US: Electrified Thermal Solutions has opened a new headquarters and production facility in the Boston area, expanding manufacturing capacity for its electrically-conductive firebricks used in industrial thermal energy storage systems. The new facility will manufacture the company’s proprietary E-Bricks used in its Joule Hive Thermal Battery system, with production capacity sufficient to support more than 500MWh/yr of Joule Hive deployments. The expansion is intended to support growing demand from industrial sectors such as cement, steel and mining.

The investment builds on a recent partnership with HarbisonWalker International (HWI), part of Calderys, which supplies key raw materials and may adopt manufacturing processes developed at the Boston facility. The Joule Hive Thermal Battery uses oxide-based conductive firebricks capable of delivering temperatures of up to 1800°C with a projected lifespan of 20 - 30 years. The company aims to deploy 2GW of thermal power capacity by 2030 through the technology.

"Bringing E-Brick manufacturing to scale represents a major milestone in our journey to electrify industrial heat," said Joey Kabel, co-founder of Electrified Thermal Solutions. "This facility allows us to refine our manufacturing processes and accelerate scalability both internally and with refractory partners. We're positioned to deliver on our commitment to provide cost-competitive, zero-carbon heat to industries worldwide," he said.

Lithuania: The CCS Baltic Consortium has presented plans for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chain and a CO₂ transshipment terminal in Klaipėda, as part of efforts to decarbonise industrial sectors such as cement. The consortium includes KN Energies, cement producers Akmenės Cementas and Schwenk Latvija, and shipping companies Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Larvik Shipping. The CCS Baltic Consortium aims to establish the first CCS value chain in the Baltic region and was launched in 2022. The system will cover CO₂ capture at cement plants, liquefaction, transport and shipment to long-term storage sites under the North Sea.

“This will be the first infrastructure of its kind in the Baltic States, creating conditions for rapid decarbonisation of industry in Lithuania and across the region. It will enhance regional competitiveness by modernising industrial sectors, create new jobs, contribute to Lithuania’s climate neutrality goals, and attract new investments and innovation to the Baltic economies,” says Rūta Tumėnienė, head of new energies at KN Energies.

A key component of the project is the planned CO₂ transshipment terminal in Klaipėda, where KN Energies is undertaking an environmental impact assessment for the construction and operation of the terminal, in order to prepare for the final investment decision. The terminal is scheduled for completion by 2030. The infrastructure will initially serve cement plants in Lithuania and Latvia, with plans to later operate on an open-access basis for other industries.

Romania: Holcim Romania has signed a funding agreement with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency for the Carbon Hub CPT01 carbon capture and storage project, supported by the EU Innovation Fund. Developed in partnership with Carmeuse, the project will capture CO₂ emissions from both cement and lime production for permanent geological storage. It will enable the production of approximately 2Mt/yr of ‘nearly zero-emission cement’ and 200,000t/yr of lime with ‘nearly zero emissions.’ The carbon capture system will process flue gases from the two sites located in the Câmpulung industrial area.

CEO of Holcim Romania Bogdan Dobre said “The signing of this financing agreement with CINEA marks a defining moment for our Carbon Hub CPT01 project and for the decarbonisation of the construction sector in Eastern Europe. Through this initiative, we aim to demonstrate that large-scale carbon capture can accelerate the transition to near-zero emission cement, while supporting Romania’s role in Europe’s climate and industrial transformation.”

Türkiye: The Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association (Türkçimento) has issued a strategic statement addressing the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), calling for EU recognition of Türkiye’s national monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) emissions data to ensure fair competition. The association warned that current EU CBAM default emission values may overstate actual emissions from Turkish cement producers, potentially increasing carbon costs from around €20/t to €80/t of clinker. It said that this could threaten the economic sustainability of exports to the EU.

Türkçimento CEO Volkan Bozay said that Türkiye’s cement sector has operated within an EU-aligned MRV system since 2015 and that low-emission dry-process kilns are used at all of its facilities. He said that actual export data for exports to the EU during the CBAM transition period showed that emissions for grey cement clinker are around 0.88t of CO₂ per tonne of cement, while the default value of 1.551t of CO₂ per tonne is applied to Türkiye under the ‘other countries’ category. He said the difference creates additional costs that do not reflect actual emission performance and could ultimately increase prices for EU consumers.

He added "To prevent CBAM from becoming a de facto trade barrier, national values based on EU-aligned MRV data should be used instead of general 'other countries' default values. Until the verification infrastructure becomes fully operational, actual emission data should be taken as the basis and disproportionate financial burdens should be avoided. Otherwise, as a system that fails to distinguish between low-carbon production and the most carbon-intensive production, CBAM will not effectively support low-carbon manufacturing and may instead function as a non-tariff technical barrier.”