Green Hydrogen making Green Steel. Is 2024 the breakthrough year?
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- Global steel production is responsible for more than 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions every single year. That needs to change quickly, and the folks in the steel industry know it. Huge efforts are being made to decarbonise their processes, and the most promising method is to use green hydrogen to replace coking coal to remove oxygen from iron ore. So, has anyone cracked it yet?
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Far from being boring, revisiting topics to see if they are progressing is is a really valuable activity. Thanks.
Boring for him, probably. Lol
Wonder how many topics and forecasts that aren't progressing get a revisit?
I really appreciate that you return to old topics to see how they have evolved/devolved.
With the slew of innovative ideas in renewables and energy use, its nice to see some follow-up to separate the Chaff from the Wheat.
chaff does serve a purpose beyond just being discarded. It can be used as animal feed or as mulch, and its fibrous nature can indeed aid in digestion
@@abhishekpurnapatre5038 And in this context it is used as a figure of speech.
Now that you have your dictionary out, try looking up pedantic.
he also nails the frequency pretty well, waiting either for "a good while" to pass, or a substantial update (even if, sometimes, he's just dousing a 'viral breakthrough fire')
The bottom line is that none of these "breakthroughs" or "gamechangers" ever seem to get anywhere before he moves seamlessly onto the next "breakthrough" or "gamechanger". Also does he revisit the alarmist forecasts he comes out with or give any proof of link to CO2, or mention China's vastly increasing CO2 emissions? (which make our emission " reductions", only achieved by importing more of our fossil fuel supply, not only completely pointless but also economically hugely self-damaging).
All I can think is that this bloke is an AI bot for the globalists' agenda of the West's destruction.
@@peterduff9281 What are you talking about?
This video is specifically about him revisiting technology that he covered previously, to see if it really was a gamechanger, or what if any progress has been made.
And my comment is specifically about the FACT that he does revisit what he covers.
Every video he does includes his source material that anyone with a keyboard can verify.
Or, we can all just be lazy and throw around baseless accusations and conspiracy theories on topics we know absolutely nothing about.
A 30% markup for the green stuff sounds like a bargain compared to what CCS for blast furnaces would cost.
Particularly if that CCS was efficient enough to be even close to the CO2 reduction seen with the advanced green methods.
The 30% markup would be a bargain for low background steel. With no atmospheric air used in production there can be no radiological contamination.
@@allangibson8494excellent point.
That is a small but commercially excellent initial market for green steel.
Poverty kills. It's a leading cause of death in the world. 30% greater cost means more human death.
Or, we could accept that more CO2 in the atmosphere means greater crop yields to feed the world's poor. It also results in a MILDER climate: higher LOW temperatures (mostly at night, in winter, at higher latitudes; NOT higher HIGH temperatures. (That's why the average temperature are increasing.) There is no existential crisis. Climate models fail to model known historical climate and have failed to predict future climate. Use of failed hypotheses is anti-science.
I vote for human welfare, not climate hype.
@@dzcav3 I wondered when someone would pedal the “CO2 is great” myth.
Oooh, that really does look like some decent progress. It was totally non-viable just 5 years ago except for small batches of custom boutique production.
The cool thing with Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE), is that you can basically use it for all metal oxides. Very versatile. NASA plans to use molten salt electrolysis (FFC Cambridge process) on other planet. It's lower temperature but needs salt and all the issues that come with it.
And dont forget the abhorently low energy and time/volume eficiency of it all!
They manage it with aluminium.@@54365100
With cycling back to review advances in previously covered topics, we'll be looking forward to your update on green technology advances in the cement for concrete industry. This is another of the big impact industries that needs to see improvement.
I can guarantee there will be no substitute for fossil fuels when it comes to high energy-consuming industry like concrete manufacture. Ain't in the laws of physics to consistently supply that amount of energy from fickle and diffuse low-energy production sources like wind or solar. Even from nuclear using electricity for large-scale energy intense manufacturing is not satisfactory, and at present rate of replacement we could be without any operating nuclear power stations in 10 years time.
Here's an idea for a video Dave. Right at the end of this one you dropped in the fact that the steel industry is yet another that enjoys subsidies to safeguard production. Until they are removed we're not really comparing like with like when we discuss costs of new technologies. What about looking at the global picture to show which industries are being "artificially" supported with subsides since they act as significant disincentives to the development of new "green" technologies.
The only steel producers that will survive are those that use humongous amounts of coal. Like China.
Exactly, I'd love to see an analysis of subsidies given to green or black companies and industries. I think we would all be rather shocked at what our tax dollars actually go to.
