The innovative technologies helping to decarbonise heavy industry

Though no mean feat, decarbonising our power systems is in many ways the easy bit of the energy transition, something the UK is aiming to achieve by 2030. Decarbonising everything else is where things really start getting tricky, not least the industrial processes that will be the engines of the net zero drive. 

Heavy industry underpins everything from renewables and EVs to batteries and power transmission, with things like cement, steel, copper and chemicals integral to the decarbonisation pathway. But the production of these core materials is also enormously energy-intensive, and invariably powered by fossil fuels. Heavy industry’s direct CO2 emissions make up for nearly a quarter of the global total, meaning it is simultaneously a huge part of the problem yet fundamental to the solution. Addressing this conundrum is one of the biggest challenges engineers are grappling with today.  

What we are looking to do is to decarbonise heavy industry, so the most energy intensive and highest emitting sectors, and doing that in gigaton scale