Rio Tinto Yarwun Aluminium Refinery Expansion

The team at Katestone has been involved with evaluating the impacts on local air quality due to an Aluminium Refinery at Yarwun, Gladstone since the late 1990s. Katetone prepared the air quality assessment for the EIS and has worked closely with Rio Tinto (and previously Comalco) since then with various alternative design options. Katestone also conducted an air quality assessment for the most recent approval called Yarwun 2.

“Katestone Environmental used sophisticated dispersion modelling techniques to assess the cumulative impacts of not only the refinery expansion but to account for the significant other sources of air pollution in the Gladstone region.”

Yarwun 2 will more than double annual production, increasing alumina output by two million tonnes to 3.4 million tonnes by 2011.   One of the most important features of Yarwun 2 is the new equipment designed to reduce the refinery's air and greenhouse gas emissions. Flue Gas Desulphurisation equipment will be installed on Yarwun 2's coal fired boiler and as a consequence the total site sulphur dioxide emissions will increase by only 10%, in spite of the significant increase in annual production.  In addition, a gas turbine with a heat recovery steam generator has been included in the Yarwun 2 project, that will reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of emissions from the refinery.

Katestone Environmental used sophisticated dispersion modelling techniques to assess the cumulative impacts of not only the refinery expansion but to account for the significant other sources of air pollution in the Gladstone region. In order to appropriately evaluate the impacts due to sulphur dioxide emissions, which vary depending on the sulphur content in the coal burnt, we used a stochastic emissions technique to represent the full probability distribution of emissions. (see paper presented at IUAPPA Brisbane 2007 for details.)