H2 Green Steel is already building its 5 million tonnes steel plant in Sweden and have raised 6 billion euros for it. Sweden extract 90% iof EUs iron ore and will at 2035 produce 30-40 million tonnes of green steel every year.
If Australia did the same thing with its iron ore they would cut the worlds entire emissions with 3%.
One of Australia’s biggest mining magnates is planning on building giant green hydrogen plants. I’m not sure if he actually plans to create green steel, but it would make sense.
Most of the iron ore mined in Australia isn't actually made into steel here. It's shipped out as ore.
BlueScope steel is working with BHP and Rio Tinto (the two biggest miners) on green steel, and Fortescue Mining is working with the big Chinese steelworks that they sell their ore to.
A bit of a way to go before low carbon steel is a reality, but it's promising.
Sweden does not have enough electricity production to cover any reasonable scale of green steel production. To produce all the required green hydrogen with renewable energy is a pipe dream. Only way is to build a lot of nuclear power plants. A total power of about 8 GW is required. That is about 13 reactors. Or 8000 to 10000 large wind turbines@that in fact is far from “fossil free” or CO2 neutral to build and maintain. Huge economical risk too.
@@swhbpocl Sweden has Norway nearby, with their 33 GWe of installed HYDRO capacity. PS: 8 GWe is more like 6 APR-1400 / APR+ reacotrs or ones like installed recently in Ouklitio-3
@@swhbpocl This is not true, Sweden exports today 30 TWh per year and is increasing its production with 5 TWh per year already today. Its all already scaling at the pace needed.
Here in Wales, we are also ditching our blast furnaces... but at a social cost. Port Talbot steel works, one of the largest employers in Wales, is set to lose up to 3000 jobs as the plant installs electric arc furnaces. Demonstrations have been held against the owner, Tata Steel, and their decarbonisation plans. It's so crucial to take people along in the journey to sustainable tech by having more joined up policies of retraining and new employment opportunities. Another big topic!
it is a sad consequence of technological change that jobs are often impacted negatively. It has always been this way going back hundreds of years. The new technology may eventually create spin off jobs in other sectors but at the present time those jobs tend to be higher skilled types that many put out of work in older technology industries will not be able to be trained for. Older industries have more manual processes so require more people. The new technology usually incorporates a high degree of automation and a reduction in manual processes. So it is the older and less skilled worker that usually carries the can and governments are going to have to change their tune about pointing the finger at some unemployed people and labeling them as bludgers.
@@frasercrone3838🎯🎯 Definitely a concern, especially given a broad resistance in a general populace towards change because of your noted "pain points" + personal economic uncertainty...
I believe this was not driven by decarbonisation plans but rather as we are now outside the EU we suffer tariffs on high carbon steel exports to the EU. So Brexit drove this as Tata did tell everyone in past. It is such a pity the media is distorting reality and blaming a green agenda. When post Brexit this was the only viable option.
Electric arc furnaces can only recycle old steel, and make second-grade material at best. Meanwhile China will be using unlimited amounts of coal to produce their steel, much cheaper as a result.
Well done Net Zero! Pointless and self-destructive.
@@davidedwards4691 Easy to blame Brexit but why cannot our government provide the requisite coal cheaply enough (we've got plenty in the ground) - because it's not allowed to, unlike China for instance.
This is why China's steel much cheaper than ours - because they use massive amounts of cheap coal to manufacture it. Duhhh.....
So less Brexit, more Net Zero is the cause.
You should come to the Everything Electric show in Vancouver Canada. The first one last summer was epic! Ricky from Two Bit DaVinci was there, Nicki and Kate from Transport Evolved were there, and Sandy Monroe made an appearance… along with all the usual suspects for the Fully Charged show. I’m on council for my municipality and brought home some valuable information. We may be replacing some of our equipment with fully electric this year, all thanks to exhibitors at the show.
Hello Buddywhatshisname....Where are the other fellers?
I also went last year. It was great and I really enjoyed everything I saw/learned.
Don't forget about Austria's voestalpine AG which is also is in the process of installing electric arc furnices (1 bn EUR investment). When it will be finished in 2027 it is said to be Austria's single biggest climate reduction effort, as it will decrease national CO2 emissions by 5%.
In Québec, Canada they've been using electric arc furnaces as far as I can remember, possibly for more than 40 years. I believe both steel and aluminum are smelted that way.
Any link's mate?
Electric Arch Furnaces is not green steel, its just recycling. It means Austria is removing primary steel making and removing all its blast furnaces, basically abandoning steel making.
@@rojavabashur6455What do you mean by your statement? Are you saying that electric arc furnaces aren't green?
@@fparentHe means you can't use electric arc with iron ore. It is essentially just a way to melt down steel scrap to recycle into new steel.
Well done, now I have some hope for steel where before your talk I had basically none.
