Displaying items by tag: CO2

Taiwan: Taiwan Cement has been awarded the first product carbon footprint label by the local Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). It follows its completion of the structure of product category rules (PCR) in early August 2020 and inspection by the EPA. TCC's products will be marked with carbon footprint labels from the fourth quarter of 2020. The Taiwan-based cement producer has also announced support for the Global Cement and Concrete Association’s (GCCA) 2050 Climate Ambition plan.

TCC started its Science-Based Target project in 2019 and says it became the first cement company in the Greater China region to complete target setting and was approved by Science-Based Target initiatives (SBTi) in June 2020. Following the science-based methods promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from the United Nations, TCC set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 11% in 2025, using 2016 emissions as the base. TCC completed carbon footprint certification for the most popular cement products, Portland Type I cement and Ready-Mixed Concrete 3000psi, in July 2020.

It’s back to work for many in Europe this week following the summer break and so too for the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) with the release of its 2050 Climate Ambition mission statement. Talk about setting the bar high for the rest of us struggling to remember how to log into our computers! The short version is that the association aspires to deliver society with carbon neutral concrete by 2050. The actual detail will be published in the second half of 2021.

What it does say is that, “detailed actions and milestones” will be set out in the forthcoming roadmap. This will include, “working across the built environment value chain to deliver the vision of carbon neutral concrete in a circular economy, whole life context.” This focus on concrete and end-product life-cycles looks likely to be the wriggle room cement and building materials producers need to actually meet the goal. To put it another way, as the press release helpfully reminds us, things that people need are made out of concrete. So, until a viable alternative to clinker turns up, the cost in CO₂ emissions needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. At the same time everyone needs to be continually told how much they need cementitious products: don’t think of the CO₂ released to build your new house. Rather: think of the CO₂ saved annually by living in a well-constructed dwelling, as opposed to the alternatives, and consider what happens to the concrete once the structure is demolished.

A few ideas of what strategies the roadmap may use to reach its target are revealed. This is fairly standard current thinking including: cutting direct energy-related emissions; increasing co-processing; increased renewable electricity usage; reducing process emissions through new technologies and deployment of carbon capture at scale; reducing the content of both clinker in cement and cement in concrete; more efficient use of concrete in construction; reprocessing concrete from construction and demolition waste to produce recycled aggregates; and quantifying and enhancing the level of CO₂ uptake of concrete through recarbonation in a circular economy, whole life context.

It’s early days yet, with the roadmap not due for at least a year, but deploying carbon capture methods at scale will be expensive and difficult. Whatever target the GCCA sets here will be keenly observed, especially so given that the association is a global concern. So far carbon capture in the cement industry has generally been linked to regions with market or legislative encouragement. How, for example, would a producer in a country with low environmental restrictions react to its peers trying to get it to make cement production more expensive? The rest of the points seems more tangible at the moment but will require lots of work to realise. They are also interlinked and this reinforces the need for someone to continually remind society about the life cycle of concrete. Taking concrete recycling into the mainstream is great but the world has to be told that it is happening.

This last point brings us to the perceived success of the GCCA’s ambitions: will a successfully realised strategy to make carbon neutral concrete by 2050 be enough to make environmental activists like Greta Thunberg happy? Probably not. Pure environmentalists seem unlikely to accept whole lifecycle thinking while limestone decomposition in kilns continues without capture or cessation. Even if the cement and concrete industries hit the target they will have to shake off the taint that the achievement was at least partly down to sneaky carbon accounting. Suddenly saying that concrete buildings have been sucking up CO₂ all along and that the industry is now, say, 20% closer to its carbon neutral target may feel like cheating to some observers. Step forward a global association to say otherwise. The need for industry associations making the case for the sector’s aspirations seems more essential than ever.

UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has published its 2050 Climate Ambition, a joint industry commitment to net-zero carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 2050. The association’s 40 members have committed to, “eliminating direct energy-related emissions and maximizing the co-processing of waste from other industries, reducing and eliminating indirect energy emissions through renewable electricity sources, reducing process emissions through new technologies and deployment of carbon capture at scale, reducing the content of both clinker in cement and cement in concrete, as well as more efficient use of concrete in buildings and infrastructure, reprocessing concrete from construction and demolition waste to produce recycled aggregates to be used in concrete manufacturing and quantifying and enhancing the level of CO₂ uptake of concrete through re-carbonation and enhanced re-carbonation in a circular economy, whole-life context.”

President Albert Manifold said, “The 2050 Climate Ambition represents our industry’s commitment to further reducing emissions and ensuring that the vital product we provide can be delivered on a carbon-neutral basis by 2050. There is a significant challenge involved in doing so and achieving alignment across our industry on a sustainable way forward is an important first step. We cannot however succeed alone and in launching our ambition statement we are also highlighting the need for our industry to work collaboratively with other stakeholders in support of our ambition for a more sustainable future.”

