When it comes to climate change, every source of carbon emissions matters. It’s easy to say that if something is only single figures, it can’t possibly be that important – I hear this from people defending aviation on a regular basis. But if we have to reach zero carbon, those things can’t be ignored. If we don’t address those apparently smaller sources of carbon emissions, they will grow disproportionately larger over time as the carbon budget shrinks.
Aviation is one of those problems – just 2% of global carbon, says the industry, but rapidly growing. The internet is another – just 3.5% of global CO2 emissions. And another is steel, at 6%.
Alongside aluminium and cement, steel is a vital material with an oversized footprint. It is used in construction, cars, machinery and equipment. It’s particularly important for buildings and infrastructure, and rapidly developing countries needs lots of it. China uses a third of the world’s steel, and demand is on an upward trajectory.
And of course, steel takes huge quantities of energy to produce. Blast furnaces running on coal yield 2 to 3 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel, though older production methods can emit as much as 12 tonnes. Steel recycling can be done with electric furnaces, but virgin steel still relies heavily on fossil fuels.
The first fossil-free steel is on its way though. Swedish firm SSAB have announced that they are investing in a new process that uses hydrogen instead of coal or coke. Their pilot project is due to open in 2022, and the first fossil free steel will reach the market in 2026.
“By challenging technology that has remained essentially unchanged for almost a thousand years, we will in principle eliminate all fossil carbon dioxide emissions” says SSAB CTO Martin Pei. “To date, CO2 has been an unavoidable by-product in making steel from iron ore. With HYBRIT technology, the only emission will be water.”
SSAB already uses electric arc furnaces for steel reprocessing, and by 2022 those operations will be powered by 100% renewable energy. Between the arc furnaces and its new hydrogen process, the whole steel company would be fossil free by 2045.
Of course, those sceptical of hydrogen power will point out that it is only as clean as the energy used to make it. No news on SSAB’s sources at this point, but there is growing interest in storing renewable energy in the form of hydrogen. (I’m a micro-investor myself in a tidal to hydrogen project in the Orkney Islands.) Just last week the energy company Engie announced a new plan to use solar power to produce hydrogen for transport vehicles in France. This is a commercial reality, and green hydrogen could well be a viable route for steel companies.
That’s one company of course, and there’s a whole global industry to transition. That’s still a huge mountain to climb, but from SSAB’s announcement we know that it is technically possible. Whether it’s possible in time to prevent runaway climate change is another question.
The Earthbound Report 
Thanks for this! Living in Sheffield I’ve been wondering about steel for a long time. This answers lots of questions. Not that I have any influence over the Sheffield steel industry, mind you!
As far as I have found out, there are fossil fuel free processes for all major production – we use fossil fuels because they are cheap. Transfer away from fossil fuels would be accelerated everywhere if subsidies to fossil fuel producers were replaced by stringent carbon and pollution taxation.
As for using hydrogen, the way I see is that in order to have effective energy production from renewables, massive over capacity is needed to cope with variable generation – the wind does not always blow, the tides only flow twice daily, there is night-time, etc. So what do you do when the wind is blowing, the tides are racing and the sun is shining? – produce hydrogen, fix nitrogen for fertilizer, make aviation fuel and so on.
I too am from Sheffield, and I can remember in the early 1980s hearing, seeing and feeling a nearby 80Mw electric arc furnace running at night on off-peak electricity – it was quite a sight. The point though is that for most of history, production was variable depending on energy supply. Here in Sheffield water power was used right into the twentieth century, along with the acceptance of loss of production during dry weather.
It is only in recent times that we have demanded 24 hour access to cheap energy, with disastrous results, not just from using fossil fuels, but on lifestyles driven by a 24/7 economy which demands constant production.
Yes, using spare renewable capacity to make hydrogen is a real game changer – not just for industry, but for gas heating too.
Informative content that everyone can refer through it.