EDMONTON, Alberta — The world’s first full-scale carbon-neutral cement plant could be operating in Canada within three years, following the signing of a key $275 million deal between the federal government and international materials supplier Heidelberg. Heidelberg’s cement manufacturing facility in Edmonton is to be fitted with a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) system that would absorb one million tonnes of CO2 a year and inject it into a saline aquifer several kilometres underground. … “The CO2 emitted from power generation will be captured too. And we will recoup some cost by selling excess green electricity back onto the Alberta grid,” he said. …Cement — the carbon-intensive ingredient in concrete — currently accounts for 1.5 per cent of Canada’s total carbon emissions. …Heidelberg is also currently building a larger, industrial-scale cement plant with CCUS in Norway.