Economic Potential of DACCS and Global CCS Progress
5.5 INDUSTRY
CCS is an essential pathway for key industrial applications. Industries such as cement,
iron and steel, and chemicals all have characteristics that make them challenging for
decarbonisation (the so-called "hard-to-abate" industries).
CO2 is an unavoidable chemical by-product of the calcination reaction that is at the
heart of cement manufacturing. On top of this, cement is produced at temperatures
well above 600°C; temperatures typically produced by the combustion of fossil fuels.
As such, even if biofuels or other low-carbon sources of heat are used in cement kilns,
this CO2 will still need to be managed. This dual-sourcing, as well as the vast global
demand for cement for construction, makes the cement industry highly CO2 emissions-
intensive, accounting for around eight per cent of global anthropogenic greenhouse
gas emissions (1).
The world's first cement CCS project is under construction at the Norcem cement plant in
Brevik, Norway. Part of the Langskip network, this project is intended to capture 400,000
tonnes per year of CO₂ with an amine-based absorption capture plant. It is expected to
be operational in 2024 and will liquefy CO2 for ship transport to the Naturgassparken
CO2 facility for ultimate storage under the North Sea. Larger scale cement CCS projects
are in early development by LafargeHolcim (US) and Hanson Cement (UK).
Cement is proving to be an active sector for new CO2 capture innovations. Technology
company Calix is testing its novel calciner reactor in the LEILAC project in Belgium.
This reactor is novel in that it keeps calcination CO2 (high purity) and the heat sources
separate, with indirect heating through a tubular reactor wall. Effectively a form of
inherent capture (CO2 is produced in a pure state), this approach offers a new pathway
for the cement sector in the future, as well as the potential to exploit new heat sources
such as renewable electricity, further decarbonising the process.
Many of the world's cement kilns produce CO2 at much smaller scales than seen in
natural gas processing plants or in thermal electricity generation. This scale impacts
on CO2 capture cost, as capture cost per tonne typically rises with reduced scale of the
CO2 source (2). As such, cement kilns can have higher capture costs than some other
applications. This represents an opportunity for capture technology companies to bring
their cost advantage to bear on this sector. Firms such as Carbon Clean and Svante are
good examples of capture technology development that is ideally placed for medium-
scale applications, such as in the cement sector.
The global iron and steel sector is also a major contributor to global CO2 emissions.
During iron production from iron ore, carbon-based reductants (such as coal) react with
oxygen in the ore to form CO2. There is one operational CCS plant in this sector, at the
Emirates Steel facility in Abu Dhabi. This amine-based capture plant has a capacity of
800,000 tonnes per year of CO 2, significantly reducing the emissions of its host Direct
Reduced Iron facility.
Alternative, non-carbon-based ironmaking pathways are also in development, based
on hydrogen as a reductant. These may form a basis for new iron and steelmaking
facilities into the future. If successful, they could become another use for decarbonised
hydrogen - including hydrogen produced from natural gas with CCS.
The global chemicals sector is another significant emitter of CO₂ globally, especially
ammonia and ammonia-derived fertilisers (such as ammonium nitrate). Ammonia is
synthesised using a reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen. Almost all the hydrogen used in
ammonia production today is produced from fossil fuels, primarily with steam-methane
reforming. A shift to decarbonised hydrogen, including blue hydrogen in large utility-
scale hydrogen plants, would enable deep decarbonisation of this essential sector.
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GLOBAL CCS
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