Technology Roadmap Low-Carbon Transition in the Cement Industry

Technology Roadmap
Low-Carbon Transition in the Cement Industry
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Governments to co-ordinate identification and 
demonstration of CO
2
transport networks at 
regional, national and international levels, to 
optimise infrastructure development and to 
lower costs by collaborating with industry, to 
investigate linkages into existing or integrated 
networks and opportunities for cluster activities 
in industrial zones.
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Governments and industry to promote 
international co-operation, for example through 
the UNFCCC, to harmonise approaches for 
safe site selection, operation, maintenance, 
monitoring and verification of CO
2
permanent 
storage.
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Governments to develop internationally co-
ordinated regulatory frameworks for CCS 
and CCU and to collaborate with industry to 
significantly expand efforts to educate and inform 
the public and key stakeholders about carbon 
storage, to build social acceptance. 
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Governments to reward clean energy investments 
and provision of flexibility to local energy grids – 
for example fiscal incentives for EHR.
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Governments and industry to support 
demonstration, testing and early-stage research 
for cements based on alternative binders, 
and to develop standards to facilitate market 
deployment.
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Governments and industry to encourage joint 
scientific and engineering research projects 
among countries, and to establish collaborative 
research programmes or networks among 
companies and equipment suppliers.
Support transition to a low-
carbon built environment
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Governments to pursue establishing stable 
international carbon pricing mechanisms 
encompassed with interim financial stimulus 
packages and complementary measures to 
compensate asymmetric pricing pressures in 
different markets. While cement production is not 
exposed to cross-border competition, it is crucial 
that carbon pricing mechanisms are coupled with 
measures that ensure local lower-carbon cement 
production to remain competitive against higher-
carbon cement imports.
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Governments to revisit, strengthen and 
establish, in collaboration with industry, building 
regulations and specifications aimed at achieving 
carbon neutrality of the built environment 
over its entire life cycle, including use phase 
and end of life of buildings and infrastructure 
applications. Supportive strategies include 
reusing and recycling concrete in construction, 
and optimising recarbonation among others.
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Governments to enhance development and 
deployment of low-carbon solutions in the 
construction sector that consider a life-cycle 
approach, by including them in their public 
procurement policies.
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Universities and industry to adequately train 
architects/engineers on the applicability of 
lower-carbon concrete mixes and eco-design 
opportunities in buildings and infrastructure.
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Universities and industry to adequately train 
engineers and contractors to use different types 
of cement.
Investment requirements 
and financial support
Between USD
50
176 billion and USD 244 billion 
net cumulative additional investment costs are 
estimated as necessary to implement this roadmap 
vision compared to the RTS (Figure 17). These 
estimates are based on examining low- and high-
cost sensitivity boundaries of technology specific 
investment costs to cope with the inherent 
uncertainty of assessing technologies that have not 
yet reached commercial readiness. The investment 
discussion is centred on the low-variability case 
analysed as the reference case of this roadmap.
The RTS already integrates considerable shifts in 
terms of energy and CO
2
emissions savings in the 
cement industry, in response to implemented and 
announced policies and pledges. For instance, 
the thermal energy intensity of clinker is reduced 
by 8% and the electricity intensity of cement is 
reduced by 9% by 2050 below current levels in the 
RTS globally. The contribution of fossil fuels to the 
global cement thermal energy mix drops by 12% 
in the same period. The clinker to cement ratio 
remains stable over time, despite the increase that 
the drop in Chinese cement production has at the 
global level. The RTS considers that pilot testing 
50. Investments are estimated based on 2015 USD.

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5. Policy, finance and international collaboration: Actions and milestones
and feasibility studies on integrating carbon capture 
technologies in the cement industry would translate 
into a modest deployment in the long term, with 
carbon captured emissions representing 3% of 
the total generated CO
2
emissions in the cement 
sector globally by 2050. Thus, estimated cumulative 
additional investments of the vision would increase 
to between USD 283 billion and USD 371 billion if 
the current energy and carbon emissions footprint 
of cement making was kept unchanged globally.
KEY MESSAGE: USD 107 billion to USD 127 billion are estimated as cumulative additional investments
to realise the RTS globally, which would need to increase to between USD 176 billion and USD 244 billion 
to reach to implement the roadmap vision (2DS).