Greening the Cement Industry
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Sorry for the long hiatus.
Wired magazine has put out its list of green innovation for 2008. Although there are a number of worthwhile inventions/innovation on the list, Wired’s number one choice is not only inspired, it is potentially revolutionary; a green cement factory.
It is not a well known fact, but cement production has a huge carbon foot-print. The industry accounts for a disproportionate amount of GHG release compared to other sectors. Given how necessary and ubiquitous cement is to modern life (particularly urban life), the industry has proven to be a sore point for environmental policy makers who have to find the balance between economic necessity and environmental protection. After all, if cement prices sky-rocket, the public outcry over rising house costs would be tremendous (and run counter to good social policy).
In the EU, emission exemptions to cement industry (amongst others) were one of the factors that led to the collapse the carbon market. Basically, there was no point in trading carbon permits within marginal carbon producers if the big producers were exempt. As a result the market for GHG permits dried up to the point where one ton of Carbon dioxide was trading for under a dollar. To give you a bit of perspective, carbon taxes (different from carbon trading) only has the effect of reducing emissions if the cost is in excess of 30 dollars a ton.
However, a cement factory that takes carbon out of the atmosphere rather than just reduce emissions can potentially revolutionize the industry and also make it easier to tackle a huge problem in environmental policy. If this technology pans out, cement producers not only have a way of reducing their costs while sequestering carbon, environmental policy makers will not be hobbled by the economy vs environment trade-off. I certain hope the demonstration plant that will be opening up next year will be the first step of many in providing economical green solutions to the cement industry. The company that is doing all of this, Calera, will be one to watch in 2009.