Low-carbon cement producer Fortera aims to fire up as many as seven commercial plants in the next five years, the company tells Axios exclusively. The startup is pursuing $1 billion in financing to fund its aggressive expansion — a significant step up from the $30 million the company raised just two years ago.

Cement decarbonization pioneer Fortera named Kas Farsad its Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), a key corporate and business development executive for the company. As Chief Strategy Officer, Farsad will continue to lead a multidisciplinary team focused on forging commercial partnerships with cement and building industry leaders, overseeing Fortera’s policy and legislative efforts, as well as maximizing Fortera’s carbon impact strategy.

Concrete is the foundation of communities across the globe. More than 4 billion tons of cement that goes into concrete is produced a year. Locally, the Cal Portland Redding Cement Plant in Mountain Gate can produce up to 600,000 metric tons of cement each year.

REDDING, Calif. — They say it's the first in the world: a cement plant that drastically cuts carbon dioxide emissions is being built just north of Redding.

San Jose-based Fortera decided to built its first plant next to the CalPortland Cement Plant in the Mountain Gate area.

Welcome back to a new season of Generation NetZero! This season, we’ll be exploring what it takes to build a #NetZero City and how the hard-to-abate sectors are using innovative solutions to help them in their #decarbonisation journey! In this episode, we look at how the construction industry is evolving with a sustainable future in mind, through #SustainableDesign and green material production.

Ryan Gilliam of Fortera says cost is one big challenge.

Fortera announced the appointment of Scott Healy as chief financial officer. The addition of a senior leader from the financial energy sector will hone strategy and promote the various value streams present in the portfolio of CO2 reduction solutions available from Fortera.  

Materials technology company Fortera announced renewable energy and cleantech attorney Dan Cummings as general counsel and vice president of intellectual property. Cummings has more than 25 years of experience in the renewable energy and cleantech sectors. His work has included building and leading organizations in senior legal, intellectual property, and commercial leadership roles with companies like BP, INEOS and Brightmark.

More than 4Bnt/yr of cement was made in 2020, emitting 3.5Bnt/yr of CO₂ that contributed to the continued warming of our climate. Given the increasingly-obvious nature of the effects of temperature rises on global weather patterns, it is clear that emissions must fall. At the same time, it is also apparent that cement and concrete are unique building materials that cannot be easily replaced. Thankfully, there are already several ways to reduce emissions - alternative fuels, the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) and renewable energy - and even up to CO₂ capture and utilisation / storage (CCU/S).

A recyclable 3D-printed home made from natural materials has been revealed to the public, and this may only be the beginning. The design is part of a project to create a “factory of the future” for sustainable, eco-friendly home development by way of 3D printing technology. The 600-square-foot home, composed of wood fibers and sawmill waste, known as bio-resins, was the creation of researchers from the University of Maine.

Concrete is the foundation of communities across the globe. More than 4 billion tons of cement that goes into concrete is produced a year. Locally, the Cal Portland Redding Cement Plant in Mountain Gate can produce up to 600,000 metric tons of cement each year.

In 2022, Fortera began building a 15,000t/yr-capacity plant to produce its low-carbon cementitious material, Fortera Reactive Calcium Carbonate (RCC), at CalPortland's Redding cement plant in California. The commercial-scale plant will produce a reactive form of calcium carbonate using CO₂ from the kiln of the 600,000t/yr cement plant. Fortera's process converts 1t of limestone into 1t of Fortera RCC by capturing and mineralising CO₂ from the cement plant's kiln.