Displaying items by tag: CCUS

Global: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has received nearly 100 applications from worldwide tech start-ups for its Innovandi Open Challenge, which targets the decarbonisation of cement and concrete. This year's challenge is centred on carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies.

Thomas Guillot, GCCA’s Chief Executive, said "There are already more than 100 CCUS cement industry pilots, projects and announcements in the pipeline across the world – with the world’s first commercial scale carbon capture and storage plant set to complete later this year. Innovation will help our industry to deploy this technology further and faster."

Claude Loréa, GCCA’s Cement, Innovation and ESG Director, said "It’s really encouraging to see nearly 100 applications for our Innovandi Open Challenge and from all parts of the world. As well as the US, UK and India, we’ve received applications from China, Greece and Australia for the first time. It demonstrates the high level of interest in working with our industry to make cement and concrete net zero. We’re looking forward to assessing all the applications, in detail."

The association, alongside over 50 experts from member companies, will now review and shortlist the most deployable technologies, offering shortlisted start-ups access to key industry resources and networks.

Germany: Heidelberg Materials has begun work on the GeZero project at its Milke plant in Geseke. The €500 million project will implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to prevent the release of CO₂, instead capturing and storing it under the North Sea. According to the Westfälische Rundschau, the project has secured €191m in funding from the EU, with Heidelberg Materials covering the remaining amount. The company anticipates completing the plant conversion by 2029, with interim CO₂ transport via rail and potential future pipeline connections. According to the company, around 700,000t/yr of CO₂ is currently produced by the plant.

There had been potential changes in project partnerships due to the sale of BASF subsidiary Wintershall Dea, which was to provide the transport and storage solutions, to Harbour Energy. However, plant manager Steffen Gajewski expects that planning for the conversion of the plant will be completed in 2025, when the new oxyfuel kilns to capture the CO₂ will be ordered and installed.

Germany: Holcim is investing a three-figure million sum into its cement plant in Lägerdorf, Steinburg, according to the Segeberger Zeitung. The plant will employ a second-generation oxyfuel kiln line to increase the concentration of CO₂ in the flue gas during clinker production. The project aims to capture 1Mt/yr of CO₂. The new kiln line is expected to be operational by 2029.

State Secretary for Energy, Joschka Knuth, said "The decarbonisation of Holcim is a very important signal for the entire industrial location of Germany."

Canada: Heidelberg Materials North America has announced a new front end engineering design (FEED) contract for its Edmonton carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) project. This involves MHI Low Carbon Solutions Canada (MHI-LCSC) and Kiewit Energy Group who will collaborate on the carbon capture technology at the plant. The FEED study will leverage MHI's Advanced KM CDR Process, which uses the KS-21 solvent. The Edmonton plant aims to capture 1Mt/yr of CO₂.

Vice President at Kiewit, Rob Medley, said "Heidelberg Materials is taking a major step towards decarbonising hard to abate industries by deploying innovative and effective carbon capture technology."

Heidelberg Materials announced this week that it is preparing to close its integrated cement plants at Beffes and Villiers-au-Bouin in France by October 2025. It framed the restructuring as a response to ‘a significant decline in cement sales in France’ and a plan to focus on low-carbon products. Unfortunately, local media reported that around 170 jobs will be lost at the two sites. The company says it is looking at ‘socially acceptable solutions’ including redeployment to other locations in the country.

Investment has been forthcoming from Heidelberg Materials France in recent years. It reminded everyone that it initiated a Euro400m scheme at its France-based subsidiary Ciments Calcia in late 2020. Most of this was earmarked towards a new production line at the Airvault plant, which is currently being built. Other schemes at the Beaucaire, Bussac-Forêt and Couvrot integrated plants followed. More recently, Heidelberg Materials launched a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project at Airvault, part of the GOCO2 initiative, with the aim of starting initial capture in 2030 with full 1Mt/yr capture planned later. What the company didn’t mention though was at the time of that 2020 investment it was also preparing to convert the integrated Gargenville plant into a grinding unit, stop white cement production at its Cruas plant with the intention of turning the site into a terminal and it wanted to reduce its workforce by around 140. To be fair to Heidelberg Materials though, it did have the same goal of reducing its specific net CO₂ emissions. The added detail this week was that the group aims to generate half of its revenue from sustainable products that are either low-carbon or circular by 2030.

Heidelberg Materials France is not alone with its ambitions for low-carbon products. Holcim notably opened in early 2023 what it said was the first calcined clay unit in Europe at its Saint-Pierre-la-Cour cement plant. Heidelberg Materials then followed in May 2023 with the announcement of a calcined clay project at its Bussac-Forêt cement plant. Other clay projects from Vicat, NeoCem and Neo-Eco have been reported since then. The other prominent France-based blended cement producer that has steadily been building its business in recent years is Hoffmann Green Cement. More general plant upgrade projects that are also worth mentioning include Eqiom’s (CRH) upgrade to its Lumbres plant in February 2024 and the ignition of a new kiln at Lafarge France’s Martres-Tolosane plant in October 2023. Both of these projects have been framed as driving sustainability.

