Displaying items by tag: Japan

There have been a few sustainability-related news stories to note recently in Japan. Firstly, the Renewable Energy Institute (REI) released a report on decarbonisation pathways for the cement industry. Then, this week, the Japan Cement Association (JCA) held a press briefing on the sector’s work towards net zero and it released production and sales data. Finally, on a connected note, a speaker from Sumitomo Osaka Cement gave a presentation on recycling gypsum wallboard for cement production at last week’s Global Gypsum Conference.

The REI’s report is similar to other roadmaps published by cement associations around the world. The differences with the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) targets are worth pointing out though. The JCA is more conservative on the use of blended cements. It only specifies an aggregate CO₂ reduction target for 2030, limited to a greater use of alternative fuels (AF) and improved energy efficiency. Similarly, it forecasts clinker factors of 0.825 in 2030 and 0.80 in 2050, compared to the GCCA targets of 0.58 in 2030 and 0.52 in 2050. The report goes on to show that JCA members have higher Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a higher clinker factor than comparable multinationals, including Holcim, Heidelberg Materials and SCG. In summary the REI concludes that the local sector has been delayed in adopting blended cements, slow on using more renewable energy and continues to be reliant on coal.

The JCA’s update is more practical and outlines what can be expected. A benchmarking system for the sector was established in the 2025 financial year. The country’s emissions trading scheme will then start in the 2026 financial year. Companies that emit a three-year average of over 100,000t/yr of CO₂ will be subject to the scheme. The JCA is currently emphasising the sector’s role at the heart of the circular economy. It pointed out that it used just under 22Mt (5%) of the country’s total waste in 2024. It had an AF substitution rate of 27% in that year also. Other waste streams used included over 5Mt of blast furnace slag, over 6Mt of coal ash and around 1.7Mt of flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) gypsum.

That last one ties into a presentation that Yuki Mihashi, Sumitomo Osaka Cement, gave at the recent Global Gypsum Conference, held last week in the Netherlands. He gave an overview of his company’s pilot testing of a carbon capture and utilisation process that uses waste gypsum wallboard and mineralises it to make an artificial limestone from cement plant CO₂ emissions. The current pilot plant is based in Osaka and was completed in June 2025. It consumes 10kg/hr of gypsum and can produce around 5.8kg/hr of calcium carbonate. Gypsum wallboard professionals at the event had previously expressed concerns about competition for raw materials from cement producers. If developments like this one progress to full scale deployment there could potential be repercussions in other industrial sectors.

Graph 1: Cement production in Japan, 2019 - 2025. Source: Japan Cement Association. Figure for 2025 is estimated based on nine-month data.

Finally, the latest data from the JCA shows that cement production fell by 3% year-on-year to 32.99Mt in the first nine months of 2025 from 34Mt in the same period in 2024 . Overall sales followed a similar trend, although exports rose by 9% from 5.91Mt to 6.43Mt. This follows a general decline in cement production in Japan since the mid-1990s.

In summary, work on sustainability in the cement sector continues in Japan as it does elsewhere. The conservative approach to clinker factor forecasts is interesting to note compared to more optimistic projections elsewhere. A slower update of blended cements may explain some of this. Interestingly, Taiheiyo Cement said in June 2025 that it was expanding a hub in Saiki to export blended cements rather than using them domestically. On other issues, a current lower AF substitution rate compared to Europe offers one pathway for emissions reduction. The impending ETS may also galvanise action and investment. Expect plenty more sustainability news in the coming weeks ahead of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP), which is set to take place in mid-November 2025 in Belém, Brazil.

The 1st CemFuels Asia Conference & Exhibition will take place on 2 – 3 February 2026 in Bangkok

Japan: The Renewable Energy Institute (REI) has published The Decarbonisation Pathway for Japan's Cement Industry, a report on strategies to ensure cement industry decarbonisation in line with a global 1.5°C climate change limit. The report found that the calcination of limestone gives rise to 60% of process CO₂ emissions from Japanese cement production. The report reviews possibilities for tackling emissions both from calcination and from other sources. In the former category, it noted scope for clinker factor reduction. Japan Cement Association members recorded an average clinker factor of 0.8 and Scope 1 emissions of 680kg/t of cementitious product in 2024. REI contrasted this with India-based Dalmia Bharat, which had a clinker factor of 0.6 and Scope 1 emissions of 467kg/t.

