Cardinal Glass will begin carbon capture at its Winlock glass plant starting in 2029.
The company expects to remove as much as 95% of the CO2 from the production of certain types of glass.
The glass company announced what it refers to as the “world’s first float glass carbon capture installation” at its manufacturing plant in Winlock on Monday morning. According to the announcement, the company expects the system to capture 130,000 metric tons of CO2 each year of operation.
The carbon capture is specifically linked to the facility's production of float glass, which is a type of high clarity glass produced in sheets by floating hot liquid glass on top of a liquid metal.
According to Cardinal, the process requires constant “high-temperature furnace operations” and produces CO2 in multiple places, both from the process to melt the glass and from the raw materials used in glass making.
The carbon capture techniques are intended to reduce the overall amount of CO2 emitted from the process.
“Cardinal has always approached environmental performance as an engineering discipline, not simply as an aspiration,” Cardinal FG President Kelly Busch said. “With the feasibility, design and engineering phases now complete, we are moving toward installation of this carbon capture system at our Winlock facility. This is an important milestone for Cardinal, for our customers and for the future of lower-carbon float glass manufacturing worldwide.”
Cardinal is installing the carbon capture system with the help of an Italian manufacturer by the name of K2-CO2, which specializes in the kind of carbon capture system that will soon come to Winlock.
The project is currently entirely privately funded and not receiving any financial support from the government.
Nonetheless, the company said it is exploring future markets for the captured CO2. Washington state operates a market of carbon credits that can be earned by facilities that reduce the state's overall carbon footprint and can be sold to companies operating systems that produce carbon as a way to offset carbon production.
According to the announcement, the two companies have also together patented a system to utilize gas byproducts produced during float glass production.
“This program builds on years of work between Cardinal and K2-CO2 to evaluate, engineer and adapt carbon capture technology for float glass manufacturing,” K2-CO2 CEO Alessandro Monteforte said. “The Winlock installation will be an important demonstration of how carbon capture can be integrated into one of the most demanding industrial manufacturing environments.”
In the recent announcement, the company added that it expects to be able to offer its low-carbon glass products to architects and projects attempting to meet future low-carbon project requirements.
The company added that the installation in Winlock will serve as a test case for the new system. If it goes well, the system could be adapted for use in other production facilities operated and owned by Cardinal.
“This is not a one-time announcement; it is part of a broader roadmap,” Cardinal Glass Industries President Bowie Neumayer said. “The Winlock project gives us a defined first installation, a concrete operations target and the opportunity to generate the performance data needed to evaluate future deployment across additional float glass lines.”