Graph 1: Cement production in France, 2014 - 2022. Source: France Ciment.

Heidelberg Materials’ assessment about the poor state of the cement market has been confirmed by local media. Sales reportedly started falling in 2022, were down by 6% year-on-year in 2023 and further downward pressure is expected in 2024. Production data shown in Graph 1 above released by France Ciment, the national cement association, doesn’t really show what has been happening with sales. Over the last 20 years production hit a high of around 22Mt in the mid-2000s before settling around 16 - 17Mt/yr from 2015 onwards. The more telling trend, perhaps, has been the increase in CEM II blended cements from 50% in 2012 to 64% in 2022. Cement production may have stayed roughly the same over the last decade but it is using less clinker than it used to. Hence the pressure on companies like Ciments Calcia to reduce clinker capacity.

A further cost pressure facing cement producers in France is the impending end to the price cap on electricity scheduled by the end of 2025. The government enacted the scheme in late 2021 at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, but then carried on as energy prices spiked following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. France Ciment lobbied in August 2023 for further protection for the sector using the argument that decarbonisation was not possible without electricity available for a reasonable price. It added that decarbonising the cement sector in France with carbon capture would cost around Euro3.5bn. Electricity prices started rising in February 2024 as part of the government’s phase out of the scheme.

Finally, 17 people were arrested on 5 April 2024 in connection with a demonstration at Lafarge France’s Val-de-Reuil ready-mixed concrete plant in Eure. Environmental activists reportedly trespassed on the site, according to local press, causing an estimated Euro450,000 in damages with acts such as spraying foam into machinery, ripping up bags of cement, breaking windows and more. The activists presented their actions as a response to both the environmental impact of cement and concrete production and the ongoing legal allegations about Lafarge’s actions in Syria in the early 2010s. Lafarge France’s La Malle integrated plant was also similarly targeted in December 2022 when around 200 activists stormed the site and caused damage to machinery and property. Lafarge’s response at the time was to remark that there was a feeling of misunderstanding given that the La Malle plant was piloting various decarbonisation methods.
All of this presents a febrile picture of the cement sector in France. Sales are down, electricity costs are set to go up and producers are switching to low-carbon cement products. Alongside this they are also closing clinker production plants but are also investing in new decarbonisation projects. At the same time environmental protestors have also been targeting cement and concrete plants and Lafarge’s association with its former actions in Syria appear to have made it more of a target than the other manufacturers. It is unsurprising then that Holcim, the parent company of Lafarge France, has raised the risk of damage to the group’s reputation, with both the general public and investors, should it fail to meet its targets. Reaching net zero was never going to be easy but setting unrealistic targets is increasingly not an option.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a US$1.6bn investment in the cement sector this week. The funding was part of a total of US$6bn for 33 projects in over 20 states to decarbonise energy-intensive industries also including chemicals and refining, iron and steel, aluminium and metals, food and beverages, glass, process heat applications and pulp and paper. The DOE was keen to link the money to “the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.” Politics is never far away it seems! The projects are part of the Industrial Demonstrations Program, managed by DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED).

Table 1: Summary of US Department of Energy funding announced on March 2024 to decarbonise cement and concrete production

Table 1 above shows the main approaches each of the projects aim to use. The two most expensive ones involve carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at Heidelberg Materials US’ Mitchell cement plant in Indiana and National Cement’s Lebec plant in California respectively. In a complimentary press release Chris Ward, the CEO of Heidelberg Materials North America, said “This substantial federal funding investment will help create the first full-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage on a cement plant in the US.” The proposed CCS unit at the plant will capture around 2Mt/yr of CO₂ from 2030. If Ward’s forecast is accurate (and no one beats them to it), then Heidelberg Materials will likely have set up the first full-scale CCS units at cement plants in both North America and Europe. This will be a significant achievement. The National Cement project, by contrast, is a mixed bag of approaches to decarbonising cement production that follows the multi-lever approach advocated for in many of the industry net-zero roadmaps. It intends to use agricultural by-products such as pistachio shells, as alternatives fuels to lower the fuel-based emissions, calcined clay to lower the clinker factor and CCS to capture the remaining 950,000t/yr of CO₂ emissions.

The other projects either involve using calcined clay or substituting limestone with calcium silicate. The Summit Materials proposal is noteworthy because it aims to build four clay calcination units in locations in Maryland, Georgia and Texas. None of these appear to be near Summit’s (or Cementos Argos’) cement plants. This suggests that the company may be intending to use calcined clay in ready-mixed concrete production. The Roanoke Cement Company calcined clay project will be baseEuropead at its cement plant in Troutville, Virginia.

The remaining two grant recipients, Brimstone and Sublime Systems, will both test the companies’ different methods of manufacturing cement by using calcium silicate instead of limestone. Brimstone’s method produces ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). The company said in July 2023 that its OPC met the ASTM C150 standards. However, the company has released less information about its actual process. Sublime Systems’ uses an electrolysis approach to create its ASTM C1157-compliant cement. It calls this ‘ambient temperature electrochemical calcination.’

