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 kilometres underground. 

"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 per cent of Canada's total carbon emissions released to the atmosphere, 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 some seven per cent of worldwide emissions. 

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

"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 per cent 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, which is designed to capture huge volumes of CO₂ from heavy-emitting industrial facilities and transport it by ship to an onshore terminal for liquefication and injection into a storage site under the North Sea.

Cement/concrete and steel are two of the largest sources of carbon emissions on the planet and so should be key focuses in Canada's — and the world's — energy transition, underlined Ollie Sheldrick-Moyle, clean economy program manager at Clean Energy Canada, a think tank.

"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 clear the way for Canada to begin manufacturing higher-value products for emerging in-country market demands as well as for international buyers “looking to reduce emissions in line with higher environmental standards.”

Beyond oil and gas

CCUS has historically been associated with the global oil and gas industry, with numerous projects having been 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 point to the technology having underperformed capture volume expectations and cost projections. 

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

"Cement is only going to see greater use in a net-zero 2050 world — from building new industrial and transport infrastructure to building 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 retrofitting CCUS systems to existing power and industrial plants could result in eight billion tonnes less CO₂ being emitted by 2050.