Industry

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Concrete

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Concrete, the most consumed material on the planet after water, is responsible for 6% of global emissions. 60% of these emissions comes from the chemical reaction that is created to turn limestone into cement. The other 40% comes from burning fuels to create the heat to set that reaction in motion. The challenge for decarbonizing concrete is thus twofold: high-temperature heat is difficult to electrify; and process emissions cannot be eliminated unless an alternative method to process the raw material is found, or if the emissions are captured and stored.

₀₁ Reduce demand of cement

The fastest way to decarbonize is to reduce demand. Smart building designs can save up to 20% of concrete, and increasing recycling rates means less virgin demand. One other solution that is quickly scaling is to incorporate CO2 into cement after it’s produced. This not only stores the CO2 permanently but also makes the final cement lighter, reducing the amount of virgin materials needed and, because of that, its carbon footprint. 
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₀₂ Concrete alternatives

In some cases, we can replace the use of concrete in construction with wood-based or other sustainable building materials. It has been estimated that using cross-laminated timber (three thin layers of wood glued together) instead of reinforced concrete, with equivalent structural performance, can reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 75%.*  
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₀₃ Alternative production processes

Innovative production technologies, using electrolysis or hydrogen, aim to replace fossil fuels currently necessary for generating high-temperature heat. Additionally, researchers are exploring even bigger innovations, such as the use of microorganisms to produce cement and room temperature, making use of non-carbonate rocks that don’t emit CO2 during the production of cement, and adding materials that reduce the amount of cement needed to produce concrete. 
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Steel and other metals

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Steel represents over 90% of all the metal used in the world and it is the single most emissive manufactured good on earth. Much like cement production, steel manufacturing relies on high temperatures fueled by fossil fuels, which trigger a chemical reaction that also produces CO2. Steel is formed by reducing iron ore to iron in massive blast furnaces that can get as hot as 2300°C and subsequently alloy this iron with other metals to produce steel. These immense energy requirements position the steel industry as one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize.

₀₁ Hydrogen- or electricity-based steel making

Much like cement, electrification technologies are essential to decarbonize the production of steel. An electrolysis process that separates oxygen from iron ore to produce the iron used in steel manufacturing can replace the use of fossil fuels. Alternatively, using green hydrogen to convert iron ore into iron represents another viable pathway, capable of reducing emissions by as much as 95%. 
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₀₂ Recycling

A second major pathway for driving down steel emissions is recycling secondary steel. Steel is very reusable, and it’s in fact one of the world’s most recycled materials, with a recycling rate of 60% globally. Currently, a major constraint is that recycled steel accumulates impurities, which is why it has fewer applications over time. Technologies are underway to better separate recycled iron from contaminants to overcome this. 

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Plastic and other chemicals

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Most plastics are made from oil, in two ways. Firstly, oil and gas molecules are the raw materials from which we make plastics (and more than 6,000 other things* including fertilizers, packaging, and tires). Plastics alone use about 6% of global oil as a raw material today. Next to that, the production of plastic requires high temperatures, which are achieved by burning fossil fuels — creating 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Considering that plastic use is projected to almost triple in 2060, there is an urgent call for innovation.*

₀₁ Plastic recycling

Globally, only around 15% of plastics produced each year get recycled and increasing this number rapidly can help in decarbonizing this industry.* Technologies and innovations necessary to enable a successful recycling system are threefold: (1) design or redesign plastic products to be recyclable; (2) putting in place effective systems to recover end-of-life plastics; and (3) turning the recovered plastics into new products that create value. 

₀₂ Bio-based materials

Bio-based materials can provide sustainable alternatives for fossil-based chemicals. An example is agricultural waste, which can be used to produce bio-based chemical feedstocks, directly substituting traditional chemical sources 
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₀₃ Carbon utilisation

Imagine a world where we can turn harmful CO2 emissions into useful and eco-friendly products. This is not science fiction, but a reality that scientists are working on right now. By using captured CO2 as a raw material, they can create plastics and other chemicals that are sustainable and often also biodegradable. 
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Waste

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Today, how we handle our waste creates 4% of global GHG emissions. Most of that comes from solid waste (including household materials like paper and food waste) in landfills. Over time, the organic materials (like food waste and paper) decompose to produce so-called landfill gas (mostly methane) which is a potent GHG. The story with wastewater is similar. Next to that, the burning of waste creates a lot of GHG emissions. The waste sector is responsible for 20% of all human-related methane emissions,* the third largest source globally, after livestock and oil and gas emissions. Curbing these methane emissions is urgently needed.

₀₁ Recycling, reusing and reducing waste

Increased reuse and recycling and other waste prevention measures are generally low cost and can significantly contribute to reductions in GHG emissions from waste. While preventing (food) waste altogether is preferable (see agrifood sector for solutions for this), keeping organic materials out of landfills by reusing materials is the next best line of defense in reducing methane emissions from landfills. 

₀₂ Waste to fuel

Innovations using methane capture systems at landfill sites can be effective at capturing produced methane and using it to generate heat or power on site. Additionally, we’re rapidly building out the infrastructure to convert biomass waste products into fuels or directly burning them to generate energy. If we capture the emitted CO2 from this burning, this process can even become a “negative emissions technology”, but great care needs to be taken to prevent local air pollution. 
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Other industries

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Next to the ‘big 4’, there are many other small industries that also create GHG emissions, including food and beverages processing, glass, textiles, rubber and pulp and paper. Together, other industries are still responsible for 5% of emissions.

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Industrial heat

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Innovations such as the electrification of heat and heat waste recycling within Industry will help in decarbonizing not only one product (e.g. steel or cement) but the entire sector. The requirement for consistent high temperatures in industrial operations makes it challenging to electrify. Fortunately, heat tech has developed rapidly over the last decade.

₀₁ Low carbon alternatives

There are three main pathways to use electricity to decarbonize industrial heat: using powerful ‘traditional’ ambient air heat pumps, upcycling waste heat with heat pumps, and storing excess electricity in a heat battery, which can dispatch the heat when necessary.
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