Cement and Concrete Innovation Unleashed

Did you know that concrete is the second-most used material on Earth after water? Cement and concrete are all around us, and humans have been using them for over 2,000 years to build houses, monuments, and bridges. Concrete is essential to building due to its strength, low cost, and abundance.

Together, cement and concrete contribute up to 8% of global emissions. Because developing countries are rapidly building infrastructure, by 2050, cement and concrete emissions are expected to exceed the amount of emissions from all the cars on the road today.

Before we dive in, let’s clear up one thing. People often think concrete and cement are the same. But they’re not! So what’s the difference? Cement is the glue that binds together rocks, sand, and water to make concrete. Concrete is the final material used in buildings and infrastructure. This video will focus on Portland cement, the most widely used type of cement, and the industry standard. 

So, where do these emissions come from?Cement is made by baking limestone at extremely high temperatures to produce a material called clinker. Clinker is then mixed with other rocks and processed to make cement. Burning fuels to create these high temperatures generates roughly 40% of emissions. And then baking limestone, which contains carbon, releases CO₂ into the atmosphere through an unavoidable chemical process that produces the remaining 60% of emissions.

Fortunately, new and existing producers in the U.S have been hard at work to reduce these emissions. 

One exciting technology is carbon capture and storage, or CCS for short. We expect it to be responsible for one-third of all emissions reductions by 2050. CCS systems can be retrofitted to existing cement facilities or built into new ones to capture, transport and then store CO₂ safely underground. For example, Heidelberg Materials North America, a leading building materials company based in Irving, Texas, announced in August 2024 plans for carbon capture at its Mitchell, Indiana cement plant. The Mitchell plant is one of two U.S. facilities that received $500 million from the Department of Energy to install CCS. Combined, these two projects aim to avoid almost 3 million tons of CO₂ emissions a year. That is roughly equal to the emissions from 650,000 cars. Utilizing CCS allows the industry to keep using Portland cement and preserves American manufacturing jobs, all while reducing emissions. 

The second exciting innovation is alternative cement chemistries. American companies are finding ways to produce cement with almost no emissions. Two of them, Brimstone and Sublime Systems, have come up with their own unique processes to replace limestone with other rocks and use technologies, such as electro-chemistry, to make safe, industry-compliant cement. In September 2024, existing producers Holcim and CRH announced a combined $75 million investment to scale up Sublime Systems’ cement manufacturing technology. Together, Sublime Systems and Brimstone have received over $276 million in DOE funding to bring their first commercial plants online. 

More policy support is needed to boost American innovation, unleash private-sector jobs and build a lot more. Through consistent policy support for American ingenuity and streamlined regulations to allow the use of low-carbon materials, the U.S. is set to enter a clean manufacturing revolution in cement and concrete production.

So let’s get building.