Displaying items by tag: EU

Montenegro: State-owned energy supplier Elektroprivreda Crne Gore (EPCG) has proposed the gradual shutdown of its Pljevlja coal-fired plant and its replacement with a new cement plant. The company said that such a plant would eliminate Montenegro’s 750,000 – 800,000t/yr of cement imports.

The first stage of the Pljevlja power plant’s shutdown will only commence once a replacement power facility is online. Currently, the plant supplies 40% of the country’s energy. Its closure is part of Montenegro’s plan to accede to the EU as soon as 2025.

Europe: Cembureau, the European cement association, has calculated that if the European Union (UN) emissions trading scheme (ETS) CO₂ cost reaches Euro90/t then this could represent 12 - 15% of the production costs of cement producers. The association made its calculation for an average cement plant in the region using data from Ecorys, WIFO, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research for the EU Commission and Agora Energiewende.

Cembureau has called for the EU government to delay its proposed ETS free allocation phase-out and to bring forward the implementation of its proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) from 2026. It has called on policy makers to ‘use all the tools available to stabilise market prices, support energy intensive industries through state aid and examine the functioning of the European gas and electricity markets, as well as the EU ETS.’

Europe: Cembureau has announced the launch of its Map of Innovation Projects interactive map. The feature maps past and current sustainability-enhancing projects at European cement plants. It currently displays a total of 53 different projects. It is available here.

UK: The Clean Growth Fund has led a Euro1.19m investment in cement industry decarbonisation software developer Carbon Re. Other investors are Blue Impact Ventures, Cambridge Enterprise Fund and UCL Technology Fund. The supplier says that its deep reinforcement learning AI product can reduce cement plants’ operating costs by Euro1.97 – 5.09/yr and eliminate 20% of Scope 1 emissions. Five pilot installations of its Delta Zero platform are installed at cement plants in the EU, India, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.

CEO Sherif Elsayed-Ali said “Our mission is to reduce global emissions at the gigatonne scale, starting with the cement industry, and to become the leading global AI company to deliver industrial decarbonisation. Carbon Re’s AI technology provides heavy industry with an effective solution to address their critical challenges of energy costs and emissions reduction.” He added “The road to a zero-carbon world will be long, but with the support of the Clean Growth Fund and our other investors, our AI-products and solutions will evolve to accelerate the transition of energy intensive industries.”

Croatia: Holcim Croatia plans to invest Euro1.28m to upgrade the dosing equipment of its Koromačno cement plant’s kiln line. The planned upgrade will enable the line to increase the proportion of alternative materials used in its cement production, thus equipping the plant for low-carbon cement production. Innovation Norway has granted the producer Euro441,000 towards the cost of the project.

Managing director Nikola Kovačević said “Mineral admixtures in cement have a threefold benefit: on the one hand, different characteristics are created in the cement to meet the requirements of different types of construction; on the other hand, the exploitation of natural resources decreases. Thirdly, the carbon footprint of the cement is thus reduced through the lowering of the clinker factor.”

Poland: Germany-based HeidelbergCement has partnered with Norway-based Sintef Energi install a pilot carbon capture and storage (CCS) system at its Górazdze cement plant. The company will deploy new enzyme-based CCS technology, which it says allows greater use of the waste heat and simplifies the control of secondary emissions. The project, known as Project ACCSess, has received Euro15m-worth of funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 industrial emissions reduction programme. 18 industry partners and research organisations will collaborate towards the deployment of the technology at the plant. The consortium will store captured CO₂ in storage fields in the Nordic countries. The project is due to conclude in April 2025. The total cost of the work is Euro18m.

HeidelbergCement chair Dominik von Achten said “The tests of an enzyme-based capture unit at our Górazdze plant in Poland will deliver important insights into how we can further reduce costs in the capture process.” He added “At the same time, it will emphasise our strategy to expand CCS further into our Eastern Europe-based assets.”

Denmark: Aalborg Portland Cement will begin construction of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system at its Rørdal, North Jutland, cement plant. It will collaborate with Project Greensand CCS consortium partners to store the captured CO2 in drained oilfields below the North Sea. The company estimates that the Danish part of the North Sea has 16Gt of CO2 storage capacity, out of 300Gt under all EU waters. The endeavour aims to help Denmark to realise its targeted 70% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030.

Research and development director Jesper Sand-Damtoft said “The establishment of capture facilities, transformation from carbon to gas and transport to the North Sea all require great investments from a business such as ours, and the realisation of the climate potential thus depends greatly on financial support.”

EU: The European Council and European Commission have published their joint coronavirus exit strategy, entitled ‘European Roadmap Towards Lifting COVID-19 Containment Measures.’ It advises EU member states on a course of action aimed at restoring community life and the economy, while also preserving public health, after the coronavirus outbreak.

The roadmap consists of a progressive lifting of travel restrictions, initially between border regions, then between regions less affected by the outbreak and subsequently across internal and external borders of the EU. The strategy applies a similar approach to restarting the economy, beginning with ‘essential sectors’ such as construction. The Commission will maintain a rapid alert system for supply chain disruptions, with the help of existing networks such as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), Clusters, Chambers of Commerce and trade associations.

EU: Cembureau has welcomed the European Commission (EC)’s proposal for consultations on setting up a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) for imported goods including cement, and set out a number of ‘design principles’ that it says ‘should apply’. According to Cembureau, a CBAM ought to be: complementary to EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) free allowances (in the initial phase) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatible, based on importers’ verified emissions, including indirect emissions, applicable to all ETS sectors and capable of providing a CO2 charge exemption for EU exporters.

The EC has said that it will present a final proposal for a CBAM by mid-2021.

Europe: Australia-based Calix has announced that construction will begin on its second low emissions intensity lime and cement (Leilac) carbon capture and storage (CCS) installation at a ‘European cement plant’ on 7 April 2020. ASX ComNews has reported that collaborators on the project, which has received Euro16m under the EU’s Horizon 2020 grant scheme, are Portugal-based Cimpor, Germany-based HeidelbergCement, Germany and France-based energy companies Ingenieurbüro-Kühlerbau-Neustadt (IKN) and Engie and Belgium-based minerals and lime company Lhoist. Calix has said that the 100,000t/yr process emissions capture facility will be operational in late 2024.
The company has appointed Emma Bowring Leilac-2 project leader.

The first Leilac installation was completed at HeidelbergCement’s 1.5Mt/yr integrated Lixhe plant in Belgium’s Limburg province in mid-2019.