Germany, Austria and Luxembourg will provide up to €2.12bn through a joint eSAF funding scheme, using a double-sided auction to bridge the price gap between buyers and sellers of electricity-based aviation fuel. Germany, Austria and Luxembourg announced on 21 September a joint eSAF funding scheme worth up to €2.12 billion.…
Mesabi Metallics has announced an $18bn plan, including a $15bn Iowa steel complex that will pair hot direct-reduced iron with electric arc furnaces and use ore from its new Minnesota mine. Mesabi Metallics announced on 28 September an $18 billion investment to build a fully integrated steel company. The plan…
The Commission has published final terms for its second industrial heat auction, releasing €1 billion from EU Emissions Trading System revenues to cut fossil fuel use in process heat, with bidding expected from December. The European Commission published the final terms and conditions on 24 September for its second Europe-wide…
NSG Group has completed a float glass recycling trial at its Chiba Plant, reprocessing end-of-life laminated glass from a University of Tokyo building into new glass products. NSG Group has completed a float glass recycling trial at its Chiba Plant in Ichihara City, in what it calls horizontal recycling, feeding…
INEOS Energy has brought the Greensand offshore carbon storage site off Esbjerg into full operation, the European Union’s first full-scale facility, with capacity to store up to 8 million tonnes a year. INEOS Energy, with partners Harbour Energy and Denmark’s Nordsøfonden, has brought the Greensand offshore carbon storage site off…
Sanofi, UCB and Opella Healthcare have joined AstraZeneca as founding members of the Clean Heat Program, targeting industrial heat as the largest remaining source of pharmaceutical manufacturing emissions. Multinational pharmaceutical companies Sanofi, UCB and Opella Healthcare Group have joined AstraZeneca as founding members of the Clean Heat Program, an initiative…
Bulgaria’s glass packaging industry has launched a national Close the Glass Loop platform to raise collection for glass recycling, aiming to help meet the EU’s 90% target by 2030. Bulgaria’s glass packaging value chain has united to launch a new national platform for glass collection and recycling, joining a Europe-wide…
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Calgary-based Cura has closed a $10 million USD funding round to expand its electrochemical low-carbon cement pilot with Grand Forks Concrete, a step toward commercial-scale production in Alberta. Calgary-based cleantech company Cura has closed a $10 million USD ($14 million CAD) funding round on 17 September, its second tranche, to accelerate commercial development of its low-carbon cement technology near Taber, Alberta. The round was led by Zacua Ventures, with Sandpiper Ventures, Vantage Futures, Amplify Capital, the University of Calgary’s UCEED fund, the Mount Rundle Club and Sebastian Becker also participating. Zacua’s Juan Nieto joins Cura’s board of directors. Cement is…
The Hydrogen Council’s latest Hydrogen Compass report puts the global low-carbon hydrogen pipeline at $130 billion and 6.9 million tonnes a year, with ammonia the leading offtake. The Hydrogen Council said in its latest annual Hydrogen Compass report that the global low-carbon hydrogen project pipeline has grown to $130 billion and 6.9 million tonnes a year of capacity across 570 projects, with 90% of that capacity under construction or already operational. The figures mark a maturing pipeline, with a growing share of projects moving past the announcement stage into construction and operation. Ammonia remains the dominant offtake for the pipeline,…
EU member states agreed to expand free ETS allowances for energy-intensive industries from 2026 to 2030, aiming to protect steel, cement and chemicals producers from carbon leakage. EU member states have agreed to expand free ETS allowances for energy-intensive industries between 2026 and 2030, a move the Council of the European Union says will protect steel, cement and chemicals producers from carbon leakage during a sensitive stretch of the transition. Ambassadors representing member states agreed on 16 September to release around 88 million allowances that had been set aside for free allocation to sectors covered by heat and fuel benchmarks…
CAC Engineering’s pilot plant in Freiberg, Germany has produced 300,000 litres of synthetic gasoline, showing its power-to-liquids process can run reliably over a sustained period. A pilot plant in Freiberg, Germany has produced 300,000 litres of synthetic gasoline, a threshold its developer says demonstrates that its power-to-liquids process can run reliably over a sustained period rather than only in short bursts. The facility, run by CAC Engineering at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, uses the company’s METHAFUEL technology to convert e-methanol into synthetic gasoline through the DeCarTrans research programme. Reaching 300,000 litres of cumulative output matters because continuous, reliable operation, rather than…