It will be great when adoption of greener steel initiatives become more widespread. Talked to a friend who works with steel, creating assemblies for construction projects, and he said the main issue is they have to import green steel from so far away that the transportation emissions eat up much of the emission savings gained during production.
It's very obviously still good to buy green steel to support market growth for producers but eliminating the additional transport emissions seems pretty crucial.
That's a good point, not only does green steel currently cost more, it also costs more to transport it. But, we also need to demonstrate that the market is there so that investments can be made towards expanding the industry into new locations.
I never know whether your videos make me feel more encouraged, or more despairing, Dave, but, as ever, this one was definitely food for thought! Good to know that you are going to Everything Electric South, but it would be even better if you were to also come and see us northerners at Everything Electric North in Harrogate. The stage events are the most worthwhile part of the show and your presence would add gravitas and get us all thinking!
Great to hear that you will be at the Everything Electric Show. l've just been to the one in Australia and it was really worthwhile. The best part for me by far was the discussion panels. Given that your channel probably covers the broadest range of topics l expect that your talks will be very popular. l found that many people are genuinely interested in all aspects of the clean energy transition so l hope you are ready for the onslaught of questions. Best of luck.
Please consider a similar video on cement production.... Thanks
Thanks Dave, another great explanation of a complex problem!
Cheers Jonathan. Much appreciated.
Here in Australia the Fortescue metal group is building green hydrogen production. With a view to producing green steel in the Pilbara.
😂
Setting the example by doing rather than saying is usually the catalyst to make others follow - even if it’s small scale there will be plenty of purchasers wanting to green up their end to end products as you say 👍
Nice to see you using Ecosia
A fine calm summing up of where we are. Good work.
Another compelling approach involves the use of hydrogen plasma to directly melt and reduce iron into steel. A pilot plant for this method has been constructed by voestalpine in Austria. The Process is called SuSteel
And then there is noteworthy paper published in Nature addressing the management of red mud, a byproduct of aluminum production containing up to 60% iron, albeit being a hazardous material. The study demonstrated that melting it in an arc furnace under a hydrogen environment allows the smelting process without the need for additional additives.
Always worth hearing your updates. Cheers Dave
This is exactly what these types of channels should be doing, so thank you for revisiting these topics. It makes this channel feel like I'm actually learning about the future, and not just consuming techno-optimistic tales for escapism. Please keep em coming!
Geez, I hope so. GFG green steel ambition here in Australia, is viewed from my front verandah. I watch the steel plant currently puff out red, black, grey etc, pollution, hourly/daily. The state Govt tells us they are going to have a Hydrogen plant working within 2 years, to supply GFG. Fingers crossed!!!
Something to keep an eye out for over the next decade, is the North Sea artificial energy island being built by the Danish government in collaboration with a host of independent green energy suppliers.
The project aims to initially bring CO2 neutral clean energy to over 10 million homes in Europe, and become a central hub for expanding offshore green energy capture and green hydrogen production for heavy industries and transport.
The project was accepted in 2020, and greenlit in 2021 by the other European partners in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, and other neighboring countries who will benefit from the project. This will help fuel the mass scale adoption of carbon neutral electricity and green hydrogen (that up until now has been mostly subsidized through independent firms and limited budgets -all that is going to change).
However, it is of course important to keep in mind that this is the largest island construction in human history, initially with almost 3x as much artificial land as the islands of Dubai -all of it with the sole purpose of green offshore energy production at a multi-billion Euro scale. So things can change and deadlines will be hard to maintain - as will budgeting. No one in the world has done this before, so it must be regarded as potentially the most ambitious pilot project ever.
This is a project carried out by a nation with a population of less than 6 million people. Scale is not what matters. The will to do what's right, that's all that matters. The will to act.
Everyone need to step up their game instead of looking to their neighbors and complaining they aren't doing their share. Just do yours, eventually others will follow.
If Denmark with 6mil pop can do this, the US for instance with +300mil pop can at least do the same.
What an exciting development in steel production. Steel is a heck of a carbon contributor, so getting the industry turned on to hydrogen would mean cleaner air for everyone. Surely it'll cost a pretty penny, but no doubt worth it.
Many thanks for this update, Dave! Time for me to just have a think! 🎉😊
Being an Australian I cannot understand why Australia doesn't use our iron ore to make green steel in our country. This would even reduce emissions from the transportation of the iron ore. Or our country could make a big difference only deciding to choose to export iron ore only to countries that turn it into steel by green hydrogen.
A bit of research turns up the fact that we are...
Yes I think that there is enormous potential in W. Australia. There is so much desert with 10+ hours sunshine year round. This could provide all the electricity requirement and the iron ore is already there. The existing transport and port facilities can ship out steel to world markets instead of iron ore to China.
