Tag Archives: cement industry

A vision and action plan to make Canada’s heavy industries our low-carbon “Next Frontier”

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Clean Energy Canada’s new report, The Next Frontier, sees Canada’s heavy industries—including steel, mining, cement, and wood—as the “Next Frontier” – already employing more Canadians than the oil and gas industry (300,000 in heavy industry compared to 237,000 in oil and gas), and poised to increase exports to the rest of the world. The report contends that Canadian heavy industries have a competitive advantage over their global peers, largely because our electricity sector is now 83% emissions-free. And according to the introduction, the time is now: “The production of certain metals and minerals could increase by up to nearly 500% over the next three decades to meet growing demand for clean technologies, according to the World Bank Group. Global steel demand, meanwhile, is projected to increase by up to 55%; Canadian steel and aluminum are among the world’s cleanest and could be even cleaner. Mining companies such as Vancouver based Teck are also global leaders in copper production, while Canada is the world’s fifth-largest nickel producer—both key metals for electrifying transportation. And Albertan companies like E3 Metals and Summit Nanotech are finding ways to recover lithium from oilsands wastewater.”

The Next Frontier , released on March 24, calls for an action plan to allow Canada to capitalize on the convergence of global market trends and climate imperatives.  The report Canadian strengths and provides more examples of existing companies. It concludes with an action plan to move towards this lower-carbon economy, including recommendations: to expand domestic markets through clean procurement policies for government infrastructure materials; to identify strategic directions such as “establishing a self-sufficient battery and critical minerals supply chain to build and grow domestic battery and clean technology manufacturing”;  investment and research and development in well-positioned industries; and establishing standards which will support a “Clean Canada” brand to the world.  

And regarding our largest and most important trading partner, the U.S., the bottom line message is: “If we want Biden’s “Buy American” approach to include an asterisk beside Canada, we must adapt to what this new administration wants more of (clean energy and low-carbon goods) and what it wants less of (fossil fuels and emissions-intensive products).”

Canadian steel, concrete, aluminum and wood – low carbon solutions for public infrastructure

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In a February 1 press release, Ken Neumann, National Director for Canada of the United Steelworkers says,  “We need our governments to support the creation and retention of good jobs by strengthening Canadian industrial and manufacturing capacities in ways that support the low-carbon transition of the economy”. To support that point, Blue Green Canada has released a new report, Buy Clean: How Public Construction Dollars can create jobs and cut pollution . Buy Clean calls for the use of Canadian-made building products in infrastructure in order to reap the dual benefit of reducing carbon emissions and supporting local industry and jobs.  The USW press release continues: “Buy Clean makes sense for Canada because it leverages our carbon advantage. Whether its steel, aluminum, cement or wood, building materials sourced from within Canada are typically lower carbon than imported materials” – thanks largely to our low-emissions energy supply and reduced transportation  costs. The report recommends that all levels of government continue and expand the use of Buy Clean policies for procurement. The report also calls for an Industrial Decarbonization Strategy to encourage technological innovation in the manufacture of steel, aluminum, concrete and wood , and for a “Clean Infrastructure Challenge Fund” , to act as a demonstration fund modelled on the Low Carbon Economy Challenge, but available only for public infrastructure projects, not to private industry.  

Buy Clean: How Public Construction Dollars can create jobs and cut pollution is also available in a French-language version,  Acheter Propre: Créer des emplois et réduire la pollution par une utilisation judicieuse des fonds publics en construction . The report includes appendices for each of the sectors, providing brief but specific summaries of how Canadian industry has already achieved lower carbon  processes than their competitors – particularly in steel and aluminum, and what further decarbonization opportunities remain.

The Buy Clean message seems closely related to the Stand Up for Steel national campaign by the United Steelworkers, which also calls for the use of Canadian-made steel in infrastructure projects. After the disruptive tariffs levied by the previous U.S. administration, the Stand up for Steel Action Plan also calls for the right for unions to initiate trade cases; for expanding the definition of ‘material injury’ in trade cases; and for a carbon border adjustment on imported steel.