NEDO and four Japanese partners achieved 85% ammonia co-firing in a full-scale naphtha cracking furnace, a step towards decarbonising petrochemical production without a full plant redesign. A Japanese consortium has achieved an 85% ammonia co-firing rate across a full-scale naphtha cracking furnace, a milestone the group says clears one of the toughest technical barriers to decarbonising petrochemical production. NEDO, Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, ran the demonstration together with Mitsui Chemicals, Maruzen Petrochemical, Toyo Engineering and Sojitz Machinery, testing a furnace fitted with a newly developed ammonia-fired burner. The 85% figure covers the entire furnace on a…
China’s CESTRI has opened a demonstration plant that turns coal fly ash into fly ash geopolymer concrete, a cement-free binder the institute says cuts emissions and costs against Portland cement. The CHN Energy Science and Technology Research Institute (CESTRI) has opened a demonstration base in China that converts coal fly…
Rohrdorfer has co-fired hydrogen on the clinker kiln at its Gmunden works in Austria, the first trial of its kind at an Austrian cement plant, though the producer says the fuel still costs far too much. Austrian cement producer Rohrdorfer has run the first large-scale hydrogen combustion test at an…
Holcim Germany has commissioned a membrane-based carbon capture demonstration at its Höver cement plant in Lower Saxony, capturing up to 10,000 tonnes a year and targeting 90% of site emissions after expansion. Holcim Germany has commissioned a membrane-based carbon dioxide capture demonstration plant at its Höver cement works in Lower…
Aircapture and NGK have commissioned a direct air capture unit at AIZAWA Concrete’s Fukushima site, testing NGK ceramic substrates in commercial conditions and looking at concrete mineralisation as an outlet for the captured gas. Aircapture and NGK Corporation have started a joint direct air capture demonstration at AIZAWA Concrete Corporation’s…
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BMW’s Car2Car consortium has shown that additional sorting can strip copper from end-of-life vehicle scrap well enough to make flat steel for cars, with more than 100,000 series parts already built and installed. High-quality material loops are technically feasible in the automotive industry, and copper-bearing impurities in steel scrap can be reduced notably, BMW said after completing its Car2Car research project with partners, EUROMETAL reported on 27 August. The project focused on steel, aluminium and copper, and also considered other materials including glass. BMW’s consortium included Scholz Recycling, thyssenkrupp Steel Europe and Salzgitter Mannesmann Forschung, alongside academic partners such as…
UNEP says copper demand will rise more than 40% by 2040 while mined output peaks around 2030, leaving a projected shortfall of 6.5 million tonnes within the next five years. Demand for copper will rise more than 40% by 2040 while mined production is expected to peak around 2030 and then flatten or decline, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. The projection appears in a UNEP article published on 27 August on securing the materials the energy transition needs. Copper carries electrification. Electric vehicles use up to four times as much of it as traditional combustion engines, and it…
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As industrial automation evolves into hyper-connected, outcome-focused systems, industry leaders face the challenge of translating pilot projects into scalable platforms , a move crucial for staying competitive and advancing decarbonisation efforts amid divergent market forecasts. Industrial automation is shifting from discrete upgrades to an integrated, service-led transformation that binds parts, people and processes into continuous, outcome-driven systems. According to Industry4o, this convergence reframes components as “intelligent assets”, augments workers with real‑time decision support and recasts processes into adaptive, service‑centric flows , a change the piece says will determine competitiveness over the next decade. The market context is, however, far from…
OxCCU, the Oxford University spin-out, has been awarded the 2026 Startups 100 Sustainability Award for its innovative single-step process that converts waste carbon into low-cost, sustainable aviation fuel, signalling a significant breakthrough in decarbonising the aviation industry. UK startup OXCCU, which says it has developed a single-step process to convert waste carbon into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), has been named winner of the 2026 Startups 100 Sustainability Award, a recognition for firms demonstrating innovative and impactful sustainability practices. According to Hydrocarbon Engineering, the accolade follows a year of technical milestones and fresh investment for the Oxford University spin‑out. OXCCU claims…
Border States’ January commodity update highlights soaring copper, aluminium, and steel prices driven by supply constraints, demand surges, and geopolitical factors, posing challenges for decarbonisation projects and supply chains. FARGO, N.D., January 12, 2026 , Border States has published its January commodity update, underscoring a market opening the year with elevated metal prices and persistent supply tightness that carry direct implications for industrial decarbonisation projects, construction schedules and supply-chain planning. Copper: record highs driven by electrification demand Copper began 2026 at a fresh record, opening at $6.01 per pound, as demand from data centres, grid expansion and renewable-energy deployments continued…
