# Saharanpur foundries cast hand pumps on coke: what is the cluster's footprint?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/saharanpur-foundry-hand-pump-castings-carbon

Roughly 0.9 t CO2 per tonne of castings, about 18,700 t a year in all. Saharanpur's 50 working foundries made about 21,000 t from 4,100 t of coke and 9.3 million kWh. Coke gives two thirds of the CO2, and the smallest cupola units run far higher per tonne.

## Who casts what

- About 100 foundries exist; about 50 were working when TERI surveyed them.
- Hand pump castings are 60% of output, sewing machine parts 25%, paper mill machinery 10%. Hand pumps also go to Nepal and Bhutan.
- Nearly all melt in conventional cupolas of 2 to 4 t an hour, most over ten years old; only two use induction furnaces.
- Coke is a mix of Dhanbad coke (about 24% ash) and Gujarat coke (about 12%), usually 60 to 70% Dhanbad.

## Why size matters

A unit making 60 t of saleable castings a year uses a third of a tonne of coke per tonne, against about a fifth at 500 to 1,000 t. Coke runs at 20 to 25% of metal melted and 30 to 35% of good castings, so rejects and returns cost you twice.

## The cheapest cuts first

1. Bring rejects from 10 to 15% down below 5% with tighter process control.
2. Knock sand off runners and risers before remelting; it is 4 to 5% of their weight.
3. Size the blower to the cupola's inner diameter: about 5% less coke.
4. Fix charging and operating practice: 5 to 10%.
5. Then a divided blast cupola: about 100 kg of coke per tonne of liquid metal against 150 to 200 kg now, with payback inside a year on coke alone.

## What to send a pump buyer

Give CO2 per tonne of good castings, naming coke tonnes, kWh and factors, then per pump from the casting weight of each model.

## Three unit sizes and the cluster (estimate)

- 60 t castings: 20 t coke x 3.02 = 60 t; 50,000 kWh x 0.675 = 34 t; 1.57 t CO2 per tonne
- 500 t: 110 t coke = 332 t; 200,000 kWh = 135 t; 0.93 t per tonne
- 1,000 t: 200 t coke = 604 t; 500,000 kWh = 338 t; 0.94 t per tonne
- Cluster: 4,100 t coke = 12,382 t; 9.3 million kWh = 6,278 t; 18,660 t / 21,000 t = 0.89 t per tonne

Coke, power and output from TERI's cluster profile (2014-15). Coke at the IPCC default for coke oven coke; high ash coke carries less carbon per tonne, so a lab carbon result would refine this.

## What Senseible does here

Put your coke tonnes and kWh into the calculators for a first figure per tonne; Senseible can then read each month's power bill and coke invoice into records you can show a buyer.

- [Carbon calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)
- [Hand pump CO2 per pump](https://senseible.earth/answers/hand-pump-carbon-footprint-per-pump)
- [Cupola coke CO2 per tonne](https://senseible.earth/answers/cupola-furnace-coke-emissions-per-tonne)

Sources: [TERI, Cluster profile: Saharanpur foundries](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/clusterprofile/Saharanpur-Foundries-Uttar-Pradesh.pdf), [SAMEEEKSHA, Saharanpur foundry cluster summary](https://sameeeksha.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=180&Itemid=502), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel emission factors)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html), [CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector (grid factor 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh, FY 2025-26)](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-31.