Japan: A proposal by Mitsubishi Group on researching CO₂ injection into concrete has been approved for a grant from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO). This joint project between Mitsubishi Group, Kajima Corporation, and Chugoku Electric Power aims to improve the existing technology so that it can be applied to the reinforced and cast-in-place concretes used in building construction. At present the group said that current carbon-recycling techniques are mainly used for unreinforced concretes, such as concrete blocks.

Mitsubishi Group has already been involved in the development of concrete projects that take advantage of carbon-recycling, including a zero-emission concrete called CO₂-SUICOM. It added that carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, including carbon-recycling, are an excellent opportunity for the company to use its strengths between industries that both emit and use CO₂.

China: China Tianrui Group has reported gross CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement of 910kg/t in 2019 in its latest sustainability report. Nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions were 7862t and 1380t, year-on-year decreases of 13% and 4% respectively. Its water consumption intensity decreased by 42% year-on-year to 1.12Mm3.

The group operates 20 clinker production lines and 59 cement grinding production lines. Its production capacity of clinker and cement was 28.4Mt tonnes and 56.7Mt respectively in 2019. Its plants are based in Henan, Liaoning, Anhui and Tianjin, with Henan and Liaoning accounting for the largest proportion.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement is working on a three year CO₂ mineralisation research project from 2020 to 2022 with Yamaguchi University, Kyushu University and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO). The initiative plans to develop the technology to build a process that captures CO₂ exhaust from cement and power plants and then mineralises it with calcium-containing waste materials. It intends to use the process practically in 2030.

Mexico: Cemex says that it is involved in a working group “focussed on the application of FastCarb aggregates to concrete production” as part of its efforts towards net-zero CO₂ concrete production. FastCarb, administrated by the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board, is a project aimed at the production of aggregates from recycled concrete containing trapped carbon dioxide (CO₂) requisitioned from industrial exhaust streams.

Cemex said, “After completing the first phase of the experimental approach at the laboratory level with promising preliminary results, the project is now entering the second phase seeking to tackle the industrial approach. In this industrial approach phase, Cemex was recently assigned to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of the carbonated recycled concrete aggregates when used in ready-mix concrete in the laboratory facilities at the Cemex France National Technical Centre.”

France: UK-based Carbon8 Systems has announced plans for the commercial implementation of its carbon capture and use (CCU) system at Vicat’s Montalieu integrated cement plant in France. It follows successful demonstration projects at cement plants in the UK and Canada.

The company’s CO₂ntainer product will be deployed directly onsite at the plant and integrated into Vicat's existing industrial processes. It will capture CO₂ directly from the plant's flue gas emissions and use this as part of its Accelerated Carbonisation Technology (ACT) process. This accelerates the carbonation of cement bypass dust into lightweight aggregates. In its first phase of operation it will process and convert up to 12,000t of cement bypass dust.

Hydrogen and its use in cement production has been adding a dash of colour to the industry news in recent weeks. Last week, Lafarge Zementwerke, OMV, Verbund and Borealis signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to plan and build a full-scale unit at a cement plant in Austria to capture CO₂ and process it with hydrogen into synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals. This week, Air Products and ThyssenKrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers (TUCE) signed a strategic agreement to work together in ‘key regions’ to develop projects supplying green hydrogen. Both of these developments follow the awarding of UK government funding in February 2020 to support a pilot project into studying a mix of hydrogen and biomass fuels at Hanson Cement’s Ribblesdale integrated plant.

As the title of this column suggests there is an environmental colour code to describe how hydrogen is made for industrial use. This is a bit more codified than when grey cement gets called ‘green’ but it pays to remember what the energy source is. So-called ‘green’ hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric or solar, ‘Grey’ hydrogen is made from steam reforming using fossil fuels and ‘Blue’ hydrogen is similar to grey but has the CO₂ emissions from the fuels captured and stored/utilised. Price is seen as the main obstacle to wider uptake of hydrogen usage as a fuel in industry although this is changing as CO₂ pricing mounts in some jurisdictions and the connected supply chain is developed. A study by BloombergNEF from March 2020 forecasted that green hydrogen prices could become cheaper than natural gas by 2050 in Brazil, China, India, Germany and Scandinavia but it conceded that many barriers would have to be overcome to get there. For example, hydrogen has to be manufactured making it more expensive than fossil fuels without government policy support and its, “lower energy density also makes it more expensive to handle.”

The three recent examples with respect to the cement industry are interesting because they are all exploring different directions. The Lafarge partnership in Austria wants to use hydrogen to aid the utilisation side of its carbon capture at a cement plant. The industrial suppliers, meanwhile, are positioning themselves in the equipment space for the technology required to use hydrogen on industrial plants. Secondly, ThyssenKrupp has alkaline water electrolysis technology that it says it has used at over 600 projects and electrochemical plants worldwide. Air Products works with industrial gas production, storage and handling.

