Spain has granted €119.6 million to Votorantim Cementos for a carbon capture project at its Toral de los Vados cement plant in El Bierzo. The facility produces 1.6 million tonnes of cement annually, and the capture system will pull CO2 from flue gases. The company aims to hit 475 kg of CO2 per tonne of cement by 2030, with a long-term goal of carbon-neutral concrete by 2050. The grant is part of the EU-backed PERTE industrial decarbonisation initiative, which has a total public investment of €3.17 billion and targets 13 million tonnes of annual CO2 reductions. Separately, Cemex received €200 million for alternative fuel deployment at its Alcanar plant and is working on a waste-to-hydrogen demo via the HYIELD consortium. Cement accounts for roughly 7% of global CO2 emissions, making these projects a test case for industrial CCS at scale.
