UK Cement Industry to "Go Beyond Net-zero" by 2050

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UK producers are trialling new types of cement production methods and testing low-carbon concrete recipes in a bid to eliminate carbon emissions and become a net-zero industry. The moves are part of a roadmap that identifies seven ways of decarbonising the industry with the aim of going "beyond net-zero" by 2050. These include running production plants and supply chains on renewable energy, making use of nascent carbon-capture technologies and taking into account the way concrete and cement structures absorb carbon over their lifetimes. The industry "can actually go beyond net-zero if we have a fair wind and all the right enablers from governments and the technological development that we hope will occur," said Richard Leese, director of industrial policy at the Mineral Products Association (MPA), which represents the UK's cement industry. "For our decarbonisation journey, clearly we've got to get the designers and structural engineers to take on board the new products," he added. The net-zero roadmap comes as the industry faces growing scrutiny over its emissions. A landmark 2018 report by Chatham House found that it is responsible for around eight per cent of global emissions, making it the single-largest industrial source of atmospheric CO2. Moves to tackle cement emissions include plans to turn a Swedish facility into "the world's first carbon-neutral cement plant". The seven "levers" to decarbonising the UK sector are set out in the UK Concrete and Cement Industry Roadmap to Beyond Net Zero, which was published last October. As part of the plan, the Hanson Cement plant at Ribblesdale in North Yorkshire is about to trial the use of hydrogen and biomass to power its kilns. The experiment will see the percentage of low-carbon fuels slowly increase up to around 30 per cent of the total fuel mix. However, the gas used will be "blue" hydrogen, which is extracted from fossil fuels using a process that generates carbon emissions, rather than "green" hydrogen, a zero-carbon fuel that is extracted from water and powered by renewable energy. A second plant is due to start a trial using electric plasma energy together with biomass. "Both of these will be world firsts because nobody's truly tried it at commercial scale," said Leese.