☁️ "1.5 C and… Cement"

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[10:09] AVH: "The cement industry [...] is one of the [...] hard to abate sectors. They emit about 7% of the total CO2 emissions in the globe. [...] They use a lot of energy to produce cement. And the use and the choice of energy need to change over time. But even if they would change all of the fuel that they use today to create cement, they will still also ultimately emit CO2, because about more than half of the total emissions come from the process of making the cement itself. In total, the sector emits between 2.4 and 2.8 billion tons of CO2. About 60% is from the chemical process of producing the cement and 40% is because of the fuels that burn."

[12:11] KM: "Two years ago, the Norwegian Parliament supported the financing package for what we call the Longship Project. [...] The Northern Lights Project is a part of the Longship Project. [...] It includes capture at the cement plant, the waste incineration facility, and then offshore subsea storage, 2,600 meters below the seabed in the North Sea. [...] We see that we can make a difference in getting CCS (carbon capture and storage) off the ground, and proof to the world that it is possible to do carbon capture and storage, to lower the cost, and hopefully this project will disseminate the technology further on to the rest of the world."

[13:52] KM: "We see increased interest for new CO2 storage acreage on the Norwegian continental shelf. [...] We also see increased interest from European industry to actually come with their CO2 and store it in the Northern Lights and on the continental shelf. [...] One of the most important aims for this project was for it to be a market enabler and we really hope that other countries will also follow suit and develop CO2 capture and storage projects in their own countries. We are more than happy to help with the art knowledge on the technology side and on the regulatory side."

[14:54] AVH: "I see Shell's role in three steps. I see that we are a supplier of energy. If you look at the energy that is being used [in] creating cement, there actually is a one megawatt hour per tonne of cement required. [...] By providing cleaner energy to the, to the to this industry, we can help them to decarbonize. So I see our role first as a supplier of cleaner energy. Then second is also that we see ourselves as a collaborator. So I think it's clear that in order to decarbonize industries, you really need to work together in the value chain. [...] Our third role [relates to that] we are also a buyer of cement, [...] [for example in our] renewable projects, where we invest in offshore wind parks, [...] we need to do the foundations of cement."

[17:52] AVH: "I think it's clear that the trend of urbanization in the globe is happening and is real, and it's not going to go away. The energy crisis doesn't make any change to these sort of macro level global trends. And that means the demand for cement and for concrete is only going to increase over time, especially if we look at the East [...]. And so far, we don't have better alternative building material available there."

[19:05] KM: "I believe we need an array of technologies to work together to solve this puzzle. We need as much renewable energy as we can possibly provide. We need CCS in the hard to abate sectors. Hydrogen could play a role in all this. Energy efficiency is, of course, very important. But I think there is no silver bullet. So we need great engineers, we need policy and markets to work together to achieve energy security and a fair transition, which is also important."

Rating: ☁️☁️