Because the democracy prevents the government building the infrastructure or business as the opposition will get the applause when the project finally finishes and then they can privatise it willy nilly without asking the population (Telstra, water, energy etc)
But because other countries are willing to pay high $ for coal, gas, iron, it means Australia can't (won't) enjoy the cheap natural resources.
Iron runs the planet, if we dictate who buys it we will be invaded. But it would make Australia very rich for a few years.
Did you see what happened when our gov decided who couldn't buy our animals? Prices went through the roof and farms went out of business.
Great video. Looking forward to the next updates in this space. Especially the MOE stuff.
The Molten Oxide Electrolysis is almost exactly the same method used to refine Aluminium.
The Hall Herault electrolysis cells do use carbon electrodes and CO2 emission is approx 1.22 t/t Al.
Great video as always! Thanks for your time.
Been loving these follow-up videos......thanks for keeping us up to date, Dave!!
I would really root for the molten oxide electrolysis method, even if its yields are lower than the hydrogen reduction method, it still takes out a large chunk out, which is to produce green hydrogen using electrolysis...which itself is a fledgling and inefficient process.
Keep up the updates, always great to see progress
Canadian steel makers are going green. Both Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie are both building electric arc furnaces
Love it that you do reflection and follow-ups 😊😊😊
I expect only on selected topics.
Wow that sounds really cool! Love to see the progress/revisiting videos. It is really one thing for there to be hope in the outset and then how it's doing further along and that information is super useful I think!
Another huge problem with this process is the iron ore must be over 67% . Currently only 3% of world trade in iron ore is over 67%. The majority is around 62%. How to get the concentration up? VERY expensive and energy intensive. Grind all that iron ore into a powder, then add water and gravity, magnetic, separate out the rock. Pump the remaining sludge into a tailings pond.
The cost of upgrading iron ore is about 5 times the cost of direct ship ore.
Also, a couple million tons a year of steel barely registers. Current annual production is just under 2,000 million tonnes.
It is indeed not that much on the worlds scale, but on the other hand being able to produce millions of tons a year from a facility is a big step up in maturing the technology and getting a good grasp on the challenges one needs to meet.
So in that sense this is a pretty big improvement, as it makes more clear what kind of costs one can expect as well as if there are any further significant improvements possible.
@@Quickshot0 Yes. With costs, we also need to remember that all the estimates (30% more, etc) is assuming that all inputs are still produced and provided with fossil fuels. If you add everything downstream produced with green energy, costs are 3 or more times as much. The world isn’t prepared to pay this much more for everything.
I’m also assuming their cost for iron ore is a local, upgraded ore or pellets. The production cost of direct ship iron ore is on the order of $20/t, not including shipping, etc. The production cost of upgraded ore is on the order of $100/t, including mining, infrastructure and production costs. But it also commands a higher price on the market. Still not as profitable as direct ship ore.
@@Anopheles6 I'm not sure why energy costs would have to go up for there. Sweden has access to fairly plentiful hydro power I thought, and can probably get some good locations for wind power at competitive prices. Which one could try to buffer with the hydro power to get a steady power source.
Admittedly this may not work as easily for other countries.
@@Quickshot0I mean I'm just not sure why exactly they think the figures quoted are including fossil fuel energy in the first place. It's an assumption with no backing and directly contradicting what was said in the video. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but I'd like to see some sourcing.
I know very little on metallurgy, but some cursory research shows that while direct ship ore is popular in steel making because you can skip the cost of purifying ores, scrap iron CAN be used in the DRI process. Yes, there are more impurities in the intermediate iron. But that's not the final product. You just purify out the bits you don't want when you go and make the steel (immediately) anyway.
@@Quickshot0 Unfortunately this project is an utopia and economic disaster. There is a group of economics here in Sweden that has turned every stone and revealed this fantasy. To build windpower is expensive, hard to get all the permissions AND there is no power to produce when there is no wind... Hydro power can not be expanded more and green steel production needs 50% of the electricity the whole country uses today. The thing is we need more electricity for the new cars etc.and the first next nuclear facility will be ready in about 10 to 15 year from now. This green steel project is pure fiction and should be abandoned .
Yeah subsidy reallocation important indeed! Similarly difficult to aviation perhaps BUT wow some people in aviation see incredible 2030s developments for planes ~45% by weight batteries🤯
Great news you working with everything electric .
Cheers Martin :-)
Thanks for your update 👏👏
I sure am happy I found your channel so I can have a think. Thank you man for your well delivered information.
Thank you for revisiting the topics.
Revision is essential for learning, learning is essential for improvement - and wow, improvement is what we need ! Thanks.