Investment on the same scale of the DOE has also been happening in Europe. In July 2023, for example, the European Commission announced an investment of Euro3.6bn in clean tech projects to be funded from the proceeds of the European Union emissions trading scheme (ETS). This was the third call for large-scale projects following previous announcements of recipients in 2021 and 2022. Euro1.6bn of the third call funding went towards cement and refining projects including five cement and lime projects in Belgium, Croatia, Germany and Greece. The money granted for each of these schemes was in the region of Euro115 - 235m.

Both the US and Europe are throwing serious finance at the cement industry to try and kickstart the various pathways towards net zero. They are also doing it in different ways, with the US aiming to boost its economy by onshoring sustainable industry, and Europe hoping to fund its approach via carbon taxation. Government-driven decarbonisation investment for cement in other large countries and regions around the world appears to be lagging behind the US and Europe but these may spring up as net zero targets are set, roadmaps drawn up and government policy formulated. These places could also benefit from watching what works and does not work elsewhere first. Back in the US and Europe the next tricky part of this process will be bridging the gap between government subsidy and commercial viability.

Switzerland: ABB and Captimise have enhanced their collaboration, focusing on advancing cost-effective carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technologies in the cement industry. Under a new Memorandum of Understanding, the partnership will develop various studies, including screening, feasibility, and FEED, aiding cement producers to identify efficient carbon capture solutions across their operations. The joint effort is expected to bolster the cement industry's efforts to meet its climate and net-zero targets.

CEO of Captimise, Mattias Jones, said “We draw on a track-record of more than 25 live case studies with CO₂ emitters across Europe and the US and know we’ll be able to support operations of all sizes in cement through combined CCUS, automation and electrification technologies.”

Global Business Unit Manager at ABB Process Industries, Max Tschurtschenthaler, said “Reducing the CO₂ emissions from cement manufacturing is a major challenge and a top priority for this industry. We are on a mission to make it more cost-effective. By combining our world-class automation, electrification and digital technologies with the know-how of partners like Captimise, we can further support the cement industry in achieving their climate and net zero targets.”

Switzerland: The decision of the Swiss government in June 2023 against the implementation of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has been strongly criticised by the Swiss cement association, Cemsuisse. The association warns of a potential relocation of the Swiss cement industry without such a mechanism, referencing a report by Polynomics. This report concludes that a Swiss CBAM is necessary to level the playing field with EU and non-EU cement suppliers. The EU initiated a CBAM test phase in October 2023, aiming to mitigate production relocation risks to countries with less stringent environmental regulations.

The federal government concluded that a CBAM in Switzerland would benefit few emission-intensive industries at the expense of the wider economy, while also facing regulatory and trade policy risks. It plans to reassess the need for a CBAM in mid-2026, in line with the EU's interim CBAM report.

Cemsuisse, referencing the Polynomics report, states that waiting to potentially introduce a CBAM in Switzerland is not an option. Investments in carbon capture and storage (CCS) are deemed essential for Switzerland's net-zero climate goal and without a CBAM, there is a risk of these investments being unviable due to uncertainty over cost recovery.

The report also points to the risk of increased clinker imports from third countries into the EU, which would be processed and then exported to Switzerland without CBAM levies. As an example, Cemsuisse mentions a planned milling station in Ottmarsheim, Alsace. It says that without a CBAM, the production site in Switzerland faces serious threats.

Cemsuisse said “Without CBAM, this certainty is lacking. And without CCUS, long-term production in Switzerland won't be viable. The population has accepted the climate protection law last summer, where the net-zero goal is legally anchored."

Italy: Scientists Gregory Chass and Kun Tian have developed a sustainable concrete from wet waste materials through their company Mesoscale Engineering Halcyon. This 'green concrete' concept was conceived in Garbatella and will first be tested on the district's pavements. The concrete, made by combining and recycling industrial CO₂ emissions with brine from saltworks, is part of the Clean Energy Transition Partnership. It is also central to the BUCK$$$ project, led by Kun, focusing on carbon capture and utilisation. This project, with €2.54m in funding, involves 13 partners from seven countries.

This innovative concrete arises from 'mineralised CO₂', which is similar to mollusc shells made of calcium carbonate, as well as materials derived from saltwork brine, desalination, and industrial wastewater. Both currently underused products are expected to become crucial in the cement and concrete industries, particularly in Italy.

Germany: According to a new study backed by the German Cement Works Association (VDZ), the country's cement and lime industries require carbon capture and storage (CCS) for decarbonisation. The study outlines the need for a 4800km CO₂ transport pipeline in Germany by 2035.

The VDZ warns that any delay could jeopardise Germany's 2045 climate neutrality target and estimates the investment for the new CO₂ grid at €14bn. The network is expected to transport 6.5Mt/yr of CO₂ by 2030, increasing to 46Mt by 2045. Additionally, CCS transit from Switzerland, Austria and France is expected to contribute 15 - 20Mt.

VDZ president Christian Knell said "Cement manufacturers and other industries in the EU emissions trading system must produce largely climate-neutrally by 2040."