US company gets $120 million boost to make 'green steel'

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By ED DAVEY today

The manufacture of “green steel” moved one step closer to reality Friday as Massachusetts-based Boston Metal announced a $120 million investment from the world’s second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.

Boston Metal will use the injection of funds to expand production at a pilot plant in Woburn, near Boston, and help launch commercial production in Brazil. The company uses renewable electricity to convert iron ore into steel.

Steel is one of the world’s dirtiest heavy industries. Three-quarters of world production uses a traditional method that burns through train loads of coal to heat the furnaces and drive the reaction that releases pure iron from ore.

Making steel releases more climate-warming carbon dioxide than any other industry, according to the International Energy Agency — about 8% of worldwide emissions. Many companies are working on alternatives.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/production-facilities-climate-and-environment-business-d095684168e9f6a2634ee9316007f994

[Warpy]

1. Interesting. Small scale electric foundries have been in use for years

mostly as back yard foundries for hobbyists. Large furnaces capable of smelting ore use electric arc power to do it. They'll still most likely use coke from coal to supply the carbon for the steel, but it will still be cleaner than what they're doing now.

It's my understanding that the big bauxite smelter in northwest Iceland is electric, powered by geothermal steam, the "waste" steam used to heat houses and other businesses. It's such a cheap process there that it makes sense to ship the ore up there and ship the refined aluminum out. The ready supply of steam for electricity makes it so much cheaper than dirty smelting operations that shipping costs become negligible.

Here's an article about a green steel plant in operation, https://www.gmh-gruppe.de/de-en/gmh-gruppe/what-we-do/newsroom/news/green-steel-from-the-electric-arc-furnace.html They're going to have more scrap iron than they know what to do with once the Ukraine war is over and the Russian hulks get towed off.

[certainot]

4. perhaps you can answer this - does making high strength steels produce more carbon dioxide?

[Warpy]

6. You have to factor in the fossil fuels used in "cooking" the coal

to make coke, which is pretty pure carbon plus byproducts that are used for things from medications to dyes for clothing. There is no way making high strength steel is ever going to be a purely green process, but it can be better than it has been.

Sometimes mitigation is the best you can do.

Or was that question purely rhetorical?

[certainot]

8. i saw something about printing shape in thin strong metals to replace heavy soft metals to reduce

weight in transportation. shaping it with bistable domes or indentations to force the thinner stronger metals into desired shape with less bounce back usually problematic with thin stronger metals

[OneCrazyDiamond]

2. From the article

In the United States, most steel is already cleaner, because it is made by melting down old steel, for example junked cars. That can be done in electric kilns and emits a fraction of the climate-changing gases as virgin steel production.



Reuse before recycling is better than new for the environment.

Best is reduce usage.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. The production of metal by electrolysis is very expensive, which is why aluminum is 90% recycled.

Without that established recycling process, the cost of aluminum would be prohibitive for many applications. Of course, steel can be recycled, and much is. But there's a catch.

Unfortunately, the processing of steel requires high temperatures and frequently slow, controlled cooling, which makes heat recapture difficult. I'm sure the bean-counters in industry have looked at all this, but I'm a little skeptical that the potential for improvement will be as great as in other industries.

[FredGarvin]

5. Taxpayer dollars once again

funding garbage grants.

Smelting iron requires enormous amounts of fuel.

Brazil has forests...

[former9thward]

9. Try again.

It is not taxpayer money. It is money from a steel company, Arcelor Mittal, as the article states.

[Archae]

7. Reminds me of the "Great Leap Forward..."

When Mao Zedong told everyone in Red China to make steel.

Didn't quite work out too well...