For better or worse, concrete is everywhere. As the second-most consumed material in the world, it’s in the roads you drive on, the foundation of your home and, oftentimes, the walls of the office building that surrounds you. 

The problem is, making concrete also pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Cement, a key ingredient in concrete, is the world’s second-largest industrial CO2 emitter and is responsible for about seven per cent of carbon emissions globally and 1.4 per cent of Canada’s. 

But cutting down on those emissions is hard to do. Most of the carbon generated through cement making comes from the fundamental process of heating ground limestone (calcium carbonate), clay and sand at extremely high temperatures in a kiln until it forms small nodules called clinker, which is then ground into cement.

“Since Roman times, this is how it’s been done,” said Corwyn Bruce, a project director with Heidelberg Materials, a German multinational company that makes cement, aggregate and other building materials.

“The carbon is inherent,” said Bruce, who heads up Heidelberg’s Edmonton-based carbon capture and storage project. “It’s literally part of the chemistry.”

The technology, which has lately generated lots of buzz within the oilpatch, is also increasingly being seen as a remedy for so-called “hard-to-abate” industries — like cement, iron and steel production — where much of the carbon dioxide emissions are created through process reactions and can’t be eliminated by switching to renewable fuels.

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