Cement with CO2 Capture
The Brevik cement plant in Norway has captured CO2 since 2025 - designed for about half of its emissions - and ships it for storage under the North Sea.
Open in the interactive tree →In cement making, CO2 escapes from the rock itself when limestone is burned; switching to renewable power does not remove that. Producers therefore rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS). Heidelberg Materials describes Brevik as the world's first industrial-scale carbon-capture plant in the cement industry.
As of October 2026
Heidelberg Materials inaugurated Brevik on 18 June 2025; it is designed to capture about 400,000 t of CO2 per year, roughly half of the plant's emissions (limited by available waste heat). The liquefied CO2 goes by ship to the Northern Lights terminal at Øygarden in Norway and is stored under the North Sea, and the company sells the resulting cement as 'evoZero'. A second plant in Wales (about 800,000 t per year) was approved by the UK government in autumn 2025 and is expected to start in 2029, while the planned Edmonton (Canada) capture plant was put on hold in August 2026 because carbon prices were too low.
Open steps
- Cheaper CO2 capture for kilns High AI leverageCut cost and energy per tonne with better solvents, solid sorbents or oxyfuel kilns; Brevik captures about half of emissions because waste heat is limited.
- Electrified or hydrogen-fired kilns Medium AI leverageReplace fuel combustion with electric or plasma heat so capture plants do not depend on waste steam, and pilot at tonne-per-hour scale.
- Storage sites and CO2 transport Medium AI leverageCharacterize storage capacity and injection behaviour and plan shipping or pipeline logistics so more cement plants can connect; Brevik ships CO2 to the Northern Lights terminal.
Where AI could help
Low AI leverage. Carbon price, CO2 transport and storage and permits decide rollout; AI helps solvent selection and plant optimization at the margin.
- Screen and design capture solvents and sorbents with machine learning
- Optimize heat integration and solvent use in running capture units
- Plan CO2 transport and storage networks
Shown so far
- In March 2023 IBM-led researchers combined rapid lab assays with machine learning to find amine solvents for CO2 capture that had not been tested before (preprint). source
Prerequisites
- Portland Cement1824The process that captures CO2 is the Portland cement kiln
- Thermodynamics1824
- Concrete & Reinforced Concrete1867
Unlocks
- CO2-Free Cementopen
Sources
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