Great review, Dave.
Thank you so much!
I wish I could see you at any of the Everything Electric Shows, but alas it doesn't fit my schedule or location. Sorry.
Keep up the excellent work.
Lots of architects & developers are getting into making mass timber buildings, including high-rises, as an immediately available low-carbon replacement for "green steel." Look up "The Ascent" building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; currently the world's tallest mass timber building.
I like it that you go back and follow up! It's so important.
The next thing to look at would be all the "carbon capture" proclamations in more focus, which so far seem no more effective than "clean coal" (which never actually happened, but was an effective delaying tactic.)
In a collaboration with SSAB, the watch brand Triwa has two models made with fossil free steel from the Hybrit project. I own one of them. It’s a nice watch.
I doubt the arc furnace in the graphic uses "ultra high voltage" (whatever that means) more likely very high current at a relatively low voltage.
Great overview, thanks!
I think the key is this:
1. The fact that these methods are now close to being implementable at industrial scale and not TOO far off regular steel prices means that carbon pricing for steel in major economic zones is becoming a lot more realistic.
2. Many of the technologies that the process interacts with (renewable energy sources and hydrogen conversion) are still improving significantly, so the remaining price gap is likely to close further.
That's why I think these technologies are a very good sign for the future, even if their immediate impact will be of limited scale.
Especially because these do not appear to be complex "unicorn technologies" that never solve fundamental issues and never make it into widespread adoption, but something that can already be built with current tech and now merely requires some more operational experience to become a basic tool of the industry.
Great video. Keep up the great work 👍
Thank you! 👍
Thanks Dave!
Ocean-based carbon capture isn't stupid. It's not a gimmick, and it's actually intended to remove CO2 at a gigatonne scale.
On the topic of clean energy for producing green hydrogen for steel production, and various other things, here in Canada, we have a massive amount of hydropower. We have 160GW of untapped hydropower in 9 out of 10 provinces, and not including the territories.
The Northwest Territories alone, we there's 11.5 (or 13 GW if you include the Slave River between the NWT and Alberta) of untapped hydroelectric potential.
Hydropower is not just a source of electricity generation. It's a means of achieving grid stability and can help integrate tens of GW of wind, solar, and also inflexible sources of energy, like nuclear.
He did make a video about ocean-based carbon capture. ruclips.net/video/kzMWIrh6bL4/видео.html
Cleveland Cliffs is already using hydrogen here in the US. They are using it this year in their largest furnace. Has already made a difference in a smaller furnace and they are already charging for the H1 use to make it. So.... get on board.
That steel production is supported by subsidies is a kind of news (we do see anti dumping duties but actual active subsidy on production is something i am not aware of). It would be interesting to see which countries are subsidizing steel production and in what form.
Sweden and Finland are building a green hydrogen system around the Baltic Sea's Gulf of Bothnia and they will connect everything with a hydrogen trunk pipe. The hydrogen will indeed be used for steel first. Later when they have more capacity perhaps it will be used for peak electricity/heat production.
The energy needed for the whole steel industry in Sweden is about half of the total energy Sweden produce. So this is bullsh...
@@atvheads Hydrogen is only a part of the energy. They won't recycle electricity through the hydrogen process and there is plenty of electricity that will still be used by the arc furnaces. They will just replace the coking coal with green hydrogen. Furthermore there will be HUGE off-shore wind farms in the Gulf of Bothnia and this power will have to go somewhere. Hydrogen production is a good candidate to soak gigawatts of windpower. Eventually chemical plants, fertilizer plants, power plants and other industrial users will join the pipe. There are also plans to connect the pipes to Estonia and Denmark. The only part of the plans I'm really skeptical is the plan to use the hydrogen to fuel heavy trucking going up and down both Sweden and Finland and which is currently powered by diesel. I have serious reservations about the feasibility of hydrogen trucks.
We need to thank the steel industry for feeding our plants! Thank goodness for humans that our planet is green and getting greener, for real this time!
Thanks Dave, fascinating again... Quite amused at the search term for carbon capture at around 3 minutes.. :D True, but not a loaded search question ehh... ;)
Carbon Capture. If it can work towards CO2; reduction then that saves lives worldwide that at are present inevitably killed .
@@EdSurridge This is the very big problem: " If it can work towards CO2 reduction "... So far it has failed and is very expensive, I can't find the reference for who calculated that for carbon capture to work well enough by around 2050 (might have even been on this channel.. Dave?), it would need more electricity than the world produces now... Carbon Capture is a fig leaf for the fossil fuel industry to continue burning fossil fuels, with the relatively little CO2 so far captured often used to enhance the recovery of oil (to burn) in near depleted wells where the last bits of oil are hard to extract.
