Tlast week, a Swedish company announced that it had delivered carbon-free steel to a world-first customer. It’s a big step in the race to clean up one of the most carbon-intensive activities on Earth.
Wednesday, HYBRIT, an association between the steel company SSAB, the state-owned mining company LKAB and the public company Vattenfall, said it delivered clean steel a Swedish Volvo car manufacturer. This was just a test, but the company plans to increase production on a commercial scale by 2026.
“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 said in a statement.
Making steel is notoriously difficult decarbonize. Most production depends on coal as a raw material and also as a fuel. HYBRIT has been working to build if clean steel productionnce was formed five years ago using renewable energy to produce hydrogen and then combine it with iron ore to create a porous material called sponge iron. Last year he began testing the process, which had only been demonstrated on a laboratory scale. Last June, the company announced that it had used this process successfully in one pilot scale. Volvo plans to experiment with the initial lot of green steel manufacturer prototypes of vehicles and parts, according to the Guardian.
In a sea of new technologies created to deal with the climate crisis, this breakthrough is actually big news. The world relies on steel to make innumerable goods: cars, ships for buildings, surgical materials, kitchen cutlery, so to speak. Seconds to the International Energy Agency, the steel sector is responsible for 2.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, accounting for 8% of all global energy demand and 7% of energy-related carbon emissions. If production were a country, it would rank as the fourth largest carbon pollutant on Earth, between the European Union and India. Jof HYBRIT can create steel without all this pollution, this means that other entities can do the same. And that has to happen fast.
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To achieve the goal of the 1.5 degree Paris agreement Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) will require reduced emissions more than 7% each year this decade. The world is already lagging behind this pace. Although he still has to do things like this final exploration and use of fossil fuels, accelerating green steel production beyond a company could do the same it helps to get things back. Seeing so many state-owned companies involved is also a reminder that strong political and government support is vital to accelerating the transition.