Finally, the Hanson project in the UK will actually look at using hydrogen as a partial replacement for natural gas in the kiln combustion system. A Cembureau position paper in mid-2019 identified that the challenges to explore in using hydrogen in cement production included seeing how its use might affect the physical aspects of the kiln system, the fuel mass flows, temperature profile, heat transfer and the safety considerations for the plant. Later that year a feasibility study by the Mineral Products Association (MPA), Verein Deutscher Zementwerke (VDZ) and Cinar for the UK government department that is funding the Hanson project concluded that a hydrogen flame’s high heat in a burner alone might not make it suitable for clinker formation. However, the study did think that it could be used with biomass to address some of that alternative fuel’s “calorific limitations” at high levels. Hence the demonstration of a mixture of both hydrogen and biomass.

That’s all on hydrogen but, finally, if you didn’t log into yesterday’s Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference you missed a treat. One highlight was consultant John Kline’s presentation on using drones to inspect refractory in some hard to reach places. Flying a camera straight into a (cool) pyro-processing line was reminiscent of a science fiction film! Global Cement has encountered the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles in quarry and stockpile surveys previously but this was a step beyond.

The proceedings pack - including video, presenter slides and delegate list - for the Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference 2020 is available to buy now

HeidelbergCement released their sustainability report for 2019 this week. Every large cement producer publishes one but this one is worth checking out because of the company’s ambition to become CO₂ neutral. Other companies are heading the same way but few of them have such developed and public plans.

Sustainability reports are often a hodgepodge of non-financial reporting bringing together environment, health and safety, community and other topics. Multinational companies cover a wide range of jurisdictions and combining reporting in these kinds of fields can be beneficial. Typically they are members of various bodies like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA) that give various levels of conformity between reports. Yet, the wider focus of sustainability reports gives companies a chance to promote what they are doing well, away from balance sheets.

One highlight of HeidelbergCement’s report is its progress towards reducing its specific CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement and its recognition by the Science Based Targets (SBT) initiative towards this goal. So far it has achieved a reduction of around 22% from 1990 levels to 599kg CO₂/t (net) with a target of a 30% reduction or 520kg CO₂/t by 2030. There is a lot more going on in the report but it’s led by the vision, ‘to offer CO₂-neutral concrete by 2050 at the latest.’ It plans to achieve this by increasing the proportion of alternative CO2-neutral raw materials and fuels, developing lower clinker cement types and capturing and utilising CO₂ emissions. A focus on concrete is worth noting given the pivot by building materials manufactures towards concrete in recent years.

Back in the present, HeidelbergCement is roughly in the middle of the pack of major European multinational cement producers with its specific CO₂ emissions for cement in 2019. LafargeHolcim reported 561kg CO₂/t and Cemex reported 622kg CO₂/t. This is a bit of a moving target since corporate acquisitions and divestments can change both the starting point and the apparent current progress. HeidelbergCement’s acquisition of Italcementi in 2017 or CRH’s purchase of Ash Grove did exactly that. The other thing to consider is that these companies manufacture a lot of cement. The actual gross CO₂ emissions from a multinational cement producer are immense. LafargeHolcim, one of the world’s largest multinational producers, emitted 113Mt of CO₂ in 2019 from process and fuel sources whilst making cement. To put that into context, estimates for total global CO₂ emissions range from 33 – 36Gt for 2019. The cement industry’s entire share was estimated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to be 4.1Gt in 2018.

Where this sustainability report starts to become really interesting is where it talks about CO₂ capture and utilisation. Its plans in this department are more mature than many of its competitors with various initiatives at different levels of development, mostly in Europe. Norcem, its Norwegian subsidiary, recently signed an agreement with Aker Solutions to order a CO₂ capture, liquification and intermediate storage plant at its integrated Brevik cement plant. The deal is dependent on government support but it’s a serious proposal. As reported previously from the Innovation in Industrial Carbon Capture Conference 2020, HeidelbergCement is actively preparing to hook up with CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure. The driver is CO₂ pricing from initiatives like the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). With the EU preparing for the next phase of the ETS and talk of the European Green Deal gathering pace, before the coronavirus outbreak at least, CO₂ prices in Europe look set to rise. HeidelbergCement is positioning itself to benefit from being the first major cement producer to head into CO₂ capture and storage/utilisation with a variety of methods intended for different CO₂ prices and regional requirements.

HeidelbergCement doesn’t mention the coronavirus pandemic in its latest sustainability report. The report covers 2019 after all, before all of this happened. These reports do include health and safety information of employees, so this may be something to look out for next year. However, Cemex did mention the coronavirus in relation to its climate action plans this week. Essentially it wants to maintain its plans as a ‘fundamental component’ of its efforts to recover from the health crisis. This chimes with media talk around so-called ‘green-led’ government-backed relief programmes. Governments are the ones who are likely to be handing out the money, probably in the form of infrastructure projects. So it’s the perfect opportunity for them to encourage change from the companies bidding for this funding. Sustainability reports and the information behind them will be a useful tool in accessing this cash.