Perhaps the best summary, with I understand accurate figures so is well worth checking out, was produced by The Juice Media, titled "Honest Government Ad | Carbon Capture & Storage". Their tone is somewhat flippant, even sarcastic, but the science and numbers there are good, and is most probably a reliable description even though the tone is a ... somewhat earthy Aussie style...
A more sober view comes from the MIT Technology review: "Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction"
Carbon Capture is pushed hard by the fossil fuel industry, and the politicians they have ... captured ... with their ... generosity (figures for the US are fairly widely available online... who said bribery & corruption...). I think that you may have noticed in my comments online if you have seen them, and Dave (along with many others) ... ... just possibly ... ... may have mentioned on his channel, that the fossil fuel industry does not quite have the greatest history of integrity when describing issues around Climate Change... Although I am not aware of any research supporting this suggestion, but it would not surprise me if the fossil fuel industry has killed more people than tobacco and malaria combined since the scientific community have been clear on Climate Change from about 45 years ago.
@@EdSurridge"if it can (be made to) work" being the main issue...
That's ALWAYS the main issue of these things.@@gregbailey45
Steel in many uses can be replaced by carbon fiber-reinforced polymers which are 3 times as strong. It can be produced in a CO2 rich atmosphere such as cement manufacture by passing the gas through an electrolysis system to make carbon nanostructures. There are several Canadian companies doing this. In the construction industry it can replace steel rebar, steel girders and for supporting weak beams and structural joints. It can then make reinforced concrete structures much thinner, hence reducing the carbon footprint of both the steel and the concrete. It is probably more expensive than steel but may not be if there was carbon taxes. Dave, a good subject for one of your programs.
The Finnish government owns about 6% of SSAB and we are looking foward to seeing their investment into Raahe, Finland factory. At least in 2021 their CO2 emissions were more than 4 million tons. Just a handful of factories in Finland emit more CO2 than all cars.
Australia is going heavily into this, as Iron Ore is our #1 export and the continent has huge renewable energy potential. The Government wants to make Green Hydrogen off the excess renewable energy during the day (solar+wind) and night (wind). Then to strategically positioned "hubs" where steel making was traditionally done, in order to make a finished product without being reliant on an "Indo-pacific neighbour" 😂
hydrogen and Steel production seems like the perfect way to use up the peaks during very windy days etc.
Loved every second!
Finally a use for hydrogen.
Hydrogen has long been in use in various industrial processes, the big problem being how it is made.
Most by far is made by steam reduction of methane, resulting in an enormous carbon footprint, thus the push to greenify it by using electrolysis based on renewable energy.
30% of global natural gas production is used to make hydrogen. It is mostly used to make ammonia as a step to making nitrates for fertiliser.
The carbon dioxide generated is a waste product to get the oxygen out of the air used as a nitrogen source.
This may be the best way to save energy. Focus first on the industries that spend the most and are centralized enough to be regulated and modified to use green Hydrogen.
No solar or wind energy should be lost, it should be stored as hydrogen when possible.
I feel that there's enough small updates and news now that you could start including 10-15min quick news videos on a regular basis (weekly or less if there's not enough for that). It'd be good for thse little updates on companies that aren't worthy of a whole video. Like, when HYBRIT finally press the equals button an declare that number.
Have a good day from productions and a good night production ideas 😀
Just have a think: It is possible to make things much easier, the problem is that, the cost reductions make companies uneasy. You can build machines that is much greener, and cheaper to operate. If you remove the Gas tank off of heavy equipment, and incert its own personal powerplants. You need only enough electrical power to operate. Talked to the manager of the power company in town, and explained that once i was ready to show a functional proto-type let them know, because unlike most energy sources this one can be mobile, unless one makes a much larger system. basically its particle electric.
Now we need green concrete to go with the green steel.
My thoughts- Start strong and get stronger, fast. All the money raised, is then divided equally amongst every person living in that state. The rich use more carbon, so it will benefit the poorer. My addition, to what is a commonly held strategy, is that the govt., gives out the money at the beginning of the year, so no one can ever complain they're being robbed, plus offering the option of borrowing three, five years of estimated carbon tax, to carry out energy-saving works, insulation, solar, EV. The better the energy saving, the quicker the project pays for itself. Providing such a strong incentive, plus the means to act, could be transformative.
7:15 they won't just have access to plenty of local hydro power, the city of Boden is also right on Ore Line railway (Malmbanan) that takes iron ore from the LKAB mines in Kiruna and Malmberget (town name that literally means "the Ore Mountain") to the coast (where the SSAB steel plant is located).
btw - SSAB's largest shareholder is the LKAB mining company which in turn is owned by the Swedish state. Vattenfall the power company is also owned by the Swedish state.
