One thing I've been sort of curious about with non-carbothermal iron ore reduction is whether it could bring back wrought iron. Wrought iron disappeared around the 1960s due to high production costs — the crude product contains carbon, which must be removed by working — but iron produced with hydrogen or electricity will not have a chance to absorb carbon like this. There's more to it than that — you have to achieve a particular grain structure and fibrous silicate inclusions. But the corrosion resistance is nice — some wrought iron fencing in the highly corrosive atmosphere of New Orleans persists to this day. One paper reported that the corrosion resistance is better than mild steel but lower than weathering steel — but without creating the stains we associate with weathering steel:
The last paragraph of this article sums up a trend I keep seeing in this industry I don't like:
> But while decarbonizing heavy industry is a good thing, the folks behind this project are not my favorites. Lightsource BP is a joint venture between the steel company EVRAZ and the energy giant BP, as well as the utility giant Xcel Energy, which will provide the steel mill with fixed electricity rates through 2041. BP and Xcel wouldn’t exactly be my top choices to control the energy of the future, what with both companies’ histories of spewing out carbon emissions, greenwashing their polluting business plans, and screwing over workers. I personally don’t think these kinds of companies should get to make big profits on solar power or use it to paper over their destructive legacies. But hey, maybe that’s just me!
The alternative to this is what? Complete newcomers to the industry attempting to execute multi-million or -billion dollar projects? Anyone in an existing carbon-intensive industry is going to have a "climate unfriendly" reputation because they operate in a "climate unfriendly" industry. Attempting to block existing players in the industry from decarbonizing seems counterproductive.
But most steel is already being recycled, at least in the US, according to the US Geological Surveys [1]
> Recycling rates, which fluctuate annually, were estimated to be 98% for structural steel from construction, 88% for appliances, 71% for rebar and reinforcement steel, and 70% for steel packaging. The recycling rates for appliance, can, and construction steel are expected to increase in the United States and in emerging industrial countries at an even greater rate. Public interest in recycling continues, and recycling is becoming more profitable and convenient as environmental regulations for primary production increase.
The following 2 statements can (and are) true simultaneously: 1. most steel is recycled 2. most produced steel comes from iron ore, and not from scrap steel.
Maybe. A lot of grades of steel cannot be made from scrap metal. At some point, you have to be able to turn iron rust in new steel, even if that rust comes from old steel.
"Europe’s steelmakers have one more strong incentive to get decarbonising. Under the eu emissions-trading system, they are currently awarded 80% of their allowances for CO2 emissions free of charge in order to remain competitive with dirtier producers in places like China and India. Over the next ten years the eu will phase out these freebies and replace them with a carbon tariff on dirty imports. If eu steelmakers stay grey, calculates Morgan Stanley, their profits could sink by up to 70%."
> (All in favour of it, just everyone has to play along)
It's worth doing even if others don't. Especially for the wealthy countries -- the poor countries emit relatively little carbon per capita.
The new energy transition is from op ex to cap ex. Looks expensive in the short term but a big win in the medium and long term. Plus you get the benefit of reduced emissions. Sure, other people do, but even if you're selfish it's a good deal.
Wow, China's per capita emissions were, in 2018, ahead of Israel, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Denmark, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Portugal, Turkey, France, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Latvia, Romania...the list they're behind may be shorter [1].
I think those numbers lump the emissions from goods produced in china and exported to other countries in with the emissions from domestic consumption. So they are inflated by China's vast exports. Yet even if you use consumption based emissions, China was around Spain's numbers in 2016 and by now probably has overtaken quite a few of the European countries.
Like whats the alternative: get into an arms race to see who can boil the oceans fastest? Oh but we'll make slightly more money than India from steel manufacturing so it will definitely be worth it?
The climate doesn’t care about per capita. The developing world has the majority of the population, so the majority of additional CO2 will be coming from there.
Fun way to look at it, you at the north give us a lot of planned obsolence goods in exchange for our monies. North even gets into politics pushing developing countries infrastructure towards oil economies. and then, we consume what you led us to, and suddenly we're the bad guys.
In effect you‘re saying that countries that are poor today must not be allowed to reach the level of western countries. I don‘t have a good word for it but that‘s a very specific worldview.
If we believe that every country has the right to develop, than the poorest countries emission will increase. Better technology will flatten that increase but those are expensive. Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
Arguably, developing countries nowadays have a _massive_ advantage in that they could industrialise in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the human suffering developed countries went through _because_ of greentech.
Like, instead of committing millions of your citizens to coal mining with picks and steam-powered lifts, you can just buy or produce turbines and solar panels, put them up and enjoy the benefits of electrification. Worst case, you build cheap has turbines and buy or pump LNG.
