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Paper short abstract

CCS-based decarbonization through retrofitting can be interpreted as a form of repair that seeks to future-proof current carbon-intensive assets, such as cement production. Yet, tracing the ongoing work of rearticulation that supports its material politics reveals a process fraught with frictions.

Paper long abstract

As climate policies aimed at reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations pose a significant challenge to the continuing operation of global energy and industrial systems, increasing attention is being directed toward strategies to avoid stranding. Particularly, decarbonization through retrofitting – i.e. the transformation rather than the complete replacement of carbon-intensive infrastructures – is gaining increasing prominence. As an “ontological oxymoron” that attempts to bridge timelines (Howe et al., 2016, p. 553), retrofitting can be interpreted as a particular form of repair (Knuth, 2019) aimed at maintaining the infrastructures of the present – both established and inherited – in time (Velkova, 2023).

Among alternatives suited for decarbonization through retrofitting, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are gaining traction in industrialized countries as a non-disruptive mitigation option: their core promise indeed lies in reducing CO2 emissions while safeguarding hard-to-decarbonize activities. In so doing, it future-proofs current industrial logics and assets (Mah, 2021) and conveys a particular ecomodernist and “reactionist” future (Vishmidt, 2020).

In June 2025, the world’s first industrial-scale CCS project in the cement industry officially went into operation at Heidelberg Materials’ plant in Brevik (Norway). Building on empirical research conducted during the commissioning phase of this retrofit, I will unfold the material-semiotic work of rearticulation that supports both its technical integration and the construction of a shared grammar between different work cultures and epistemologies. Tracing ongoing processes of rearticulations, I argue, in turn reveals how performing and stabilizing carbon’s material politics (Barry, 2013) is fraught with frictions (Tsing, 2005) that order industrial futures-in-the-making.