“Green Steel” may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s a phrase you’re sure to hear a lot more in the years to come.
The world’s first carbon-free steel was delivered to Sweden by truck manufacturer AB Volvo on Wednesday.
It’s just a test and certainly a bit of a media ploy, but Volvo says it has ordered the materials to begin production of a new fleet of green steel vehicles.
According to SSAB, the Swedish steelmaker responsible for green steel, the ribbon-cutting event is an “important step towards a completely fossil-free value chain, from mine to finished steel.”
HYBRIT, or Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology, was made possible by a joint venture between SSAB, the public company Vattenfall and the government mining company LKAB.
It is one of the first projects in the world to try to use renewable hydrogen to produce green steel at a pilot plant in the northern city of Luleå, and it seems to be successful.
By 2026, the hope is to show what HYBRIT can do on an industrial scale and given that SSAB currently produces 10% of Sweden’s carbon emissions on its own, the consequences of these can be huge.
“The world’s first fossil-free steel not only represents a breakthrough for SSAB, but it represents proof that it is possible to make the transition and significantly reduce the global carbon footprint of the steel industry,” said Martin Lindqvist, President and CEO of SSAB in a recent announcement.
“We hope this inspires others to want to accelerate the green transition. Industry and especially the steel industry are creating big emissions, but they are also an important part of the solution.”
Like cement, steel is one of those materials that you don’t really notice is around you until you start looking for it. Then you’ll find it’s almost everywhere: it’s your cutlery-shaped dinner table, the hill wind turbines, the bridges you cross every day, the buildings you enter, the cars you drive, the cans of food you buy .
It also requires a lot of energy to do it. On average, each ton of steel requires approximately two tons of carbon dioxide globally. Each year, steel production accounts for more than 7 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is slightly higher than the emissions of all cars in the world.
By 2050, the steel industry is only on track to absorb 50 percent of the carbon budget needed to keep warming at 1.5 ° C, which means it’s a good place to start when it comes to reducing our emissions.
Although steel has one of the highest recycling rates in the world, new steel will have to be forged to meet demand. If we achieve this in a more environmentally friendly way, we could greatly incur our climate goals.
Today, the vast majority of steel is made in a blast furnace, often through a process that depends on coal and leads to CO2 emissions. Hydrogen can be introduced into this process to reduce these emissions.
Already, hydrogen energy is used to power electricity and vehicles in some parts of the world, but most of the hydrogen used in oil refining and chemical production comes from fossil fuels. In the United States, hydrogen comes primarily from natural gas.
All of these methods produce emissions, but there are greener alternatives. Hydrogen can also be made from clean energy. If electricity from wind turbines or solar panels splits hydrogen from water, its energy can be used to reduce iron ore to metallic iron without producing any carbon emissions.
Although, despite being much cheaper over the years, this process to produce “green hydrogen” is still many times more expensive than using fossil fuels or natural gas.
This cost has been a barrier for many nations. In Australia, for example, the government recently rejected an application to build the world’s largest hydrogen and ammonium plant.
However, in 2019, the EU set itself the goal of becoming a neutral climate by 2050. To achieve this, 23 hydrogen steel projects are already underway or are about to start production in various countries.
In the coming years, these companies could sell hundreds of thousands of tons of green steel made without fossil fuels.
HYBRIT green steel is simply the first to be delivered, but it may not be the first to hit the market. H2 Green Steel, another company based in Sweden, plans to build a renewable hydrogen plant and manufacture green steel by 2024.
In the United States, President Biden has promised to reduce the cost of green hydrogen so that it can compete with natural gas.
But if Europe has green steel available for purchase in the next five years, it will certainly not be long before other nations demand it.
“By industrializing this technology in the future and making the transition to industrial-scale sponge production, we will allow the steel industry to make the transition,” says Jan Moström, President and CEO of LKAB.
“That’s the best we can do together for the weather.”