One of the many unfortunate and unplanned-for (yet entirely predictable and deeply ironic) impacts of the US and Iran’s seemingly endless round of tit-for-tat over the Strait of Hormuz (“Mum said it’s MY turn to blockade the strait!”) is the potential for a shortage of CO2 in the UK.
The risk posed by such a shortage has, according to sources speaking to The Times, actually driven senior officials in the UK government, including representatives from the Treasury and Ministry of Defence, to rehearse scenarios dealing with the likely consequences in an exercise dubbed ‘Operation Turnstone’.
At this point you might understandably be wondering why a shortage of CO2 is a problem at all, let alone something that’s being discussed in emergency committees, and especially when so much material has been published framing this particular molecule as an existential threat.
Well, it turns out that the much-maligned CO2 actually plays a key role in modern food production and distribution; from being used in the slaughtering process of pigs and chickens, to increasing the shelf-life of foods like salads, baked goods, and packaged meats, CO2 is something of an unsung hero. And then there’s the impact on breweries and drinks manufacturers as they risk finding themselves suddenly unable to carbonate beverages just as the UK begins to enjoy warmer weather.
And that’s just food and drink; other even more urgent applications include creating dry ice to keep blood supplies, donated organs, and vaccines in good condition. And then there’s that small, trifling matter of keeping Britain’s nuclear reactors cool…
Now, dear reader of World Cement, you can probably tell where I’m going with this; on the one hand we have a government concerned about CO2 supply shortages, and on the other we have an industry concerned about excess CO2 supply. So, why not kill two birds (chickens, presumably) with one molecule and secure a sovereign CO2 supply?
The good news is that I’m far from the first to have had this thought; over in Germany, Heidelberg Materials partnered with Linde back in 2024 on a joint venture called CAP2U (‘Capture-to-Use’) and built a CO2 liquefaction facility at the Lengfurt cement plant. This facility now produces 70 000 tpy of food grade CO2, all sourced from the cement plant’s flue gases.
Cost, of course, is always a barrier (the CAP2U project received €15 million in funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, for example) and the UK’s coastal geography and geology make it ideally suited for the comparatively straightforward process of offshore storage. But in an increasingly volatile world where major international shipping lanes seemingly open and close like an unlatched gate on a windy day, it might be a cost worth paying. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the UK cement industry to further demonstrate its value as a foundational industry?
