Displaying items by tag: CO2

India: A report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), funded by power provider BP, has estimated that India’s cement and steel sectors will require capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments of US$627bn in order to reach net zero CO₂ emissions. The report stated that waste heat recovery (WHR) and other efficiency-enhancing upgrades to cement plants can immediately reduce the industry’s emissions by 32%.

United News of India has reported that CEEW CEO Arunabha Ghosh said "Incentivising renewable energy will play a pivotal role in decarbonisation, through lower or no transmission charges at central and state levels. The government of India should develop a policy for and expedite the establishment of a carbon capture, utilisation and storage ecosystem to abate more than half of the emissions from the existing steel and cement plants.” Ghosh added “Since hydrogen will play a key role in its implementation, the next phase of the National Green Hydrogen Mission should focus on this agenda."

UK: First Graphene and Breedon Group have entered into a development and commercialisation agreement. Together, the companies aim to enhance Breedon Cement’s CEM II Portland limestone cement (PLC) through the use of First Graphene’s graphene enhanced grinding aids and cement admixtures. Breedon will provide increased access to cement production lines in order to optimise the understanding of the processing environment and operating conditions.

Breedon Group’s Hope cement plant in Derbyshire previously conducted a 24-hour graphene-enhanced cement production trial on 28 June 2023.

West Africa: Ciments de l'Afrique (CIMAF) plans to produce limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) at cement plants in West Africa. Parent company Omnium des Industries et de la Promotion (OIP) plans to build a calcined clay production facility in Burkina Faso to supply the material. Gulf Oil & Gas News has reported that OIP secured a Euro45m loan from World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation on 10 October 2023. It will invest Euro32.4m in construction of its upcoming calcined clay production facility and Euro12.6m in
construction of solar power plants for three CIMAF subsidiaries in Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali.

CIMAF CEO Anas Sefrioui said "IFC's green loan provides essential long-term financing for our projects in Africa. Through the green loan structure, we are bringing the best practices in financing decarbonisation initiatives in the region. We look forward to reducing our carbon footprint and replicating these best practices in our African operations.”

Asia/Middle East: South Korea-based Samsung Engineering and Canada-based Svante have signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU). Under the MoU, the companies will collaborate on the development and deployment of carbon capture technology in cement and other industries in Asia and the Middle East.

Svante President and CEO Claude Letourneau said “Samsung Engineering’s more than 50 years of experience in the energy and industrial sectors will be invaluable as we continue to rapidly expand our operations and filter production capabilities.”

EU/UK: EUROSLAG says that the use of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) in cement production in the EU and UK between 2000 and 2022 has generated a cumulative reduction in CO₂ emissions of 408Mt. GGBFS replaced 716Mt-worth of raw materials over the period.

EUROSLAG Chair Thomas Reiche said "Resource conservation through secondary raw materials, especially in the construction sector, and lower emissions of climate-damaging CO₂, are of outstanding ecological and economic importance. The use of ferrous slags makes an important contribution to this. EUROSLAG is working multilaterally to master the enormous challenges in the coming years, above all the transformation of the steel industry, through research and adjustments to national and European regulations.”

Poland: Górażdże Cement has announced an investment of Euro261m in planned sustainability upgrades to its Górażdże cement plant in Opole Voivodeship, the Polish News Bulletin newspaper has reported. The Heidelberg Materials subsidiary plans to build a carbon capture installation, a green energy source and a facility to recycle construction and demolition waste for use in its cement production.

UK: The Cement 2 Zero project has successfully concluded its first trial melt of recovered cement paste in an electric arc furnace at the Materials Processing Institute’s Teesside campus. The project uses the paste as flux for electric steel recycling. Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC) has demonstrated that the ‘slag’ from this process can be ground into fine clinker that, when mixed with gypsum and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), produces net zero CO₂ cement. The Cement 2 Zero project to produce CEC’s cement at an industrial scale launched in March 2023, with US$7.85m in funding from UK Research and Innovation. Tarmac will grind the clinker from the project’s trial melts for testing in order to obtain certification and specification as a usable cement product.

UAE: Cemex UAE and UltraTech Cement UAE have signed an agreement to collaborate on the development of waste concrete recycling in the UAE, according to Dow Jones Institutional News. The cement producers say that their partnership will help to reduce CO₂ emissions from construction, in line with the UAE’s 2050 net zero commitment.

EU: The EU launched the transitional phase of its carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on 1 October 2023. Parties that import cement - and five other commodities - into the EU must now show the embodied CO₂ emissions of their products.

The transition comes ahead of the full implementation of the CBAM in January 2026. At this point, those importing cement into the region will have to pay for the embodied CO₂ of their products in order for them to enter the EU Common Market. Producers within the EU already pay for a proportion of emissions under the auspices of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The intention of the CBAM is to reduce the risk of 'carbon leakage' as the costs of making cement rise in the EU due to changes in the ETS. While cement producers, as heavy CO₂ emitters, are currently shielded from the full cost of their emissions, the number of free allowances they receive is set to fall substantially by 2026. At the same time, the cost of emitting a tonne of CO₂ under the ETS, currently Euro80-90/t on the open market, is widely expected to rise.

India: JSW Cement is conducting a pilot project in the use of electric vehicles for cement transportation. The producer has introduced five Murugappa electric cement trucks into its fleet in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It expects these to eliminate 150t/yr of CO₂ emissions from its logistics operations.

Daijiworld News has reported that CEO Nilesh Narwekar said “The pilot project is an important milestone in making our future much greener and more purposeful.” He added “Based on the success of these pilot trials, we will scale-up the integration of these trucks across our cement operations in India.”