Displaying items by tag: CO2

Honduras: Cementos Argos Honduras has commissioned a 1.6GWh/yr solar power plant at its Choloma grinding plant in Río Blanquito. Grupo Argos’ energy subsidiary Celsia built the plant, which consists of 2160 photovoltaic modules. The La República newspaper has reported that the installation cost US$1.2m. It will supply 25% of the Choloma grinding plant’s energy consumption, and reduce its total CO₂ emissions by 23%.

Cementos Argos Honduras CEO Luis Eduardo Tovar said "This partnership marks a significant milestone in our efforts to address climate change and revitalise our ecosystems, while generating significant impact in communities with new employment and investment opportunities.”

Mexico: Cemex said that it has successfully implemented labelling showing the environmental impacts of all of its main products across its ‘most important markets.’ Depending on prevailing practices in each market, products’ packaging either displays an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) or Cemex’s own third-party validated C_ERO₂ designation.

General director Fernando González Olivieri said “We are committed to being the leading partner in sustainable construction for our clients. In this way, our clients have environmental impact information that they can use to develop sustainable construction.” He added “We continue to expand our portfolio of sustainable products, allowing our clients to effectively design and manage the carbon footprint of their construction projects.”

UK: James Whitelaw will take on the role of managing director in Hanson UK’s newly-established recycling business line. He will be responsible for identifying opportunities to grow organically using the company’s existing capabilities and for integrating new acquisitions.

Whitelaw has held management roles in Hanson UK since 2001 and most recently served as aggregates managing director. Former concrete managing director Brian Charleton will replace him in this role, while Gordon Napier, previously concrete regional director, joins Hanson UK’s executive team as the new concrete managing director.

Netherlands: Finland-based Coolbrook has completed the first test phase of the large-scale pilot of its RotoDynamic Heater (RDH) at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Geleen, Netherlands. The engineering company says that this has validated the RDH’s technical pathway up to industrial heat generation at temperatures suitable for cement plants. By developing and launching the technology, Coolbrook says that it will rely on a ‘comprehensive partnership ecosystem,’ including market leaders in technology and industry. It says that the RDH has the potential to eliminate 2.4Bnt/yr of CO₂ emissions – 30% of global industrial CO₂ emissions and 7% of all global CO₂ emissions.

CEO Joonas Rauramo said “Sharing our partners’ and customers’ sense of urgency to achieve net zero, we take determined actions to execute our strategy and progress towards the commercial launch of our electric technology. We are proceeding with first commercial agreements, while continuing to build our organisation and supply chain for industrial scale operations.”

Switzerland: Holcim has invested in CO₂ mineralisation technology developer Neustark. Neustark aims to remove 1Mt of atmospheric CO₂ by 2030 and sequester it in recycled construction and demolition waste. The company’s technology achieved Gold Standard certification as a method of CO₂ removal in March 2022. Holcim says that its investment advances its group commitment to putting clean technologies to work towards achieving net zero.

Holcim’s Europe regional head Miljan Gutovic said "At Holcim, we are working to decarbonise building for a net zero future, and Neustark's technology helps us reach this goal. After the successful demonstration of Neustark's solution in Switzerland, we are ready to scale up this carbon removal technology globally."

UK: Hanson UK has launched a recycling business line to process construction and demolition waste. The business will supply recycled materials for use in Hanson UK’s operations.

CEO Simon Willis said “Promoting circularity by recycling, reusing and reducing the use of primary raw materials is crucial to reaching net zero. The development of a separate recycling business line will allow us to provide the most sustainable products to our customers through circularity and innovation, to enable building more with less. It is another significant step towards achieving our aim of being the industry leader in the supply of sustainable, circular products.”

Europe: The Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) has welcomed the EU’s new Empowering Consumers Directive. Under the directive, EU member states must enact laws preventing companies from labelling their products with climate claims based on offsetting. ECOS called the law a ‘significant measure against greenwashing.’ It called on the EU to further ensure that products neither rely on carbon credits, nor on contributions to sustainability projects, in calculating their impacts.

ECOS programme manager Elisa Martellucci said “The EU has taken aim at greenwashing. Climate neutrality claims based only on carbon offsetting are ambiguous and misleading for consumers because they are not linked to concrete efforts to combat the climate crisis. Instead, they rely on flawed carbon accounting practices that ‘write off’ greenhouse gas emissions. The amazing carbon emissions vanishing act is many companies’ dream – but emissions do not magically disappear. Policymakers have taken a strong stance against this deceptive practice.”

Europe: Norway-based Capsol Technologies says that it has signed contracts for two new feasibility studies for carbon capture installations at ‘large cement plants’ in the EU. If successful, the plants will proceed to the installation of Capsol Technologies’ CapsolEoP carbon capture systems. Nordic Daily News has reported that the technology reduces the energy consumption of carbon capture by 50%, and lowers its costs by 25%, according to the supplier.

The new contracts bring Capsol Technologies’ number of cement industry carbon capture contracts to four, and its total contracts to nine, with a potential CO₂ capture capacity of 10Mt/yr.

CEO Jan Kielland said "We are pleased that our solution is gaining attention, as demonstrated by an increasing number of incoming requests for sales engineering and engineering studies, and look forward to being a major contributor in the path to net zero for cement.”

India: Ratings agency ICRA says that the cement industry in India will reach a renewable energy reliance of 40% across its operations in the 2025 financial year. The Hitavada newspaper has reported that this will involve the construction of 537MW-worth of new renewable power capacity. During the 2023 financial year, which ended on 31 March 2023, producers used 35% renewable energy. ICRA said that they can expect to make costs savings of US$240m/yr from 2025 through the scale-up of renewables, including solar, wind and waste heat recovery. This would correspond to a 15 – 18% reduction of estimated energy costs for the 2025 financial year.

Over the same two-year period, ICRA forecast blended cements to rise to 81% of cement sales in the 2025 financial year, from 78% in the 2023 financial year.

Germany: Engineering company GEA has installed a carbon capture pilot plant at the Phoenix Zementwerke cement plant in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The supplier will now conduct testing over ‘several’ months, but said that it is confident that the cement plant is suitable for an installation to capture over 90% of its CO₂ emissions. GEA’s carbon capture systems run on energy from waste heat recovery, with minimal to zero extra electrical input.

Phoenix Zementwerke managing director Marcel Gustav Krogbeumker said “We consider carbon capture a very exciting technology. Thanks to GEA's decades of experience in emissions control, I am very positive that together we can develop and implement a solution."