Displaying items by tag: carbon capture, utilisation & storage

Belgium: The EU Innovation Fund has awarded Euro4.5m to a consortium consisting of Lhoist, gas provider Fluxys Belgium, concrete products company Prefer and carbonation technology developer Orbix. The collaborators are working on a project called CO2ncrEAT. The project will carbonate steel sector by-products with captured CO₂ from Lhoist's Hermalle lime plant to produce alternative building materials. CO2ncrEAT will be the first project to employ Orbix's innovative technique for the purpose. Fluxys Belgium's pipeline technology will convey the Hermalle plant's emissions over a distance of 2km to a Prefer concrete blocks plant.

The consortium said that it will use 12,000t/yr of CO₂ to produce 100,000t/yr of reduced-CO₂ concrete blocks. The use of alternative raw materials in the blocks will further reduce their carbon footprint by 8000t/yr.

Lhoist Western Europe managing director Vincent Deleers said “The project fits perfectly with our willingness to actively develop CO₂ capture and sequestration technologies that are essential to the sustainability of our industry. We are delighted that our work on innovative solutions has been recognised by the European Innovation Fund and we look forward to working with our partners to bring CO2ncrEAT to the next level.”

Readers may have noticed the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) is currently taking place at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Many of the cement companies, suppliers and related associations are present at the annual jamboree and getting stuck in. For example, Holcim’s chief sustainability officer Magali Anderson was scheduled on 8 November 2022 to discuss solutions to decarbonise the built environment at the event’s Building Pavilion, Cemex’s chief executive officer Fernando A González took part in the First Movers Coalition (FMC) panel, FLSmidth is down for a number of talks and both the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and World Cement Association are busy too.

Stone cold progress, if any, from the conference is yet to emerge although there is still time given that the event runs until 18 November 2022. No doubt some sort of ‘big message’ style international commitment or plan will emerge from the haggling. However, on the cement sector side, the biggest story so far has been the FMC plan for some of its members to procure at least 10% near-zero cement and concrete for its projects by 2030. Both Holcim and Cemex were founding members of the collation of companies that intend to use their purchasing power to support sustainable technologies in hard to abate sectors. Commitments for the aviation, shipping, steel and trucking sectors were set at COP26 in Glasgow, aluminium and CO₂ removal followed in May 2022 and chemicals and concrete were scheduled for November 2022. The latter has started to happen with the formation of the FMC’s cement and concrete group. Companies involved include ETEX, General Motors, Ørsted, RMZ Corporation and Vattenfall. Of these, Sweden-based energy producer Vattenfall has publicly said it is going for the 10% near-zero cement and concrete target by 2030.

Table 1: Net CO₂ emission intensity (kgCO2/t) for cement production at selected large cement producers.

While we wait for more announcements to escape from Sharm El Sheikh it might be worth reflecting upon one of the targets some of the cement companies have set themselves for 2030. Table 1 above compares the net CO₂ emission intensity for cement production at some of the large cement producers. It doesn’t tell us much, other than that the CO₂ emission intensity for these companies was in the region of 550 - 600kgCO₂/t of cementitious material in 2021. This compares to 580kgCO₂/t in 2020 for the GCCA’s Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) data for the companies it covers. The companies featured in Table 1 are all aiming – or appear to be aiming – for 475 - 525kgCO₂/t by 2030. This may not sound like much but it has and will require hard work, innovation, investment and risk on the part of the cement producers. This is also before carbon capture, utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) units will have been built at most cement plants. Yes, until the CO₂ emission intensity goes to down to zero, if cement production volumes keep rising sufficiently then total gross CO₂ emissions from the cement industry will also increase. Yet, gross CO₂ emissions from cement production are likely to peak sometime between now and 2030 if they haven’t already.

