First carbon capture cement facility opens in Norway

Brevik, Norway: Norway on Wednesday inaugurated the first large scale facility for capturing carbon dioxide emissions at a cement plant, making it pos...

Brevik, Norway: Norway on Wednesday inaugurated the first large-scale facility for capturing carbon dioxide emissions at a cement plant, making it possible to manufacture the world's first "carbon free" cement.

The Heidelberg Materials plant in Brevik in southeastern Norway can now capture up to 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year -- 50 percent of its emissions -- thanks to amino-based solvents.

Through a "book and claim" system, the company, one of the world's biggest cement producers and more than a century old, will be able to virtually redistribute the gain to its other cement plants and thereby offer clients partially or fully decarbonised products.

"This cement product will be near zero (emissions)," Heidelberg Materials chief executive Dominik von Achten told AFP.

Once transformed into the final product concrete, which absorbs small quantities of CO2 throughout its life cycle, "it will be net zero", he said.