The role of CCUS in decarbonizing the cement industry: A German case study

The cement industry is responsible for seven per cent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Despite all the environmental techniques adopted by the industry, clinker production is, and will be, associated with significant amounts of CO2 emissions due to the calcination process. In contrast to other energy-intensive industries, emissions caused by fuel consumption do not constitute the major part in total emissions. Because of this, carbon capture and utilization/storage (CCUS) is essential to mitigate such hard-to-abate industrial emissions.

The paper discusses the role of CCUS in decarbonizing the cement industry by means of analyzing prospective supply chains, the different options that cement producers will have to mitigate their emissions and their techno-economic requirements, advantages, drawbacks, boundaries and challenges. Some of these themes are generally applicable, while others are regional and can be linked to the geographical features of a certain location. By way of illustration, the paper addresses these topics while providing a case study from the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

By: Ali Abdelshafy , Martin Lambert , Grit Walther