> In effect you‘re saying that countries that are poor today must not be allowed to reach the level of western countries. I don‘t have a good word for it but that‘s a very specific worldview.
Being charitable, it’d clearly be an environmental disaster if everyone in the world consumed oil at the per capita level of OECD countries. I imagine global oil consumption would multiply manyfold.
> Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
I too used to think this, but it seems like most of the progress in solar has come from China. Similar with nuclear power plants.
From my understanding, China's implementation rate for solar was still quite low. Would that not support the point that they're progressing the tech to sell to other countries?
Implementaion rate for solar is low but growing fast everywhere, but China is leading in production, deployment and generation beating the USA and EU combined.
> China was responsible for about 38% of solar PV generation growth in 2021, thanks to large capacity additions in 2020 and 2021. The second largest generation growth (17% share of the total) was recorded in the United States, and third largest in the European Union (10%).
China doesn't have a great geography for solar. Towards the East, it's either too humid or too far North to reap the full benefits of solar panel, and out West there aren't the population centres to make big differences.
So yeah, I'm guessing it's mostly to sell to countries with better sar geographies, especially the US and Australia.
I'm not saying that. I think countries should do what they need to do and hopefully we can figure out how to deal with climate change together. I doubt we keep warming below 2.5 degrees.
I wonder if at some point the EU should block the usage of dirty steel and only authorize carbon neutral steel. This would provide a great incentive for other countries to also invest in clean alternative.
> The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will apply to imports across several sectors, including steel and aluminum, forcing them to respect EU environmental standards. It will come into effect in 2026 or 2027.
I think that's a great idea and could be applied to a lot of industries with large offshore carbon footprints. Maybe tariffs or quota limits that are linked to carbon?
I don't know specifically, I was told that the free market is able to solve any problem when left alone.
Whenever there is a discussion about the lack of affordable housing I am told that what we need is less regulations so that the free market can take care of it. I wonder why it shouldn't be the same for environmental issues since the free market is so powerful.
On a long enough time scale though it actually does. Societies which fail to be sustainable “go out of business”. Eventually, societies which achieve sustainability will “remain in business”. We are hoping to shortcut this market process, for obvious reasons.
If you didnt get it I am playing the idiot. It's the only way I can criticize the holy free market without being insta-flagged. If I openly joke on it I'm flagged for causing a flamewar. If I argue against it in honesty I get downvoted to hell. The only way left to speak about the free market as someone who doesn't believe in it is to play the idiot, so that I can prove the absurdity of the argument.
There are Wikipedia articles for 2015 Indian heat wave (2,500 dead), 2016 heat wave, 2019 heat wave, 2022 heat wave, and the current ongoing 2023 heat wave.
2021 Henan flood killed hundreds and forced evacuation of 800k people.
Imagine what you want, but nobody's laughing any more.
Except that isn’t true anymore. The tight coupling between economic development and CO2 emissions has been broken, and there’s no longer any reason to believe that high CO2 output industry is best way for developing countries to improve their standards of living.
The west might have burned its way to economic development, but developing nations are forging their own paths, and hydrocarbons aren’t the industrial requirement they used to be, or even the most economical way to producing energy. Choosing “green” alternatives also means choosing alternatives that faster and easier to deploy, work incredibly well in decentralised systems, and are often cheaper and easier to repair.
I don't know the solution because the problem is huge, but my strong suspicion is that focusing on industrial efficiency is the largest needle we can move. Specifically, making it economically sensible to use green technologies in developing countries.
They've made commitments, at least enough to convince Europe and the US that they are working on it... but whether they will spend more than $5.20 on enforcement, I doubt. Far more fun and strategic to let the US and EU do what they do and shout "We're with you!" from the sidelines. China also makes 80% of the world's solar panels, so we shouldn't pretend that China convincing the US to decarbonize doesn't have some pretty nice business interest in selling them to us - even though it is only 3.5% of their energy generation over there.
Kind of like how China is a WTO member, claims to support Copyright, upholds Patent Law, and respects Intellectual Property. They also respect their Constitution, including the provisions for Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech, and have an independent Supreme Court to enforce checks-and-balances on their President. They also have a Functioning Democracy with 8 other political parties. Anyone who has actually interacted with them in any of those fields...
> Wenbo He, secretary of the Party Committee and executive chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), spoke about China’s green steel plans at the integration conference of green steel, green energy and green finance industries on March 2
> Western Australia is in the running to host a green steel plant bankrolled by the world’s biggest steel maker, China Baowu Group.
> During talks with Trade Minister Don Farrell in Beijing, company chairman Chen Dorong said the availability of clean energy and ore made Western Australia ideal as a site for the new facility.
> The biggest buyer of Australian iron ore wants to decarbonise operations but is also eyeing West Africa, South America and Saudi Arabia as alternatives.
