Net zero cement plant paves the way for decarbonisation

At the mouth of a fjord in Telemark county, south of Oslo, stands a slender steel chimney that could play a central role in the ecological transition of concrete, one of the hardest materials to decarbonise. The 100-metre-high chimney is brand new and serves to trap carbon dioxide emitted by the historic Brevik cement plant. The CO2 will then be compressed and transported by ship in a liquid state to an intermediate storage facility in Øygarden, north of Bergen, before being pumped via pipe and permanently stored in a geological repository located 2,600 metres below the North Sea floor.

The operational launch of the Longship CCS project - the first complete industrial value chain for the capture, transport and storage of CO2 in Europe - was celebrated yesterday in Brevik, with all the main players in the enterprise, starting with Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, the Norwegian Minister of Energy Terje Aasland and Dominik von Achten, CEO of Heidelberg Materials, owner of the Brevik cement plant, which thus becomes the first in the world to produce net zero cement. Thanks to the skills acquired in Brevik, the German cement giant (which also controls Italcementi) has started feasibility studies for the capture and storage of CO2 in a dozen other plants in Europe and North America, including the cement plant in Rezzato-Mazzano (Brescia), which could become the first Italian plant to produce net zero cement. “We are in contact with the Italian government to realize this project, we know that there is an ongoing debate on CO2 capture and we hope to replicate in Italy what we have already done in Norway”, confirmed van Achten.

The brand launched by Heidelberg Materials is called evoZero and was developed starting from Brevik, where the technology developed specifically will allow the capture of 400,000 tons of CO2 per year, equal to 50% of the plant's total emissions. In the next reconversions, the aim is to achieve even higher capture rates, around 95%. In addition to Brevik, the Longship project includes the Hafslund Oslo Celsio waste-to-energy plant, destined to become one of the first emission-free waste-to-energy plants, with 350,000 tons of CO2 captured per year, half of which is biogenic.

The complex Viking ship-themed scheme is a central element of the Norwegian government’s transition strategy, which has covered more than two-thirds of the costs: $1.9 billion of the $2.82 billion total. “Longship shows that it is possible to reduce emissions from industry safely and effectively: we have built a complete value chain for CO₂ management that will have an impact beyond our borders,” Minister Terje Aasland said at the opening. The ultimate goal of this major effort is the decarbonization of the oil and gas industry, which accounts for about a quarter of Norway’s GDP and more than 50% of exports. The oil sector is the main driver of the project, with Equinor, Shell and Total providing the geological repository and building the pipeline to inject the CO2. The gas capture technology also comes from Schlumberger, a leader in oil and gas services, through its affiliate SLB Capturi, which specializes in carbon removal solutions.

The three oil giants’ alliance, called Northern Lights, aims to spark the creation of a carbon capture market in Europe, based on recommendations from the European Commission. In this first storage facility, the consortium will also transport and seal 800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from Yara’s ammonia and fertilizer plant in Sluiskil, the Netherlands, and 430,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 per year from two Ørsted power plants in Denmark. The consortium has just decided to expand its CO2 storage capacity from 1.5 to 5 million tonnes per year, with an investment of $715 million.