and limited the intended substitution.
3. Fuel flexibility has commercial value.
CFBC enabled a broader fuel strategy while cogeneration served established industrial demand for useful heat and power.
These are selected project lessons. Further technical and commercial insights are available through an engagement with Klean.
Before selecting a shredder or sizing a thermal plant, involve a team that understands both the material entering the process and the customer buying its output. Klean can help define the preparation system, assess accessible feedstock and select a process suited to your market.
Begin with a paid Detailed Equipment Quotation (DEQ) to establish the proposed equipment and preliminary investment basis. A Detailed Feasibility Study (DFS) develops the complete project case, followed by Front-End Engineering Design (FEED). For an existing operation, Klean can scope a focused fuel-supply or process-improvement assignment.
Develop Your Fuel Preparation and Energy Project with Klean >> GO.
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ABOUT THE INFORMATION PRESENTED
This case describes Klean’s historical project experience and the market conditions assessed at that time. Further technical, operating and commercial information is addressed within an agreed engagement and appropriate confidentiality arrangements.
This project addresses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by considering the goals and associated targets illustrated by the WBCSD’s Tire Industry Project (TIP). TIP provides a framework for action that outlines impactful pathways for the tire sector to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To learn more about how Klean’s approach, solutions, and technologies contribute to advancing the SDGs, please review the report “Sustainability Driven: Accelerating Impact with the Tire Sector SDG Roadmap”.
