The US arm of building materials giant Heidelberg Materials has unveiled the next phase of its selection process for carbon capture technology and contractors for the Edmonton, Alberta carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) Project.
MHI-LCSC, a division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) Group specialising in CO₂ capture services and clean fuel initiatives in Canada, along with Kiewit, have secured a front end engineering design (FEED) contract for the carbon capture technology at the Edmonton CCUS project.
The FEED study will harness MHI’s Advanced KM CDR Process, developed in collaboration with The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc., featuring the employment of the KS-21 solvent.
Commenting on the milestone, Joerg Nixdorf, Vice President Cement Operations, Northwest Region for Heidelberg Materials North America, said that the milestone moves the company even closer to its goal of delivering the first full-scale application of CCUS in the cement sector.
“This latest development represents meaningful progress on the path to achieving a Net Zero future,” added Nixdorf.
The company will be commissioning the world’s first full-scale Net Zero cement plant at its Edmonton location by adding CCUS technology to the facility, which could capture and store one million metric tonnes of CO2 each year.
CCUS is seen as a key technology to decarbonise cement production – a sector responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions.
This comes from the calcination of limestone, and amounts for 60-65% of cement manufacturing’s total CO2 emissions.
A draft of Canada’s forthcoming CCUS strategy seeks to store 15 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 as part of an $8bn (US$5.8bn) effort from the Canadian government to deploy decarbonisation technologies in the power sector and heavy industry.
Announced in 2021, Canada’s carbon capture investment tax credit programme will offer investors a tax credit of 37.5 to 60% of their investments in direct air capture equipment and carbon transportation, storage and usage equipment.
Originally forecast by Finance Canada to cost $4.6bn (US$3.3bn) between 2022-28, the tax credit is now projected by the Parliamentary Budget Officer to cost an estimated $5.7bn (US$4.1bn).
According to figures from Natural Resources Canada and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, there are eight commercial carbon capture facilities in Canada that capture only about 0.5% of the country’s total annual emissions.