One sobering fact to end with is that 1990 is now further in the past than 2050 is in the future. If you can remember George Bush Sr as US president or you saw the film Goodfellas at the cinema then that’s the amount of time we have left to reach net zero. The global economic shocks of the post-coronavirus period and the war in Ukraine are stressing the world’s climate targets more than ever before. Let’s see how COP27 reacts to this. So far though, serious commitments to using low-carbon cement and concrete from big companies are a useful step to entrenching these products in the market.

Germany: KHD hosted a meeting of the research and development consortium of the ACCSESS project in Cologne on 18 and 19 October 2022. The consortium is intended to develop replicable carbon capture utilisation and storage pathways to support a net zero strategy in Europe by 2050. KHD’s involvement with the project concerns running engineering feasibility studies for the retrofit of CCUS projects at two cement plants in Europe. It is also working on the concept development for a new clinker production technology, which is optimised as a new plant for operation with downstream carbon capture technology.

Other project partners working on ACCSESS of note to the cement sector include Heidelberg Materials and the German Cement Works Association (VDZ). Project completion is scheduled for mid-2025 with KHD’s contributions to be delivered by mid-2024.

UK: Denmark-based architecture fund Henrik Frode Obel Foundation has named Seratech as winner of its Obel Award 2022. The award recognises architectural contributions to global development. Seratech has developed an olivine-based composite cement produced using CO₂ from flue emissions, which can sequester double the CO₂ of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). When used as 40% of a blend with OPC, it is able to completely offset the emissions of concrete production.

Team member Barnaby Shanks said "The beauty of the idea is that you can just use it as normal concrete. There are other carbon-neutral materials, but they can be limiting because they can only be precast, cured in a lab in special conditions and shipped elsewhere. We want people to retain the freedom to use concrete the way that they are used to. We don’t want to limit people in any way because we’ll just lessen the amount of impact we can have."

Belgium: Holcim and TotalEnergies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work towards the full decarbonisation of the Obourg cement plant. Various energies and technologies will be assessed for the capture, utilisation and sequestration (CCUS) of around 1.3Mt/yr of CO₂ emitted by the unit. The project will include working towards building an oxyfuel switchable kiln as part of an upgrade project at the plant and the transportation and use of the captured CO₂ by TotalEnergies for a synthetic fuel producing scheme and/or deposit in geological storage in the North Sea.

TotalEnergies will also assess the development of renewable projects to power a new electrolyser, which would generate the green hydrogen needed to produce synthetic fuels. This new renewable energy production capacity would also power Holcim’s new oxyfuel kiln. Finally, the oxygen emitted by the electrolyser would be used to fuel the new kiln.

Bart Daneels, the chief executive officer of Holcim Belgium said “Cement industry decarbonisation is extremely challenging because of the process's inevitable CO₂ emissions, which put us firmly in the hard-to-abate sector. CCUS is vital for Obourg to become the first net carbon neutral clinker plant in northwest Europe. We are very happy to work with TotalEnergies to accelerate the development of these CCUS solutions for GO4ZERO. By joining the first movers, we want to set the standards for future clinker manufacturing plants.”

Belgium: Holcim Belgium has joined Fluxys open-access CO₂ transport network project. It intends to use the Fluxys network to either transport captured CO2 for sequestration in the North Sea or reuse in other industry after it builds a new 6000t/day production line at its Obourg plant by early 2026. As part of this process Holcim Belgium also plans to build a cryogenic CO₂ capture and treatment unit at Obourg by early 2028.

Pascal De Buck, the chief executive officer of Fluxys, said "Holcim's interest in our CO₂ network project at the Mons industrial cluster confirms the efforts industries are making to find solutions for decarbonising their activities. We're here to meet that need, which is why we offer them an open-access CO₂ network they can use to transport their captured CO₂ to storage or reuse sites. This kind of network helps achieve climate objectives and contributes to the long-term viability of the economy."

The proposed Fluxys CO₂ transport network will see the construction and creation in Belgium of pipelines, intermodal hubs, port terminals and shipping from 2025 onwards. The proposed infrastructure is intended to transport three gases: CO₂, hydrogen and methane.