Cool Planet Technologies (“Cool Planet”) has officially opened its 10,000-tonnes-per-annum carbon capture plant at Holcim’s Höver cement facility in Germany. Höver is one of the first industrial sites in Germany to capture greenhouse gas emissions on this scale.

Cool Planet Technologies is a carbon capture company significantly reducing the cost of carbon capture using advanced membrane-based technology in hard-to-abate sectors including cement, lime, steel, refining, waste to energy, and coal-fired power generation. The process uses significantly less energy than established carbon capture technologies and can be powered entirely from renewable electrical power making it an environmentally friendly technology choice. The highly compact, scalable, modular, and operationally flexible process makes it ideal for retrofit and new-build applications.

Cool Planet has the exclusive rights to commercialise the membrane technology, which was developed by Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon, part of Germany’s largest research organisation. Cool Planet and Hereon are collaborating on the development and commercialisation of the technology, which has been continuously improved and validated in multiple pilot tests over the last two decades, including a highly successful test at Holcim’s, the world largest cement manufacture.

The current project is intended to serve as a blueprint for climate-neutral industry in Germany and to demonstrate a solution that is scalable, economically viable, and capable of safeguarding jobs.