Canada: Progressive Planet Solutions has hired Japan-based independent technical consultant Gerhard Albrecht. Albrecht’s work for Progressive Planet Solutions will focus on issues around the increased water demand of cement replacement by pozzolanic materials.

Albrecht has created over one hundred patents and appeared in more than 30 papers during his career as Vice President at Germany-based BASF Construction Solutions from 2006 to 2017. He previously held senior research positions at Degussa Construction Chemicals and SKW Trostberg. Albrecht holds a PhD in polymer science from Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany.

Japan: Austria-based UNTHA shredding technology has appointed Sun Earth as its official partner for regional sales, system design and service of its industrial shredders in Japan. The agreement expands UNTHA’s global presence to around 40 countries. The partnership responds to rising demand for environmental technologies in Japan, particularly for waste-to-energy and recycling applications. UNTHA’s XR, ZR and RS shredder models will support the production of refuse-derived fuels and the recycling of valuable materials.

There have been a few burner and related stories to note in the cement industry news this week. Firstly, Canada-based PyroGenesis announced that it had signed a deal with an unnamed-European cement company to supply a plasma torch system for a ‘calcination furnace.’ Around the same time UBE Mitsubishi Cement (MUCC) revealed that it had successfully tested natural gas co-firing at MUCC’s Kyushu Plant using a newly developed burner.

The PyroGenesis project is a potential game-changer for the sector because it alters the way cement production lines are heated. Roughly one third of CO₂ emissions associated with cement manufacture arise from the fossil fuels used to heat the kiln and the pre-calcination system. Cut out some of that and the specific CO₂ emissions of cement production drop. PyroGenesis’ approach uses electricity to generate high-temperature plasma. This then gives the cement plant the option of obtaining its electricity from renewable sources. PyroGenesis signed a memorandum of understanding with the power conversion division of GE Vernova in March 2025. This had the aim of targeting high temperature processes, such as cement production, with electric plasma torches. The current deal with a cement producer has been valued at US$871,000 with delivery to the client scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.

We don’t know who the mystery client might be. However, Heidelberg Materials reportedly operated a 300kW plasma-heated cement kiln at its Slite cement plant in February 2025 as part of the ELECTRA project. The producer said it had achieved 54 hours of continuous operation, with 60% CO₂ concentration in the flue gas. The aim was to reach 99%. It then said that it was planning to build a larger 1MWel furnace at its Skövde cement plant in 2026 with tests to continue in 2027. In an interview with Global Cement Magazine in May 2025, Heidelberg Materials said that it was using commercially supplied CO₂ as the ionising gas in the plasma generator but that it was considering using captured CO₂ from the production process in the future. It also mentioned issues from its trials such as the effective ‘flame’ being hotter than the conventional process but not as long. This increased the reactivity of the resulting clinker. Finally, Heidelberg Materials noted from a feasibility study that a 1Mt/yr cement plant would need around 170MW of plasma generation, but that typical plasma generators topped out at around 8MW. Hence, any full set-up would likely require multiple plasma generators. For more on non-combustion style kilns see GCW561.

UBE Mitsubishi Cement’s burner installation is more conventional but again it is concerned about sustainability. In this case the line has tested burning natural gas. The cement producer says it is the first such installation at a cement plant in Japan to do so commercially. The burner was jointly developed by UBE Mitsubishi Cement, Osaka Gas and Daigas Energy. Firstly, the plant will consider switching to natural gas. This will reduce the unit’s CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion. However, a later step being considered is to move on to e-methane. This is a synthetic methane made from CO₂ and hydrogen using renewable energy.