So the Hybrit project mentioned first in the video is quite closely tied to the Swedish state.
Great stuff as always, see you at show.
Cheers Rob. See you there :-)
Brazil ALREADY has Carbon Free Steel companies and production with proper certification. 🤔 🤔
Great video, Dave, Saarland intends switching their steei industry to hydrogen, imported from France and produced using nuclear power. Apparently Cattenom is already planning new reactors.
Isn't Germany closed all nuclear plant and get back coal plant online? Find it weird they now go "green steel", its like lithium mining "other country doing it is fine... doing it here? no way!" Same using power from country that use nuclear while in Germany is forbidden...
At what cost. They have serious wind potential and a high area per person for solar
The 20-30% increase could be dealt with by removing subsidy from oil and gas, win win 🎉
Love the into quips. Get better every week.
If the RethinkX forecasts and predictions are correct, then the disruption of energy production and resulting decline in oil consumption for instance will lead to a huge reduction in demand for steel. No new oil wells, pipelines, tankers. Same goes for the food disruption eliminating agricultural machinery and transport of food. Maybe we should just focus on helping these disruptions do their job.
My money is on MOE. A simple process that is similar to how aluminum is made.
3:25 this is like the blast furnace
This is amazing in terms of manufacturing developments for the world!
Apart from MOE, there's also low-temperature electrolysis of iron ore.
Unlike MOE, it produces sponge iron intead of steel, but the technological risks seem to be much lower.
The potential huge advantage of electric processes is that you save the big (~50%) energy loss from producing hydrogen as well as the capex for the electrolysers and other hydrogen infrastructure.
Great episode! It did make me have a think, a rethink even. I've always considered steel production such a small part of the overall problem that is just moderately interesting at the moment, but as we've reached a point where power generation and road transport have developed far enough for making the rest of that transition mostly a "downhill journey", economically viable low carbon steel production remains a difficult challenge.
As steel production with current common techniques cause similar amounts of CO2 per unit of mass produced as use of fossil fuels it seemed so strange to me that steel production was such a big part of the problem, but apparently we use almost half as much steel as we use oil.
I think it will be difficult to transition the steel industry to really low carbon production, but there's also a silver lining, steel is easy to recycle. Recycling steel requires much less energy than producing it from ore. So, the "new" steel we need is the amount we want to increase current use with, plus whatever part we let turn into rust. We do recycle a lot of steel, and if we get even better at that, and place an international, and relevant, price on carbon emissions, using steel slightly more economically, we might be able to reduce the production of new steel quite significantly, without too much of those minor inconveniences some people find catastrophic.
Here in Sweden there's already been one public "debate" about how much green steel production would increase the price of electric power, as if we're going to make the shift entirely, soon, and without any consideration to the grid situation or much additional power generation. If they're planning to run the electrolysers at their convenience without any regard to situation on the grid, well, that would probably be problematic. If they can adjust their production somewhat to the situation in the grid, it might even reduce the need for energy storage. It's much easier to store iron ore and steel than it is to store the energy it takes to turn that ore into steel. Not running at full capacity means lost revenue, but when price of electricity varies between negative and absurdly high, some level of control of the power draw might be needed to make it feasible at all.
Natural Hydrogen… let’s have a think on that. See power points from our Geological Survey of Canada’s April 2024 workshop on this emerging topic focused on Natural Hydrogen resources in the earths crust. Hosted out of the GSC Calgary office.
Speaking of "Don't hold your breath", here in Australia the money men always found it too quick and easy to dig up the iron ore and coal, then load it on ships bound for Asia. Now though, because Europe is demanding more Green Steel, it works out to be more profitable to create the green hydrogen here, make the green steel here, and sell direct to Europe and the world.
The money men are mostly behind this plan, but I can't help wondering how long it will take to implement it.
I work at SMS group, the manufacturer of all the equipment in H2Green steel, the first plant in industrial scale that will be comissioned in 2025. If you want to talk with an expert on the topic, I can arrange that.
I'm hoping that our government here in Australia embrace the model recently proposed by "The Superpower Institute" to turn Australia into a green Superpower! We currently export heaps of Iron ore but can do sooooo much better if we make green steel out of it first to then export. We have HUGE renewable potential (mainly solar and wind) to be able to do this!
I will have to look into that. I worked at BHPs HBI plant. This used hydrogen for direct reduction, though made from natural gas. Pretty dangerous process, hopefully newer technologies improve this
I love fully charged I love their stuff!
A worthy topic. I have visited a number of steel making plants of the traditional variety and they were very impressive. However getting back to the topic here, my own country, the UK, has effectively sold all our iron and steel making operations to Indian and Chinese companies.
