The Clean Energy Ministerial Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CEM CCUS) and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) have announced an agreement that it says will help scale up the deployment of CCUS throughout the cement and concrete industry.
At the first-ever Global Clean Energy Action Forum (GCEAF) in Pittsburgh, USA, the CEM CCUS said the move is to stimulate innovation, investment and increase the pace of decarbonisation efforts.
The CEM CCUS says the agreement sets out the role CCUS can have in safely and effectively delivering a net zero future and facilitates the identification and mapping of potential cement-sector CCUS projects.
The organisations continue that it will explore the transport and storage infrastructure needs involved in integrating cement CCUS projects into strategic CCUS transport and storage hubs. As well as help to foster project partnerships and lead to the acceleration of projects in developing economies.
We see carbon capture as a vital lever for the global cement industry to achieve its ambitious goal of net-zero concrete by 2050.
To reach these objectives, both parties have agreed to the organisation of “expert workshops”, inclusive of CEM CCUS and GCCA members, as well as relevant stakeholders and partners including the CEM Industry Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI).
Both parties say they will also produce joint reports and organise public events outlining progress in opportunities to implement CCUS projects at strategic hubs.
The agreement was announced at a GCCA and CEM CCUS led event at the Global Energy Action Forum, which focused on the challenge and opportunity for CCUS as a major decarbonisation lever for the global cement and concrete sector.
The organisations say this aligns with a core pillar of the GCCA’s 2050 Net Zero Roadmap, launched last year, in which its members have committed to the deployment of at least ten industrial-scale CCUS projects by 2030.
We are starting to see the first CCUS projects already emerge.
At the event, the industry summarised the key challenges in accelerating the deployment of CCUS and outlined the enabling factors crucial to increasing its rollout to create a greener concrete future. These factors include supporting policies and financing, public procurement progress and CO2 infrastructure and storage options alongside strategic hubs.
CEO of the Global Cement and Concrete Association, Thomas Guillot, said: “We see carbon capture as a vital lever for the global cement industry to achieve its ambitious goal of net-zero concrete by 2050.
“We are starting to see the first CCUS projects already emerge. We have mapped 35 projects announced and underway across the world and up to 100 additional projects are also in the pipeline among our member companies who operate all around the globe.
“This is good progress, but we cannot achieve our decarbonisation mission alone. CCUS is a key enabling technology, and it is a critical area for collaboration to ensure that government policy, enabling infrastructure and wider investment are in place.
“That is why the partnership with the Clean Energy Ministerial CCUS Initiative is so important, to help unlock and accelerate further progress and deployment.”