Bath carbon capture project seeks profit from captured CO2

The carbon capture project at Lafarge Canada's Bath Ontario, Canada, aims to make a profit. While the path to net zero will overwhelmingly come from actually cutting emissions, not capturing them, the project in Bath, aims to transforms captured CO₂ into calcium carbonate, a product that is used in pharmaceuticals, paint and packaging and can achieve prices of US$400-2700/t on the world market, depending on purity and grade. While these varied uses show the growth potential for the future of the business, for now, all the carbon captured in Bath is sold back to Lafarge for concrete. 

The Lafarge cement plant (Holcim group) in Bath, Ontario, in partnership with Hyperion Energy, has been piloting a carbon capture project that will use steel tanks housed in shipping containers. It is a “drop-in” modular solution that requires no modifications to the existing plant. It has been running for a year, capturing 1tpd of carbon and making a product that can be mixed with cement as a strengthener for concrete.

“It’s a circular strategy,” said Rob Cumming, head of sustainability, environment and public affairs at Lafarge Canada.

“We’re turning dirty air into dollars,” said Heather Ward, CEO and founder of Hyperion Energy, which developed the proprietary system. “We’re not dependent on carbon credits because we produce a product with a commodity value.”

“This is a very important solution,” said Sarah Petrevan, vice-president of decarbonisation and sustainability at the Cement Association of Canada. “Not only to utilise the carbon we produce, but to create a value-added product.”

“For every tonne of CO₂ captured, we get credit for 1.29t,” said Rob Perrins, vice-president of operations at Hyperion. “As a result, we can actually produce the lowest-carbon concrete in the world.”

The pilot plans to scale up to 10tpd in the next year and 100tpd by 2027. But even then it will only capture a fraction of the 1700t of carbon produced each day by the Lafarge plant.