Cement is everywhere. The industry is turning to carbon capture to curb emissions, and it's not alone

For better or worse, concrete is everywhere. As the second-most consumed material in the world, it's in the roads you drive on, the foundation of your home and, oftentimes, the walls of the office building that surrounds you. 

The problem is, making concrete also pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Cement, a key ingredient in concrete, is the world's second-largest industrial CO2 emitter and is responsible for about seven per cent of carbon emissions globally and 1.4 per cent of Canada's. 

But cutting down on those emissions is hard to do. Most of the carbon generated through cement making comes from the fundamental process of heating ground limestone (calcium carbonate), clay and sand at extremely high temperatures in a kiln until it forms small nodules called clinker, which is then ground into cement.

"Since Roman times, this is how it's been done," said Corwyn Bruce, a project director with Heidelberg Materials, a German multinational company that makes cement, aggregate and other building materials.

"The carbon is inherent," said Bruce, who heads up Heidelberg's Edmonton-based carbon capture and storage project. "It's literally part of the chemistry."

Enter carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The technology, which has lately generated lots of buzz within the oilpatch, is also increasingly being seen as a remedy for so-called "hard-to-abate" industries — like cement, iron and steel production — where much of the carbon dioxide emissions are created through process reactions and can't be eliminated by switching to renewable fuels.

Power plants and fertilizer plants are among other sectors also turning to the technology.

While CCS technology has its limitations — in particular, the geology of where projects are located — the number of CCS projects is on the rise as companies look for ways to decarbonize where no other easy option is available. 

At Heidelberg and Lafarge — two of the world's leading cement manufacturers — work is well underway to marry cement production with carbon capture technology.

Heidelberg has nine carbon capture and storage projects planned across North America, Europe and the U.K. The first two expected to come online are in Edmonton and Brevik, Norway. 

The Brevik plant is expected to capture about 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, about 50 per cent of the plant's emissions, while the company's Edmonton plant is expected to capture 95 per cent.

That's largely because of the geology of each location. In Brevik, carbon has to be refrigerated, liquified, put on a boat and sailed around a fjord to be stored under the North Sea.

In Alberta, by contrast, "all we have to do is put it into a pipeline and send it to a storage field," said Bruce.