Global Climate Change Science News

[JimC]

Eventually, green hydrogen could replace carbon as a reducing agent in the smelting of iron ore. Probably a fair way off, though...

[macdoc]

More likely electric blast furnaces - green hydrogen are to do in scale and hard to transport.

Significant shift’ away from coal as most new steelmaking is now electric
18.07.24

https://www.carbonbrief.org/significant ... w-electric

[JimC]

Electric arc furnaces are for processing iron into steel, and sure, they can and should be done using renewable electricity. However, iron ore is mostly iron oxide. To remove the oxygen atoms, you need a reducing agent to grab the oxygen. Presently, the agent is the carbon in coking coal, with the oxygen emerging as carbon dioxide. But, the chemistry works just as well if hydrogen is the reducing agent, with the oxygen removed as H2O...

[Brian Peacock]

The UKs last blast furnace was taken into public ownership last year. The private consortium who owned it threatened to turn it off if the govt didn't clear its debts, most of which were generated by borrowing on the asset to pay dividends. When you turn a blast furnace of you effectively kill it.

Building new arc furnaces to recycle the huge amount of scrap steel we export (and then reimport as products) could narrow what analysts call the 'steel gap' and help make growing domestic renewable energy infrastructure cheaper and more secure.

Taxpayer-owned steel faces ticking clock to capture Britain's green steel boom

...
New research from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), drawing on analysis conducted by CBI Economics, finds the UK already generates enough scrap steel to support a significant expansion of domestic steelmaking, but currently exports around 75% (8 million tonnes) of that scrap steel each year because it lacks sufficient recycling capacity.

Much of that material is exported overseas to countries such as Türkiye, where electric arc furnaces recycle it into new steel, before some finished steel products are sold back into the UK – taking potential jobs, investment and economic activity with them.

...

UK steel demand is projected to grow by 54% from 9.1 million tonnes in 2025 to 14 million tonnes by 2050, driven by housebuilding, offshore wind deployment, electricity network upgrades and rising demand from automotive manufacturers seeking low-carbon steel. The next few years are a key time for growth, with steel demand from electricity infrastructure alone projected to grow by around 12% per year, on average, to 2050...