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“There is no other facility in the world that is doing full-scale carbon capture on a cement plant”
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An Edmonton cement plant is one key step closer to pouring the foundations of a full-scale carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) system that could help make it carbon neutral.
Five years in the making, a pilot system will pull 300 kg per day of carbon from Heidelberg Materials’ production facility in northwest Edmonton. The new machinery, roughly the size of two stacked shipping containers, was officially put to work Tuesday.
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Project director Corwyn Bruce told reporters the compact system will be key to the design and build of a standalone power and CCUS facility that could capture one million tonnes of C02 per year.
“This pilot plant is an important step to prove that the technology works on the actual flue gas at this specific plant, so that when we start up the plant is reliable, we understand our operating costs, and we understand the business model,” said Bruce. He said the future facility, which the multinational corporation aims to have in operation by 2026, has an estimated budget of $1.4 billion.
“There is no other facility in the world that is doing full-scale carbon capture on a cement plant,” said Bruce.
The plan for the new full-scale carbon capture facility is for captured CO2 to be transported via pipeline and permanently sequestered underground.
For now, the pilot project is catch and release.
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Heidelberg, formerly known as Lehigh Hanson in North America, has seen its efforts to go carbon neutral supported with funding from the federal and provincial governments, including $1.4 million from Emissions Reduction Alberta first announced in 2019.
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The pilot system came from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and, because work is ongoing, Heidelberg spokeswoman Christine Myatt said it couldn’t be assigned a dollar value. Joerg Nixdorf, northwest region vice-president of cement operations at Heidelberg, said the pilot plant was fully funded by Heidelberg.
Heidelberg is also betting the United Conservative government will keep its election promise to introduce incentive programs for expensive industries like CCUS — similar to the Alberta Petrochemical Incentive Program (APIP). That industry grant offers up to 12 per cent of capital costs to new projects once they are operational.
Environment and Protected Areas Minister Rebecca Schulz told reporters Tuesday a new CCUS program is in the works and could be rolled out within the next two months.
“We know that these investments are absolutely necessary for investor certainty in these areas, and so we are moving as quickly as possible and gathering feedback from industry while we develop what exactly that formula looks like,” said Schulz.
Heidelberg spokespeople said the Edmonton plant supplies 50 per cent of all cement to the Prairie provinces.
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“Net-zero technology would have a huge impact on this industry here in Canada,” Schulz said. Under Premier Danielle Smith, the Alberta government has set a goal for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and has said it will buck Ottawa’s goal of carbon neutrality in the electricity grid by 2035.
Nixdorf told reporters the company has been working on the project for a half-decade.
“We strongly encourage both the Alberta government and the federal government to finalize the financial support for CCUS projects in a timely fashion so that we can deliver this project by 2026,” he told those gathered at the plant, including the German Consul General Marc Eichhorn.
lijohnson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/reportrix
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