President Bola Tinubu unveils ambitious plans to mobilise $2 billion for climate resilience and green infrastructure, amid rising investor interest, as Nigeria charts a path towards net-zero emissions by 2060. President Bola Tinubu has placed green finance at the centre of Nigeria’s energy transition, unveiling plans for a $2 billion National Climate Change Fund and a complementary Climate Investment Platform he said would mobilise $500 million for climate‑resilient infrastructure. The announcements were made at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and, according to Zawya, were framed as evidence of growing investor appetite after recent oversubscriptions in Nigeria’s green bond programme. The government…
Kelly Becker outlines five key trends, including water resilience, digital infrastructure expansion, transport electrification, and building retrofits, that will drive the UK’s energy transition and industrial growth in 2026, amid policy shifts and technological innovations. According to HPM Magazine, Kelly Becker, president of Schneider Electric for the UK & Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, has set out five trends she says will shape the UK’s energy transition and industrial growth in 2026. Her analysis places water resilience, the rapid expansion of AI-ready data centres, stalled transport electrification, the twin engines of electrification and digitalisation for industry, and a large-scale retrofit…
The European Innovation Fund has announced a €2.9 billion funding call targeting pioneering industrial projects in low-carbon technologies, with applications open until 23 April 2026. The initiative aims to bridge the gap between demonstration and commercial viability for large-scale emissions reductions across Europe. The European Innovation Fund has opened a major call for projects aiming to finance first-of-a-kind industrial deployment of low-carbon technologies, with applications accepted until 23 April 2026 at 17:00 CEST, according to FrenchWeb and the European Commission’s implementing agency CINEA. The facility, financed from revenues of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), is designed to bridge…
The traditional focus on geological storage of captured CO2 is evolving, with power producers increasingly viewing utilisation as a strategic and economically viable approach, transforming decarbonisation from storage to market-enabled monetisation. The conventional framing of carbon capture as principally a route to permanent geological storage is giving way to a more plural view in which captured CO2 becomes a feedstock and a revenue stream. Power producers contemplating capture investments now face a choice not only between storage and emissions abatement, but between treating CO2 as an expense to be buried or as a commodity to be monetised. That shift changes…
Senior Asian shipping executives expect a longer postponement of the IMO’s Net Zero Framework, amid political opposition and rising regional regulatory fragmentation, posing challenges for industry decarbonisation efforts. A show of hands at a high‑level Singapore Maritime Foundation New Year Conversations panel made plain the mood in the room: senior Asian shipping executives largely expect a delay well beyond the IMO’s stated one‑year adjournment of its Net Zero Framework. According to Seatrade Maritime, virtually no hands were raised in favour of the framework being merely a one‑year setback, with most attendees anticipating a longer deferral as the industry faces renewed…
The UK’s seventh Contracts for Difference allocation round has secured a record 8.4GW of offshore wind capacity, marking a historic milestone in the nation’s clean energy ambitions and attracting £22 billion in private investment. The UK’s seventh Contracts for Difference allocation round (AR7) has delivered a record 8.4GW of offshore wind capacity, a result the government called “a historic win” as it seeks to accelerate the clean power transition and reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels. According to the government, the auction , described by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero as Europe’s largest offshore wind procurement ,…
Global EV sales hit 20.7 million in 2025 with Europe seeing the fastest expansion, driven by policy incentives and regional demand shifts, signalling evolving industry dynamics heading into 2026. Global electric vehicle (EV) sales reached 20.7 million units in 2025, up 20% year‑on‑year, with Europe recording the fastest growth among major regions, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. The consultancy said 2.1 million EVs were sold globally in December 2025, taking full‑year sales in the passenger car and light‑duty vehicle segment to 20.7 million. China remained the largest market, selling 12.9 million units in 2025, a 17% increase on…
