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Dr Diana Casey, Executive Director of the Mineral Products Association joins the World Cement Podcast to explore the role of CCS in decarbonising UK cement industry. In this episode, we cover the challenges, opportunities, the role of government, and take a look at some of the exciting projects on the horizon.
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What is World Cement Podcast?
The World Cement podcast: a podcast series for professionals in the cement industry.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the World Cement Podcast. In this episode I'm joined by Doctor. Diana Casey, Executive Director at the Mineral Products Association or MPA. And today we're going to be discussing the role of CCS in decarbonizing The UK cement industry, the challenges, the opportunities, the projects lined up and more. I just wanted to take a moment to remind you to register for WorldCement.
David Bizley:It's free of charge and gives you access to the latest issues of WorldCement, both in print and online. Every issue comes packed full of regional analysis, technical articles, project case studies, and the latest industry news. Simply head over to worldcement.com, click the Magazine tab, and register today. It's as simple as that. Happy reading!
David Bizley:Diana, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the World Cement podcast.
Diana Casey:Thanks, David. It's great to have this opportunity to speak to you today.
David Bizley:As always, we like to begin things with a bit of an introduction. So for our audience from around the world, tell us a bit more about the Mineral Products Association. Who are you guys and what is it that you do?
Diana Casey:So the Mineral Products Association or MPA is a trade association for industries like cement, concrete and aggregates. We give a voice to our members who work with mineral products. And mineral products in The UK represents the largest material flow. So, our members are producing around 400,000,000 tonnes every year. They're also the largest supplier to the construction industry, so sectors such as housing, transport, energy and water infrastructure all rely upon a secure supply of mineral products.
David Bizley:Okay, so earlier this year, before the launch of the Brevik CCS facility in Norway understandably dominated the headlines, one of Heidelberg Materials' other sites, Paidswood in North Wales, was granted planning permission for The UK's first cement CCS facility. In broad terms, how important is CCS going to be for the decarbonisation of The UK cement industry? And ultimately, what percentage of CO2 output do you expect it to be handling if we're to reach our net zero target?
Diana Casey:There's unfortunately no getting away from the fact that the production of cement is very carbon intensive. Currently 70% of emissions arise from the breakdown of calcium carbonate raw materials at high temperatures. Now, the sector approach is to reduce those emissions as far as possible before we capture them, but options such as fuel switching will only get us part of the way there. Now, The UK concrete and cement industry roadmap to Beyond Net Zero that was published in October 2020 showed that after reducing emissions as far as possible through things like fuel switching, carbon capture and storage still has to provide a 61% reduction by 02/1950. But we have a real opportunity to show the world what a modern, green, thriving and decarbonised cement industry can look like.
Diana Casey:And we also know that both the government and organisations like the Climate Change Committee realise that we cannot get to net zero without CCS.
David Bizley:Okay, so where does The UK stand then in terms of readiness for rolling out CCS across industries like cement? And does The UK offer any particular advantages?
Diana Casey:So The UK's geography means that it has one of the largest CO2 storage potentials of anywhere in the world. So we have an estimated capacity to safely store 78,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2. It's significant and ultimately we're also a relatively small island and therefore it feels like we should have every advantage to kind of really deliver a thriving CCS industry. Now, the government are putting some money behind this. The June Spending Review announced £9,400,000,000 for upcoming DCUS projects and that followed an earlier commitment of £21,700,000,000 spread over 25, but for the first round of projects for those in the Highnett Cluster in the North West and North Wales, and the East Coast cluster in the North East.
Diana Casey:We've got some really good advantages there, and in terms of cement, the Heidelberg Materials Pagewood plant is in that High Net cluster and is one of the government's eight shortlisted projects, and we're hoping they're going to get a share of some of that funding that's been announced. And that project is very advanced in terms of its planning and its designs, and we want it to be up and running by 2029, which would be great. We've also got the Peak Cluster, which is the world's largest cement and lime CCS project, and together those projects could decarbonise around half of UK cement sector emissions. So, we've got a real opportunity in The UK.
David Bizley:Okay, excellent. Now, you mentioned the word already, but we hear a lot about clusters when it comes to CCS in The UK. For our audience from around the world and indeed those here in The UK who might be scratching their heads as well, what exactly is the cluster system and how does it play into the rollout of CCS in The UK?
