HeidelbergCement aims for world’s first carbon-neutral cement plant

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German construction materials firm HeidelbergCement is investing in upgrades to its facility in Slite, on the Swedish island of Gotland, with the aim of making it the world's first carbon-neutral cement plant by 2030 in a move to reduce the emissions of one a notoriously heavy polluting sector.

Heidelberg - the world's fourth-largest cement producer - is aiming for 1.8 million tonnes of captured carbon dioxide annually at its Slite plant, making it the company's second large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility.

The figure of 1.8 million tonnes is quadruple that of the amount the company intends on storing underground from its first CCS plant in Brevik, Norway, which was granted government approval in December 2020.

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CCS is being widely touted as one solution to improve the environmental footprint of some of the so-called "harder-to-abate" industries, of which cement is one, accounting for around 8% of global carbon emissions.

Cement production is difficult to decarbonise due to the process of limestone calcination during manufacture which produces around two-thirds of the sector's emissions. Presently, traditional means of reducing emissions such as fuel substitutes are not feasible for cement.

Cement firms have a number of pilot CCS plants though Heidelberg's facility in Brevik and the proposed Slite facility are the first large-scale ones.

The company still needs to reach an agreement with the Swedish government over financing the Slite facility.

According to Sweden's enterprise minister Ibrahim Baylan, the costs of the Slite facility will be three or four times that of the one in Brevik, which is estimated at around €325 million.

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The minister added that the government support would not be "in the vicinity" of the two-thirds financing that the government in neighbouring Norway offered for the Brevik plant, which is scheduled to go online in 2024.

"We’re initially supporting the company with some funds," he said. "In the long-run, we expect industry to make these investments for themselves."

Dominic von Achten, chair of the management board at HeidelbergCement said that now was the right time to show willingness on the company's part to up carbon capture ambitions.

"We have the confidence now that we can pull it off from a project management perspective and get the right balance in terms of financing from the government," he said.

The Slite facility on the island of Gotland is the country’s largest cement plant and produces out about 4% of Sweden’s total carbon emissions, and the project would be a significant step towards reaching its 2045 net-zero target.

Initially, the carbon dioxide will initially be stored underground in oil and gas fields, but the company aims to potentially create a new stream of revenue by selling captured carbon to industries that need the gas to produce fertilisers or synthetic fuels.

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Baylan warned that industrial companies and nations would lose market share and jobs if they were slow to invest in the decarbonisation of energy-intensive manufacturing. 

"When I talk to industry, I pick up my iPhone. In 2008, who was dominant? Nokia had 40% at the time. How many phones are they selling at the moment? I think this is the same. If they do miss the shift at these times, they could be off forever or for a very long time," the minister warned.

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