Taking on the challenge to develop innovative technologies and aiming to become a leader in CO2 capture and utilization.
Yuuichi Kitabayashi
Vice President and Representative Director
Toward delivering carbon neutrality
The Taiheiyo Cement Corporation has established the "Carbon Neutral Strategy 2050" to achieve carbon neutrality throughout our supply chain by 2050, and have released a transition plan to reduce CO2 specific emissions by 20% or more and to complete the development of innovative technologies for CO2 capture and utilization by 2030. In December this year, we started demonstration testing of the "Carbon Capture Suspension Preheater Kiln" (C2SP Kiln), a CO2-recovering cement production process, and also started a study of a "carbon neutral model plant" at the Kawasaki Plant of our Group company DC Co., Ltd., which will demonstrate CO2 capture, utilization and storage at the actual plant level.
Carbon neutrality is our significant growth strategy
We are aiming for our world-first, independently developed C2SP Kiln, which can efficiently capture CO2 in a compact facility, to become the global standard. There are currently about 4,000 cement kilns worldwide, and we expect that there will be a great need for C2SP Kiln as the achievement of carbon neutrality is aimed for around the world. Further, regarding methanation, which is the use of separated and recovered CO2 as energy, we are working with mechanical plant companies and gas companies with the aim of not only reusing it in cement production, but also using it widely in society.
Post-2030 transition plan
From 2030 onwards we will sequentially deploy CO2 utilization technologies such as CO2 separation and capture in C2SP Kiln, CO2 mineralization by carbonation and CO2 utilization through methanation throughout the Group. We estimate that the cost of implementing C2SP Kiln and CO2 utilization facilities will exceed 100 billion yen per kiln based on the current technology, or 2 trillion yen for the entire domestic Group. Although the cost of equipment will decline as the technology evolves, there is a limit to how much capital expenditure can be borne by a single private company. It is therefore necessary for the government and industry as a whole to consider a mechanism for shifting the transition costs of carbon neutrality to cement prices and introducing appropriate carbon pricing to ensure the burden is shared fairly.
Challenges in the delivery of carbon neutrality
We believe that our "Carbon Neutral Strategy 2050" is consistent with the Paris Agreement. This is evident from the fact that in March 2023 the Development Bank of Japan extended a transition-linked loan to the Company, based on the Technology Roadmap for Transition Finance in the Cement Sector published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as part of its efforts to align with the Paris Agreement. On the other hand, immediately effective measures such as the use of blended cement are necessary to achieve recognition as a Science Based Target, but rapid deployment is not easy due to market and product standard constraints in Japan. In addition to the development and commercialization of various innovative technologies, we will also accelerate our efforts regarding establishing standards.
By concentrating the calcination reaction of raw limestone in an oxygen-fired calciner, highly concentrated CO2 can be recovered directly from the cement process.
