Infrastructure Needs for the Decarbonisation of Heavy Industries until 2050

The Paris Agreement calls for a climate-neutral socio-technical system by 2050 at the latest, requiring enormous efforts from all sectors to speed up decarbonisation. Recent studies show, that the transformation of energy and carbon intensive industries to net zero GHG emissions is a huge, but not impossible challenge. It will need leap innovations to stimulate a fundamental transformation of our production systems. The transformation pathways will result in considerable additional demands for renewable based electricity, gases and fuels and/or Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)/Utilisation, which requires suited transport & storage infrastructures. The workshop seeks to illustrate and work out:

• How could the industrial sectors of plastics, steel and cement become decarbonised until 2050?
• What new processes and which demands for power, gas and CCS will emerge?
• Which infrastructure solutions (electricity, H2, CO2) will be needed to cover these demands?

This workshop is conducted by the researches Frank Merten, Clemens Schneider, Dr. Arjuna Nebel, Christine Krüger, Ansgar Taubitz, and Alexander Scholz from Wuppertal Institute's Division Future Energy and Industry Systems. It is the second in a row of four workshops within the framework of the  EIT Climate-KIC funded research project "Infrastructure Needs of an EU Industrial Transformation towards Deep Decarbonisation", which is also part of the European Climate Foundation's Industrial Transformation 2050 initiative.

Further information can be found on the websites below.