The largest resource companies are making commitments they regret, but are now tied to public statements and shareholders to meet:
Rio Tinto boss says he regrets ambitious emissions targets
> Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm has admitted he regrets the company’s ambitious emission reduction targets, doubling down on comments about the feasibility of moving to renewable energy at the pace expected.
> “There have been a lot of strong statements made [about the energy transition], but I don’t think people have realised and accounted for the process of getting the land, the cultural clearings and then executing the project,” Stausholm told a business breakfast in Perth on Friday.
This is either a joke or you don't know how your tools are made. I'm hoping it's the former.
The carbon in the steel serves two purposes. One, it alters the structure of the final steel. Too much, or too little and the metal doesn't behave right, so it's not fit for purpose. Two, it's a sacrificial reducer that keeps any stray oxygen from eating the metal during the heat and cool cycles (most of us call hot oxidation 'burning').
You're still going to need a little carbon to get the steel right and maybe to help catch a few stray oxygen atoms, but if you can heat the metal with something other than coal/charcoal, and you can provide another reducing agent, then you don't have to bathe the entire process in carbon. You'd just need enough to get the crystalline structure right, and perhaps a margin of error. And that sort of fraction could come from renewable resources.
Safire plasma, which forms self-containing magnetic fields and is a fusion reaction that can stay lit pretty much indefinitely with no artificial magnet infrastructure (like the crappy Tokomak) renders the CO2 narrative moot.
Only in the absurd world of carbon credits is this required - something that is nearly impossible to do any other way - that contributes practically nothing to global CO2 vs the incredible benefit to society it proffers - has to stop. Why?
decarbonizing the industrial supply chains is pretty crucial because a lot of the other green infrastructure that's going to be needed to be built around the world is going to be less effective otherwise. If your green tech needs to run for years to simply claw back what was required to make it that is a huge issue.
> If your green tech needs to run for years to simply claw back what was required to make it that is a huge issue.
An engineering mind would never prefer high risk authoritarian enforcement of theoretical solutions to solve a problem. You are reducing diversity to shoot yourself in the foot
> Only in the absurd world of carbon credits is this required - something that is nearly impossible to do any other way - that contributes practically nothing to global CO2 vs the incredible benefit to society it proffers - has to stop. Why?
Every individual action "contributes practically nothing to global CO2", so with this argument, nothing should ever be done.
But this is a strawman argument regardless: globally, steelmaking contributes ~11% of direct CO2 emissions[1]. Other countries[2] are progressing towards decarbonization. Per this very article, Europe will subsidize initially (progressively replacing subsidization with import tariffs over the next decade). And the whole point of all of this is to "internalize the externalities" - recognize that carbon emissions aren't free: Steel is incredibly emissions intensive, and free emissions lead it to be used in areas where other materials would be better from an emissions perspective.
Not charging levies and taxes is not providing a subsidy.
These things push up costs of living, costs of housing, costs of doing business - at a time when such artificial costs are presenting an existential threat to our way of life.
It's all laughably irrelevant anyway. In 2021 China estimated >1,000 million tonnes of steel (and that doesn't count the steel they finance in other countries). EU: 152 million.
> And the whole point of all of this is to "internalize the externalities"
This childishly reductive paradigm of victimhood in relation to every macro and microscopic element of western life is a noose around our necks.
>These things push up costs of living, costs of housing, costs of doing business - at a time when such artificial costs are presenting an existential threat to our way of life.
There is a part of the balance sheet that you aren't looking at that is presenting an existential threat. A higher bill for energy isn't an existential risk.
>This childishly reductive paradigm of victimhood in relation to every macro and microscopic element of western life is a noose around our necks.
It's called actions having consequences. If costs and benefits aren't properly accounted for, then you get market failure.
Maybe building a country below sea level on reclaimed land using very clever technology wasn't a brilliant long term strategy? What that has to do with CO2 emissions I don't know
The sooner that people realize that the climate is going to change regardless of what humanity does the better off we will be. When the reality sinks in maybe we can put our efforts into adapting. Might have a chance that way.
The world had a chance to keep climate change under the belt in the 80s with nuclear energy, but unscentific enviromentalists pushed hard against it and helped to kill the nuclear industry in most of the world before it reached maturity/economies of scales (like modular reactors today). Now, the trillions of $ should be better spend adapting our societies to climate changes instead of playing Don Chisciotte
I read in places their are feedback loops that will be impossible to reverse once they start. If that’s true or not I don’t know. My simple mind says we should start with additional dams and develop huge desalinization plants. If we have water we’ll be okay.
On the flip side there is an unstable criminal with his finger on the WW3 button. When he’s done we might need some of that global warming.
https://archive.ph/tzEcD