Lime Industry Roadmap 2050:
Climate positive industry through climate neutral production
CO2 avoidance and climate protection are the issues and the central challenges of the 21st century. When it comes to this question, everyone is affected and called upon to act – as individuals, as industry and as society. Everyone has to play their part, and has to start now, to be at least climate neutral by 2050 at the latest.
With this clear statement, the lime industry as an energy- and CO2-intensive industry is also called upon to play its part. To make an appropriate contribution, technical and economic challenges have to be overcome. Until then, there’s a long way to go, for which a clear plan – a roadmap is needed. The German Lime Asscociation (BVK) and its members have drawn up the “Lime Industry Roadmap 2050 – Climate positive industry through climate neutral production” that will enablethe lime industry to still produce lime in Germany in 2050 – in a climate neutral manner/way.
Around 50 predominantly small and medium-sized family-run companies, with almost 100 production sites, are represented in the German Lime Association (BVK). A total of 6.4 million t lime is produced in Germany each year. This total makes the lime industry responsible for around 1.5% of CO2 emitted by the German energy and industry sector.
“Our goal is clear. We want to change our production so that by 2050 at the latest we can produce our lime products in all plants without any CO2 emissions, that is in a climate neutral process. To this end, we have to develop new processes that can be implemented in our kilns on industrial scale and are economically viable at the same time. Thanks to the ability of our products to bind CO2 from the air, we shall be climate positive,” says Dr Kai Schaefer, President of the German Lime Association, summarizing the core concept of the roadmap.
To achieve this ambitious goal, the necessary steps must be formulated, new potential techniques researched and all partners, such as research institutes, networks, associations and political committees, industry and civil society, must be brought on board. Salient points in the question of the success of a climate neutral lime production are direct CO2 avoidance, CO2 capture and utilization as well as smart carbon capture, that is CO2 reduction by carbonation. For all these transformation steps, concrete topics, techniques and goals have been formulated in the roadmap, which in the next 30 years at the latest must be researched, realized and filled with life.