Finally, another recent story on this theme is the installation of a new satellite burner by Northern Ireland-based Mannok at its Derrylin cement plant in August 2025. This is Phase One of a two-part project to upgrade the pyro kiln system at the site. The cement company worked with FLSmidth on the €2.5m upgrade. The new burner has now allowed the plant to burn solid recovered fuel (SRF) by up to a 30% substitution rate in the kiln. This followed a project, also with FLSmidth, to install a FuelFlex Pyrolyzer in 2022. This is used to replace coal with SRF in the pre-calcination stage of cement production. Phase two will be an upgrade of the main burner to a new Jetflex burner. Once this part is completed, Mannok is aiming for an overall substitution rate of 65 - 70% on the whole pyro-processing system.

Burners at cement plants are replaced fairly commonly. However, the supplier companies don’t advertise every installation due to the commercial relationships with their clients and other factors. Hence the more interesting upgrades tend to get the publicity. Typically this means if a burner uses new technology, meets sustainability goals and so on, we find out about it. It’s a similar situation when a new heating technology such as plasma is trialled. Changing trends in fuel types for cement plants suggest different types of conventional burners. Some of this can be seen in the burner stories above with the trend moving towards ever higher rates of alternative fuels usage. Combustion in cement kilns is here to stay for the time being but plasma trials will be watched carefully.

The 18th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition on alternative fuels for cement and lime 2025 will take place in Milan on 17 - 18 September 2025

Japan: Mitsubishi UBE Cement Corporation (MUCC), Osaka Gas, Daigas Energy and Saibu Gas have successfully tested natural gas co-firing at MUCC’s Kyushu Plant in the Kurosaki area. Using a newly developed burner, the companies replaced 40% of coal with natural gas at commercial scale without affecting kiln stability, product quality or environmental performance.

The burner was developed using MUCC’s coal combustion expertise alongside Osaka Gas and Daigas Energy’s gas combustion and simulation technologies, with Saibu Gas supplying natural gas from LNG tank trucks. MUCC said the trial paves the way for full-scale implementation and supports future use of e-methane in cement kilns.

MUCC aims to cut CO₂ emissions by 40% by 2030, compared to 2013 levels, and achieve group-wide carbon neutrality by 2050 under its medium-term management strategy “Infinity with Will 2025 – MUCC Sustainable Plan 1st STEP.”

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement says it started using an artificial intelligence-based (AI) ship allocation optimisation system in May 2025. Software company Grid provided the technology for the project. The companies say that this is the first such application in the domestic cement industry.

The new ship allocation system analyses large volumess of transportation data and generates optimal ship allocation plans while considering various constraints. It is intended to: reduce transportation costs such as fuel; optimise courses and loading efficiency, with an expected 10% reduction of fuel consumption at the planning stage; enhance inventory management; and reduce planning time by more than 50% compared to manual planning methods.

Sri Lanka: KPN Cement Lanka has launched a fly ash cement product in conjunction with Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement. The product, called Taishi Cement, will be available for large-scale infrastructure projects, real estate developments and government initiatives, according to the Daily Financial Times newspaper. KPN Cement Lanka and Taiheiyo Cement are also intending to promote an awareness programme for sustainable construction practices in the country.

Taiheiyo Cement launched an export hub for blended cements in June 2025 called the Saiki Ash Center in Saiki City, Oita Prefecture. The site is intended to export fly ash-based blended cement products to Southeast Asia. It has an export capacity 0.8Mt/yr.

Japan: Cement producers used 21.9Mt of post-consumer materials and by-products in the 2024 financial year, down by 3% year-on-year, marking the third consecutive annual decline, according to the Japan Cement Association.

Coal ash and blast furnace slag, which together make up over 50% of the total, both declined, although post-consumer plastics increased for a fourth consecutive year.

Cement production, including clinker for export, also fell by 3% to 45.7Mt. The amount of byproducts used per tonne of cement dropped from 480kg in 2023 to 478kg, but remained above 400kg for the 21st year in a row.

Japan: Mitsubishi UBE Cement’s joint project with the city of Kitakyushu to pilot carbon recycled materials in public infrastructure has been selected for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s 2024 grant programme.

Centred around the producer’s Kyushu plant in Kurosaki, Kitakyushu, the project will recycle CO₂ and waste cement from local sources for use in municipal construction. Mitsubishi UBE Cement said it aims to establish a model for resource circulation that can be expanded nationwide.