Diana Casey:So in The UK, around 50% of all industry emissions are concentrated in these seven major industrial clusters or hubs or geographical areas even. Now focusing the development of CCUS in these clusters takes advantage of those concentrated areas of emissions to achieve high impact and large scale emissions reductions, and it reduces cost and risk by enabling the sharing of the transport and storage infrastructure, so the pipelines that will transport the CO2. Now those clusters also help reduce the risk and the deployment costs as well, they bring those economies of scale that are really helpful. We have this sort of track cluster sequencing process that's been set out by the UK government. The first two clusters that are known as track one are the high net cluster in North Wales and North West England, which I mentioned before, and also the East Coast cluster in the North Eastern, which is around the Teeside area.
Diana Casey:We also have the next phase in the sequencing, which is track two, there was funding announced in the spending review for those and that's the Viking project in the Humber cluster and the Acorn project in a Scottish cluster.
David Bizley:There's a lot of clusters going on basically.
Diana Casey:There are. Yeah.
David Bizley:Now we talked about advantages already, so what would you say are the main challenges facing the implementation of CCUS in The UK and how would you like to see those addressed?
Diana Casey:So the first challenge has got to be cost. CCS is not necessarily a new technology, but some of the industries it's being applied to, like cement, it is new, these are first of a kind plants that are not tried and tested. So, these initial rollout costs are high and we really need government support to ensure that the cement or whatever we're producing in these plants are able to compete in the market. So that's really fundamental. Another challenge is really the pace of feasibility assessments and decision making.
Diana Casey:You know, these plants, they're big plants, they need planning and permitting and any delays kind of decelerates progress and really act as a barrier. So I think those are the two main challenges.
David Bizley:Okay, and so we've touched on it a little bit just now, but what kind of support is The UK cement industry getting from the government for the rollout of CCS and what more would you like to see done? Do you have a policy wish list, for example?
Diana Casey:Well, this was a great day to be speaking about this because only yesterday we got the announcement that the government and the national wealth fund are putting £28,600,000 of funding towards the Peak Cluster project and the Morcombe Bay Net Zero Cluster, which is absolutely brilliant news for that project. We're also looking for funding for the Paidwood Cement Plant in High Net and I'm hoping that there'll be something coming along very soon as Paidwood is in one of the track one clusters. I think this is great news for those two kind of projects and together, I think I mentioned earlier that will decarbonise around 50% of UK cement production, so really significant decarbonisation. The challenge we have is that 50% of our emissions are not in nice clusters that are easy to tackle. So where we don't have government support yet is in things like a transport and storage infrastructure plan that might take account of where those clusters sit and also where large dispersed sites that are maybe more rural or just more isolated, that sort of overall infrastructure plan would really help businesses to plan how they're going to connect into that network.
Diana Casey:And having that plan would really show that The UK is a good place to invest in CCS.
David Bizley:Okay, so more to be done still, but having that kind of long term thinking in government would be really beneficial.
Diana Casey:Yes, definitely.
David Bizley:Okay. We've both talked about briefly Heidelberg's Paidswood plant earlier. Can you give us a bit of an overview of this project and what can we expect in terms of results and when?
Diana Casey:Yeah, so Paidswood is part of the High Net industrial cluster, I mentioned that Paidswood's in North Wales. The capture plant they're aiming to build will capture up to 800,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. It will be the first net zero cement facility in The UK and it's actually a really important global project because it would be the largest CCS project to date. I'm not sure, for listeners that have been following the news, the Brevik carbon capture plant, so that was the first cement CCS plant in Norway, started operating earlier this year. So Payswood will be about double the size of that Breveit plant, it's really significant.
Diana Casey:As well as that decarbonisation, the project is expected to create around 50 new full time jobs and up to 500 additional jobs during construction. So, these projects are so important to the growth and the economy of The UK, as well as to the decarbonisation of the sector. Heidelberg Materials intend to commence construction this year, hopefully, with that funding available and that would mean a commercial operation by 2029.
David Bizley:Okay, excellent. And are there any other exciting cement related CCS projects on the horizon in The UK?