How to decarbonize global industry and achieve Paris targets

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“Technologies and Policies to Decarbonize Global Industry: Review and Assessment of Mitigation Drivers through 2070”  is an important research paper written by an international collaboration of 30 experts, including Chris Bataille of Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.  Just published in the academic journal Applied Energy, the paper argues that “Fully decarbonizing the global industry sector is a central part of achieving climate stabilization, and reaching net zero emissions by 2050–2070 is necessary to remain on-track with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to well below 2 °C.”

decarbonization infographic

The importance of industry is apparent from this infographic from  Energy Innovation

“Technologies and Policies to Decarbonize Global Industry”   is a detailed and technical article which identifies and evaluates supply-side technologies such as energy efficiency, carbon capture, electrification, and zero-carbon hydrogen as well as  promising technologies specific to each of the three top-emitting industries: cement, iron & steel, and chemicals & plastics. The paper also considers demand-side approaches including material-efficient design, waste reduction, substituting low-carbon for high-carbon materials, and circular economy interventions.

The discussion related to policy focuses on those which encourage innovative technology, as well as carbon pricing with border adjustments, and energy efficiency or emissions standards. It highlights the policies of China and India as well as low and middle-income countries, and concludes with a brief discussion of the need for a just transition, which closely resembles the ideas in  Low and zero emissions in the steel and cement industries: Barriers, technologies and policies  an Issue Paper written by Chris Bataille for the OECD Green Growth and Sustainable Development Forum in November 2019.

Regarding Just Transition, the article states:

“These principles will require policymakers to shape decarbonization policies to provide adequate timeframes for industrial transition and include workers and community representatives at all stages of the policy development and implementation process. A just transition will also require a better understanding of how social safety nets, such as unemployment insurance and government-supported training programs, should be utilized, where they fall short, and how they can be improved. The transition to green industry will be an iterative process, but it must be accelerated to address our growing list of social, economic, and environmental challenges.”

 

Low-carbon technologies to the rescue: Solar PV, Electric Vehicles, CCS, and a replacement for cement

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cover-expect-the-unexpected-300x225Expect the Unexpected: The Disruptive Power of Low-carbon Technology  is a new report by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative. The report models energy demand by combining up-to-date solar PV and electric vehicle cost projections with climate policies based on the UNFCC Nationally Determined Contributions statements. The results are contrasted with the current “Business as Usual” scenarios of the major fossil fuel companies, and demonstrate how Big Oil underestimates the impact of solar and EV technologies. Expect the Unexpected forecasts peak oil and gas by 2020, with electric vehicles accounting for over two-thirds of the road transport market by 2050, and states that  Solar PV  “could supply 23% of global power generation in 2040 and 29% by 2050, entirely phasing out coal and leaving natural gas with just a 1% market share.”

The report and addresses the question, “What contribution can accelerated solar PV and EV penetration make to achieving a 2°C target?”   It  provides various scenarios, but concludes that decarbonisation of heavy industry (specifically iron and steel, cement, chemcials)  will  also be required and essential.  On this front, the report states that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is unlikely to be financially viable in power generation, but “ In non-power sectors such as heavy industry, however, CCS is likely to have a much more important role because there are currently few viable low-carbon alternatives for achieving deep decarbonisation. Furthermore, if CO2 can be utilised in other industrial processes, this added value will serve to improve the viability of CCS.”

One such low-carbon alternative for cement production – albeit one which is still in development – is reported in a  recent article by University of Victoria’s Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions .  Based on the premise that most of the CO2 produced in cement manufacture is not in the kiln-heating process, but rather by the chemical reaction of turning limestone into quicklime, researchers at McGill University in Montreal  have developed a building product called Carbicrete, which  replaces Portland cement with steel slag (a waste product) as its main binding agent.   Read details in “Solving the Thorny problem of Cement Emissions”   (Feb. 1).

Use this link to view The Expect the Unexpected main report, a technical report, and an interactive dashboard allowing readers to manipulate elements of climate policy, technology price, and energy demand are available here.