Alberta Set to Build World's First Full-Sized Zero Carbon Cement Plant

The world's first full-scale carbon-neutral cement plant could be operating in Canada within three years, following the signing of a key $275 million deal between the federal government and international materials supplier Heidelberg.

Under the agreement, Heidelberg's cement manufacturing facility in Edmonton, Alta., is to be fitted with a carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) system that would absorb one million tonnes of CO2 a year—equal to taking over 300,000 cars off the road—and inject it into a saline aquifer several kilometers underground.

Heidelberg Materials's low-carbon Brevik cement plant in western Norway

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Some 95 percent of produced greenhouse gas emissions will be captured using the ammonia-based carbon scrubbing technology being installed at the plant. The facility will feature a combined-heat-and-power plant powering the cement manufacturing and the CCUS system, with surplus electricity fed onto the provincial grid.

"This pilot will be a lighthouse project to prove both the process [of producing carbon-captured cement] and the product, a true zero-carbon cement that will contribute to near zero-carbon concrete," David Perkins, Heidelberg North America's vice president of sustainability, told Canada's National Observer.

"The CO2 emitted from [power generation] will be captured too. And we will recoup some cost by selling excess green electricity back onto the Alberta grid," he said.

Cement—the carbon-intensive ingredient in concrete—currently accounts for 1.5 percent of Canada's total carbon emissions, making reductions to these emissions critical to the country meeting its 2050 net-zero commitments. The global concrete sector, a market worth over $75 billion, is responsible for approximately seven percent of worldwide emissions.

Perkins said Heidelberg was in advanced discussions with industrial developers "with aggressive decarbonization targets" to supply carbon-neutral concrete for projects including data centers, commercial buildings, and residential developments.

"This pilot will be a lighthouse project to prove both the process of producing carbon-captured cement and the product, a true zero-carbon cement that will contribute to near zero-carbon concrete." — Heidelberg's David Perkins

"We have aligned goals with many of these developers and are looking to partner with them to help accelerate take-up of net-zero concrete industry-wide," he said.

Greening Norwegian Cement

Heidelberg is also currently building a larger, industrial-scale cement plant with CCUS in Norway, which will trap around 50 percent of the facility's yearly 800,000 tonnes of CO2. The plant, located in Brevik, is expected online soon, with first shipments of the company's evoZero brand net-zero cement to follow "later this year."

The Brevik plant is part of the Norwegian government's Longship project, designed to capture large volumes of CO2 from heavy-emitting industrial facilities and transport it by ship to an onshore terminal for liquefaction and injection into a storage site under the North Sea.

Cement/concrete and steel are two of the largest sources of carbon emissions globally and should be key focuses in Canada's energy transition, said Ollie Sheldrick-Moyle, clean economy program manager at Clean Energy Canada.

"These are the leading hard-to-abate industrial emissions," he said, "so it is a very good thing that they are being tackled head-on [with this project]."

Sheldrick-Moyle added that the project could position Canada as a leader in manufacturing higher-value products for both domestic and international markets looking to meet higher environmental standards.

Beyond Oil and Gas

CCUS has historically been associated with the global oil and gas industry, with numerous projects launched since Norway built the CO2 Technology Centre in 2012, including the Quest CCS plant developed by Shell as part of its Athabasca oil sands megaproject. Critics argue that the technology has underperformed capture volume expectations and cost projections.

However, Sheldrick-Moyle believes recent CCUS projects in Canada linked to cement, concrete, and pulp and paper manufacturing are "exactly where the technology should be applied."

"Cement is only going to see greater use in a net-zero 2050 world—from building new industrial and transport infrastructure to millions of new houses," he said. "Electrification—which will replace oil and gas increasingly as we move forward—will not be an option for cement and concrete. So CCUS has one of the best use cases for this sector."

"This will not just be about sustaining existing industry with CCUS technology, but indeed, about expanding to become a greater hub of cement and concrete production globally,” said Sheldrick-Moyle. “And a cleaner and greener one at that."

Calculations by the International Energy Agency suggest that retrofitting CCUS systems to existing power and industrial plants could result in eight billion tonnes less CO2 being emitted by 2050.