Diana Casey:So I mentioned the Peak Cluster project, that's particularly exciting because 40% of UK cement is manufactured in the Peak District and that government support that was announced yesterday will have a huge impact on the industry's decarbonisation. Now the PEEK Cluster, although it's called the PEEK Cluster, it's not currently part of the government's cluster sequencing process. Though this is The UK cement producers, so tarmac, wholesome and Breeden have come together as a sector and they've driven this themselves, which I think just shows the commitment of the sector. It's aiming to capture over 3,000,000 tonnes of CO2 every year and then transport it via pipeline to Morcombe Bay Net 0 Cluster, which is a planned CO2 storage facility off the West Coast Of England. Now, again, the economics of this is really interesting because they've done some analysis showing it will deliver a £1,800,000,000 gross value added boost to the country.
Diana Casey:Yeah, and actually people often say, you know, CCS is a waste of taxpayers money, but actually they've looked at it and I think because of the economies of scale and the amount of COT is capturing, every pound of potential cost to the government, they believe will bring four pounds of benefit to the economy.
David Bizley:Oh, well, there's economic advantage as well as environmental then.
Diana Casey:Exactly, yeah. And it's expected to safeguard and create around 13,000 jobs throughout the construction and the lifetime of the project. Really, really significant.
David Bizley:Okay, that's an excellent opportunity there, so hopefully that all proceeds. Then looking at the bigger picture for a moment and given the importance of CCS in decarbonising cement production, is The UK cement industry currently on track to meet its net zero goals? And what needs to happen over the next few years with 2,030 now just five years away, for example, to ensure those goals are met?
Diana Casey:I'd definitely like to say we're a net zero success story in progress. We've made some really good reductions to date, the cement and concrete sector has reduced emissions by 53% since 1990, which is a really significant reduction. But you're right, there is more that needs to be done to get us the full way to net zero. And some of the support we need along the way. You know, I mentioned the cluster sequencing and that the P cluster isn't currently part of that.
Diana Casey:So we need to know what's going to come next for those plants that are not in track one and track two and that are more dispersed as well, we want some visible government support for those so we can start running these really long term investments.
David Bizley:The
Diana Casey:other challenge for us is a competitiveness one, Cement is the most vulnerable sector to carbon leakage in The UK, so this is where high carbon costs force domestic production to close and instead The UK imports higher carbon products. And that's something we want to avoid because all those economic benefits we've just been talking about get lost and of course the UK government needs our materials, cement and concrete, to build anything they want to build and to realise all the growth that they want to realise. So to try and prevent this carbon leakage, we need a watertight carbon border adjustment mechanism.
David Bizley:Okay.
Diana Casey:And that will just make sure that imports that are coming in pay the same cost of carbon and they don't get that sort of advantage from not having to account for their own emissions produced in their own country. I think that fundamental request is really for that UK carbon border adjustment mechanism to be watertight to level that carbon cost playing field.
David Bizley:So I suppose joined up thinking from the government is going to be key to enabling the cement industry to achieve its goals.
Diana Casey:Yes, absolutely.
David Bizley:Okay. Excellent. Well, as is becoming tradition on the World Cement podcast, I like to leave the final substantive words with our guests. So, Diana, do you have any final thoughts for our audience?
Diana Casey:Thank you. The UK can definitely have a thriving foundational industry and progress its green goals at the same time, it doesn't have to be a zero sum game. Supporting CCUS doesn't just provide green benefits, it creates jobs. As I mentioned, so around 60 new jobs are required to run a cement CCUS plant, adding to roughly 200 already on-site. And the skills and experience developed from cement can then be used to accelerate progress elsewhere.
Diana Casey:So not only is cement vital to labour's missions from building wind turbines and transport infrastructure to housing hospitals and defence, it can be part of the growth ambition and solidify the platform for CCUS innovation.
David Bizley:Okay, excellent. Thank you. That wraps up this episode of the World Cement Podcast. Diana, thank you so much for joining us and getting us up to date on this really important topic.
Diana Casey:Thank you.
David Bizley:And thank you to everyone in our audience for joining us once again as well. If you enjoyed this episode of the World Cement Podcast, then please make sure to subscribe, rate, and review. And if this is your first taste of the World Cement Podcast, make sure to check out some of our other episodes featuring guests from EcoSen, the GCCA, Voto Rantim Cementos, SEMBURO, and more. Goodbye for now. I just wanted to take a moment to remind you to register for World Cement.
David Bizley:It's free of charge and gives you access to the latest issues of WorldCement, both in print and online. Every issue comes packed full of regional analysis, technical articles, project case studies, and the latest industry news. Simply head over to worldcement.com, click the Magazine tab, and register today. It's as simple as that. Happy reading!