At the mouth of a fjord, just two hours southwest of Oslo, amidst the imposing grey structures and dusty pipes of a sprawling cement plant, a slender metal tube stands tall, poised to become a landmark in the global energy transition.
This 100-metre-high structure, erected in August with pinpoint accuracy, is designed to capture the carbon dioxide spewing from the Heidelberg Materials plant near Brevik. Scheduled for completion by the year's end, the facility will be the first of its kind worldwide, pioneering the capture of carbon during cement production.
The success of these nascent projects could trigger a wave of investments in carbon-free concrete, a crucial step towards achieving global climate targets. However, a failure, either environmentally or financially, could set back a hotly contested technology that the industry hopes will contribute a third of its carbon savings by 2050.
These early plants are "absolutely critical" for reducing costs and risks for the next generation, says Chris Bataille, a researcher at Columbia University and co-author of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate solutions. "Solar and wind emerged in the 1970s, and now it's the 2020s. We're still in the 1970s with... cement."
Concrete, contributing more to global warming than flights or fast fashion, has seen limited progress in reducing its environmental footprint. While manufacturers have adopted cleaner fuels and re-use industrial waste, they struggle to curtail emissions from key chemical processes responsible for 60% of their carbon footprint.
At the edge of the Brevik plant, amidst the squawking seagulls and towering shipping containers, project manager Anders Petersen points to piles of limestone and coal. The limestone releases carbon dioxide during processing in the plant's scorching kilns, while coal provides 20% of the energy required to achieve those high temperatures.
Both materials store carbon, Petersen explains. And soon, the tank beneath his feet will hold it in liquid form.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a key component of the clean economy roadmaps outlined by the International Energy Agency and the IPCC. However, it is also expensive, energy-intensive, and historically unreliable. Critics have accused fossil fuel companies of using captured carbon to extract more oil, labelling investments in CCS as greenwashing.
Yet, for the cement industry, CCS remains the most advanced solution in the race to bring clean technologies to market. Frederic Hauge, Norwegian environmental activist and founder of Bellona, one of the few large green groups advocating for CCS, argues that public perceptions are shifting as the enormity of the challenge becomes clearer.
"What is the cost of not doing CCS?" he asks during a press visit to Brevik. "That we will all be cooked."
Facing little pressure to reduce pollution, the cement sector is finally responding to rising carbon prices and the growing demand for sustainable alternatives. The EU emissions trading scheme will phase out free allowances for industry by 2034, incentivising companies like Heidelberg Materials to become early adopters of CCS. The company, also mindful of its social licence to operate, has benefited from government subsidies.
Jan Theulen, leading Heidelberg Materials' CCS efforts, acknowledges the uncertainties surrounding the future carbon price and political support for the technology. "We can't afford to wait until all these uncertainties have become certainties," he says.
From the tanks overlooking the Brevik port, Heidelberg Materials will ship, pipe, and pump the captured carbon 2.5km beneath the Norwegian seabed. The Northern Lights project, a partnership between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, is expected to receive its first shipment later this year as part of Norway's "Longship" initiative, aiming to build the world's first cross-border carbon capture and storage infrastructure. Over 80% of the funding for the Brevik CCS project comes from the Norwegian government.
Domien Vangenechten, an analyst at the climate thinktank E3G, hails the Brevik project as a "big deal" for the cement industry but warns against neglecting other solutions.
Emissions from cement can be reduced by substituting clinker, a polluting intermediary product that can be partially replaced with waste materials, and by decreasing demand for concrete through more efficient building designs and urban planning. "To not overburden producers, consumers, and taxpayers," Vangenechten cautions, "we should not put all the eggs in the CCS basket."
The Brevik project will be the first test of whether CCS can deliver the promised emission reductions for the construction industry. The plant, relying mainly on waste heat for the capture process, has enough energy to cover half of its production. Heidelberg Materials aims to trap 90% of the emissions from this portion. The company has launched twelve additional CCS projects in Europe and North America, several targeting capture rates above 95% across their full production scope.
The second hurdle is the price. Heidelberg Materials has not yet set a price for its carbon-free cement, stating that it will be marketed as a unique product, initially representing a small fraction of its total output. However, the significant upfront investments are likely to prove costly for a sector accustomed to paying only a small portion of its pollution costs.
"Cement plus CCS will always be more expensive than just producing cement," says Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. "The green premium in cement is real."
For consumers, the good news is that climate-friendly cement should add little to the final cost of an apartment. But while carmakers have incentivised green steel production by offering premium prices, no clear lead market exists for clean concrete.
"There is still much less demand pull for green cement than there is for steel," says Julia Attwood, an industrial decarbonisation analyst at BloombergNEF. "Customers further down the supply chainâsay, owners of large commercial buildings or real estate developersâneed to put more pressure on their suppliers to source green materials."
In February, the new Nobel Centre in Stockholm became one of the first projects to adopt Brevik's carbon-captured net-zero concrete. Heidelberg Materials anticipates other early buyers to include sustainable architecture firms, tech companies, and public authorities with strict green procurement rules. Reaching the mass market may prove a more challenging task.
The key now is to learn quickly from these early projects and drive down costs, says Wagner, "to turn low-carbon cement from a curiosity into a commodity." The future of carbon-free concrete, and potentially the fight against climate change, may hinge on this success.
