Austin American-Statesman: From the ninth-floor catwalk of the cement kiln facility in Buda, a person can see the past and possibly the future of industrial manufacturing. At the terminus of a rail spur sit piles of coal and petroleum coke, old-school combustibles used to heat the kiln, a metal furnace 13.5 feet in diameter and 190 feet long. Inside the furnace, limestone rock melts at temperatures up to 2,700 degrees, or nearly a quarter of that of the outermost part of the sun. On the other side of the …