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Missouri Cement Plants Chosen for Carbon-Capture Projects

Posted on 10/12/2021

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  Millions of dollars in federal funding could help two Missouri cement plants, including one near Ste. Genevieve, nearly eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Wednesday.

The Ste. Genevieve Cement Plant, owned by the Swiss-based Holcim Group, and the Central Plains Cement Co.’s Sugar Creek Plant, outside of Kansas City, were named among a list of 12 industrial facilities nationwide that will split $45 million in funding aimed at advancing “carbon-capture” technology. The systems can capture at least 95% of carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas power generation and from the carbon-intensive production of commodities like cement and steel.

DOE awarded $4 million toward a carbon-capture project at the Holcim plant that will use an engineering design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

It allotted $5 million to a project at the Sugar Creek Plant that will be designed, built, and operated by Utah-based Sustainable Energy Solutions. It will have the ability to capture 30 tons of CO 2 daily.

“Funding of these projects puts the nation one step closer toward responsible demonstration and commercialization of this technology,” DOE said in a statement.

President Joe Biden aims to reduce carbon emissions to “net-zero” emissions by 2050, in hopes of curtailing a climate crisis that has grown increasingly urgent, scientists have recently said.

DOE officials said that the funding awarded Wednesday marks only an initial stage — it is intended to study how to use carbon capture at these sites. Actual construction costs of carbon-capture projects run into the hundreds of millions of dollars for individual industrial-scale facilities.

When it comes to cutting carbon, it’s cheapest and easiest to avoid emissions in the first place, whenever possible, said Jennifer Wilcox, the principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management.

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