Heidelberg eyes momentous carbon capture plant in Mitchell as design process begins
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The completion of Heidelberg Materials North America’s $600 million cement plant in Mitchell last year signaled the Texas-based company wants to be an industry leader.
The plant is the second largest in the country and has tripled the company’s previous production.
But Heidelberg also wants to be an industry leader in sustainability. Earlier this year the company was recently selected for a $500 million government grant to build a carbon capture and storage system and this month, Heidelberg announced it finalized negotiations with the U.S. Department of Energy on the endeavor.
That negotiation meant navigating and setting up a complex series of interconnected grants, but if all goes as planned by 2030, Mitchell could be one of the first full-scale cement plants in the world to have a carbon capture system in place.
“Carbon capture is the way that we can truly get to a net-zero cement which goes into making a much more sustainable concrete product,” said Jeff Sieg, Heidelberg’s director of corporate communications. “Ultimately it’s a differentiator for the company. If we produce this net-zero cement out of Mitchell, we will be the only cement producer in the U.S. doing it.”
Though the federal government is giving Heidelberg $500 million for the project, the carbon capture facility will likely cost well over $1 billion in total. Heidelberg says it will prevent 2 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere each year.
The Mitchell carbon capture plant would generate thousands of construction jobs and up to 30 permanent positions. The new build will look smaller but there will be a significant framework underground.
Sustainable cement
Carbon capture—often called carbon capture and storage or CCS—is a method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in industrial settings that produce a lot of greenhouse gasses. Many natural gas and coal processing facilities are catching on to the process, but cement manufacturers are looking to get in on the practice as well.
The CCS process separates carbon dioxide gases from the other byproducts of making cement. The CO2 is then transported to a permanent site to be stored permanently. In most cases, the carbon is injected into rock formations deep underground.
In Mitchell, Heidelberg plans to build its CCS plant right next to the new cement plant.
Heidelberg Vice President of Sustainability Greg Ronczka explained the proximity means duct work can be built that can easily transport carbon dioxide from the plant to the future CCS facility. Heidelberg also hopes to take advantage of the geology on the Mitchell property and store the carbon directly on-site.
“We knew it was highly probable we could have good storage directly beneath our plant,” Ronczka said. “We were going to have a brand new plant we already made a large investment in. To make another large investment like a carbon capture plant, it just sort of aligned nicely.”
Ronczka said the Illinois Geological Survey is currently testing the site to see if storing the CO2 on-site is feasible.
Project details
Another factor that came together to help make the project possible was federal funding. The $500 million Heidelberg expects to receive is part of $6 billion being awarded by the Biden administration for nearly three dozen projects to help reduce carbon emissions from industrial sectors like steel, aluminum and concrete.
Ronczka said the funding is a powerful incentive to help businesses that want to be sustainable but need to meet a bottom line.
“There was a fundamental shift from what had been funding going to coal-fired power plants…and we saw this shift toward industry in about 2020 with funding opportunities from the DOE. And that was when we jumped in,” he said.
Heidelberg is also currently going through the same process of building a carbon capture facility near its cement plant in Edmonton, Canada.
Heidelberg aims to be carbon-neutral as a company by 2050. The company wants the Mitchell plant to be carbon neutral by 2030, which is the year the carbon capture facility is slated to be fully operational.
But before then, Ronczka anticipates two years of design work, followed by three years of construction. He also said Heidelberg will be looking for grants, tax incentives and other ways to fund the rest of the project.