In order to wave the green flag, the government are subsidising Tata to shut down the blast furnaces and replace with electric arc furnaces.
At first glance, that would reduce carbon emissions (depending on the source of electricity), but they can only process pig iron and scrap iron/steel. They cannot produce pig iron which will then have to be imported from India and China which will increase production (and profits) from their blast furnaces. What a surprise.
As the production of hydrogen from electrolysis is very inefficient, There is unlikely to be enough electricity supply available to satisfy global demand for the hydrogen needed. It certainly does look like a workable system, but perhaps the answer to the electricity supply for hydrogen production would be small modular reactors at the steel plants.
I do not know how things will develop, but I predict that our government will announce that the UK is a "World Leader" in green technology (translation:- we don't make the stuff anymore but we are spending a lot of money subsidising foreign companies).
Thanks for the update as I often wonder just where did those technologies go and what are they up to today. I keep a close eye on Africa as they are on a path of learning to process their own raw materials and thus stop all the outsourcing of these raw materials. I keep an eye to see just how they are going about doing these things for if they start off green then all will be good in the new age to come but if not then it's back to square one I suppose.
Another good point because of the continents protected population very fast rise
These videos where you revisit old topics are really valuable.
I would love to see you mentioning the fact that the most important part is always to _reduce_ our consumption of material inputs and production of waste outputs. 'Green' steel sounds great but the most effective thing is to simply use less.
Good to see some progress. I hope you can do one on concrete, unless you have done one already that I have missed?
Steel production has the possibility of migrating to be a supply following industry, because it is a batch process and storage of steel is feasible. So you could store hydrogen on a daily basis to deal with nightly fluctuation in PV solar, and idle capacity for a few weeks if you had a wind drought in a particular year. This might work if folks implement tariffs on steel based on carbon used in manufacturing, to drive Chinese steel down in the market. Using hydropower to produce steel doesn't make sense - you should be using it to produce fertilizer since the current production process for ammonia requires consistent steady state operation.
The trick is to have an internationally recognized carbon tax agreed to.
That is such a simple measure that would strongly incentivise reduction of carbon emissions. But of course, there would be losers, and they seem to have big bucks at stake, so...
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@@gregbailey45 That is a trick that is not going to succeed, since neither China, India, or the USA will go for it. However a tariff on effectively Chinese steel would appeal to both the USA and Europe.
And "carbon taxes" should just be relative to whatever the zero/low carbon alternative is. In the case of steel, they would pay some percentage of the difference between the current methods and the zero carbon methods, and that percentage would grow over time until it eventually reaches 100%. This works doubly well, because not only does it encourage doing more of the zero carbon stuff, but it also further encourages them to increase the efficiency of the zero carbon stuff, since the closer they get to price parity, the less they pay too.
Check out Calix's Zesty process developed in Australia, early days but the initial testing has been positive. It addresses iron ore fines.
At first glance, it looks like this has potential, and seems like a much better use of green hydrogen than fuel for vehicles. That said, the cost premium over conventional steel is still a concern, and as long as it's there, most companies will inevitably choose to just pump CO2 into the atmosphere, rather than pay it. Yes, a 20% premium is far cheaper than CCS, but it's still more costly than hiring lobbyists and/or supporting political parties who don't care about the climate, to prevent regulations that tax/ban the dirty method.
That said, if the cost premium of clean steel is mostly driving by the cost of green hydrogen production itself, rather than actual elements of the steelmaking, there is hope that it might someday go away.
Hey Dave, thanks for this interesting and enjoyable review of green steel.
However, I actually don’t agree that China is the largest elephant in the room. It is the energy consumption. The amount of electric energy requieed for all this electrolysis is absolutely rediculous. From what I understand on the order of a third of the total national swedish production, and there are no real plans to reach such capacities in Sweden.
It's great to see actual progress on this issue over the last few years. I know it isn't much now, but creating a sustainable commercially-viable technology or process is often the hardest hurdle, while increasing market adoption is easier. What would really help is governmental support, but we'll have to wait and see for that.
Btw, DCC is indeed an immature technology that isn't helping much at the moment, but why can't carbon capture be used directly on waste gases from the steel-making process? The sheer air pressure from an active process like this should provide a pressure differential that can help power the process, and the CO2 is in a high concentration, enabling more effective carbon absorption....?
Always good to check if things are economically viable. It's not a real breakthrough if it doesn't really happen.
Fortescue also has some kind of iron electrolysis experiment going on that is apparently at low temperature.
Hydrogen steel has been around since forever, this stuff was covered in 50 years old Soviet textbooks on metallurgy. They powered it with nuclear evergy though.