Steel producers are under increasing pressure to reduce their environmental impact and contribute to the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
For hundreds of years, blazing blast furnaces have forged steel used in automobiles, trains, bridges, and skyscrapers, using coking coal as fuel.
Coal-fired smoke, on the other hand, is a major source of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that is causing climate change.
According to the World Steel Association, each metric ton of steel produced in 2020 released nearly twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (1.8 tons). In 2020, total direct emissions from steel production were estimated to be around 2.6 billion tons, accounting for roughly 7% of global CO2 emissions.
Due to the furnaces, it operates at mills like the one in the northern town of Lulea, a single business, steel giant SSAB, contributes to nearly 10% of Sweden’s emissions.
However, a high-tech pilot plant not far away is attempting to drastically cut carbon emissions associated with steel manufacturing by diverting some of that process away from using coking coal and toward burning hydrogen created with renewable energy.
HYBRIT, or Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology, is a 2016 joint venture between SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall, a Swedish state-owned electricity corporation.
“The cost of renewable energy, or fossil-free energy, had dropped considerably, and you had a rising awareness and the Paris Agreement at the same time.” According to Mikael Nordlander, Vattenfall’s head of industrial decarbonization, the goal in 2015 was to cut world emissions.
“We concluded that with this electricity coming from fossil-free sources, we might have a chance now to outcompete the direct usage of fossil fuels in industry,” He Added.
The factory made its maiden commercial supply last year. Cleaner steel is required by European carmakers that have pledged to drastically reduce their emissions. Volvo Group, which is controlled by Chinese investors, was the first carmaker to work with HYBRIT.
Steel, according to Kerstin Enochsson, is a “significant contributor” to their cars’ carbon footprint, accounting for 20 to 35 percent.
“As an electric enterprise, we can’t just focus on reducing exhaust emissions. “We also need to concentrate on the car itself,” she added.
Demand from other companies, such as Volkswagen, is also indicating that green steel is in high demand. Steel producers in Europe have declared ambitions to increase the production of coal-free steel.
About HYBRIT
The HYBRIT method intends to replace coking coal with hydrogen and renewable electricity in the production of ore-based steel.
It starts with brown-tinged iron ore pellets that react with hydrogen gas to form ball-shaped “sponge iron,” which gets its name from the pores that remain after the oxygen is removed. After that, the material is melted in an electric furnace.
The procedure creates no CO2 if the hydrogen is also produced with renewable energy.
“We receive iron, but then we get water vapor instead,” says the narrator Martin Pei, SSAB’s chief technology officer, stated. In the process, water vapor can be condensed, recirculated, and reused.
“We’ve truly gotten to the bottom of the carbon dioxide emissions from steel production,” he remarked.
Steel is a recyclable resource, but demand for the alloy is likely to rise in the future years as society strives to transform itself through the construction of wind turbines, solar plants, power transmission lines, and new electric vehicles.
“Steel is an excellent building material. Steel may also be recycled multiple times,” Pei explained. “Steel can be reused an infinite number of times.”
“The main issue right now is that the current method of producing steel from iron ore generates too much CO2,” he explained.
The European Union is aiming to reduce overall CO2 emissions in the 27-nation bloc by 55 percent by the end of this decade, compared to 1990 levels. Making corporations pay for their CO2 emissions and encouraging the switch to low-carbon alternatives are also part of this endeavor.
Sweden’s steel industry has set a goal of operating “fossil-free” by 2045. SSAB announced in January that by the end of the decade, it will have largely eliminated carbon dioxide emissions from its steel-making processes.
“The firms are well aware of their capabilities and limitations in present processes, and they recognize that they need to take action,” said Helen Axelsson, director of energy and environment at Jernkontoret, the Swedish steel makers’ association.
However, the World Steel Association estimates that over 70% of worldwide steel production takes place in Asia, where steelmakers do not have access to the same quantities of old scrap steel as countries that have been industrialized for longer periods of time. Another explanation for the global south’s higher average emissions per ton of steel is because of this.
The large amounts of renewable electricity required to generate hydrogen and cleaner steel, according to Filip Johnsson, an energy technology professor at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, could make rolling out the HYBRIT process problematic in other regions of the world.
“I’d say the biggest problem is getting a lot of electricity and providing it on a consistent basis,” he said.
The Lulea pilot plant is still a research facility that has only produced a few hundred tons thus far. By 2026, a larger demonstration plant will be built and commercial deliveries will commence.
Published By :- Shubham Agarwal
Edited By :- Kritika Kashyap
