Edmonton plant start CCUS system

Heidelberg Materials' Edmonton cement plant is one key step closer to pouring the foundations of a full-scale carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) system that could help make its operations carbon neutral.

Five years in the making, a pilot system will pull 300kg per day of carbon from the plant’s production facility. The new CCUS equipment started up on Tuesday and uses technology from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Project Director, Corwyn Bruce, told reporters that the compact system will be key to the design and build of a stand-alone power and CCUS facility that could capture 1Mta of CO₂.

“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 Mr Bruce. He said the future facility, which the multinational aims to have in operation by 2026, has an estimated budget of CAD1.4bn (US$0.82m).

“There is no other facility in the world that is doing full-scale carbon capture on a cement plant,” he said.

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.

Heidelberg Materials, 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 CAD1.4m from Emissions Reduction Alberta first announced in 2019.