Summary reader response draft #2
The article “How green steel made with electricity could clean up dirty industry”, written by Crownhart (2022), explores an alternative steel manufacturing method called green steel and its functions. With the steel industry producing 10% of the world’s carbon emission, major changes are needed to lower down the numbers, hence the invention of green steel. This new method relies on electricity to heat up a cell filled mixture of dissolved iron dioxide to about 1600 degrees Celsius to extract impurities and emit oxygen gas. According to Borkar (2022), Green steel is a ‘carbon-free’ steel which need not require fossil fuels during its manufacturing process, instead it uses hydrogen as replacement.
After reading more about green
steel, I am for the innovation of green steel. Many world leaders are aiming to
reach the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Therefore, through decarbonizing
steel with the usage of technology as well as utilizing renewable source like
hydrogen, green steel is a step forward into reaching that goal despite a few
setbacks like high production cost.
The main function of green steel
is to decarbonize steel industry. With regular steel, a blast
furnace is required to react coal-derived materials, like coke and iron ore
together, leaving behind liquid iron to form the steel rod we all know.
However, through this process, carbon and oxygen would react hence emitting
carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. When compared to regular steel, it utilizes
electricity and hydrogen instead of coke to heat up the material forming a hot
oxide ‘soup’, and allowing molten iron to gather at the bottom and in return
emitting oxygen (Crownheart, 2022).
Currently, with an increasing
demand for steel, this could potentially increase the world’s carbon emission
overtime, hence green steel is beneficial in terms of achieving the global
efforts of “meeting net zero emissions by 2050” (Borkar, 2022).
Secondly, utilizing renewable
sources, as mentioned in “How ‘green hydrogen’ could make ‘green steel’ real”,
written by Bloomberg Quicktake (2019), hydrogen plays a huge part in green
steel production, it is able to revert the process used in fuel cells whereby
hydrogen and oxygen reacts and in turn produces water and electricity. By
producing electrolysis, it removes carbon dioxide through splitting of natural
gas modules. Therefore, instead of constantly burning coal in the original
steel manufacturing process, hydrogen can be replaced. Hydrogen is a renewable
resource which can be easily replenished when it is depleting. But when it
comes to coal, it is not renewable, and is a fast-depleting source with about
18.2 billion tonnes left.
Therefore, green steel is able
to kill two birds with one stone, by reducing carbon emission as well as
utilizing a “constant source of renewable energy” (Borkar, 2022) like hydrogen
as an option for manufacturing steel, compared to usage of coke/coal which is a
non-renewable resource.
Despite all the benefits, the
reality is manufacturing green steel is expensive, through rough estimation, cost
of production for hydrogen-based steel is about 20% to 30% higher than steel.
With production cost corresponding to carbon prices, carbon steel roughly
costing $70 to $100/tCO2 we can estimate the cost for
hydrogen-based steel to be at $91 to $130 (Blank, 2019).
We also need to consider the
cost-completive market, with hydrogen being the ‘go-to’ solution in substituting
fossil fuels, there is going to be an increase in demand for green hydrogen
production as well as increase in cost for hydrogen production. As of right now,
the cost of renewable hydrogen is $3.70/kg, in order to compete with the
present steel making prices, the cost needs drop to around $1/kg (Lea, 2022).
Hence, for green steel to compete in the steel industry, the cost needs to drop
by more than 50% to compete with regular steel(Wood Mackenzie, 2022). Alternative
methods would also be taken into consideration, like cheap labour, finance and
advanced technology to expedite the chances of competing in the steel industry
(Borkar, 2022).
Going forward, green steel is an
opportunity for the steel industry to reach their goal for net zero emissions
by 2050. There will be a few setbacks that’s need to be discussed like reducing
production cost to increase the chances of allowing green steel to be a
contender in the steel industry. Overall, by improving current technologies to decarbonize
steel and having a large quantity of hydrogen, a future can be seen for green
steel.
Borkar, V. (2022, June 09).
Green steel: How one of the world’s most emission intensive industry plans to
decarbonize.
https://www.aranca.com/knowledge-library/articles/business-research/green-steel-how-one-of-the-worlds-most-emission-intensive-industry-plans-to-decarbonize#:~:text=The%20manufacture%20of%20green%20steel,dioxide%20per%20ton%20of%20steel.&text=Green%20steel%20has%20the%20potential,constant%20source%20of%20renewable%20energy.
Blank, T.K. (2019, September). The disruptive potential of
green steel.
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/green-steel-insight-brief.pdf
Bloomberg QuickTake. (2019, December 03). How ‘green
hydrogen’ could make ‘green steel’ real.
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/how-green-hydrogen-could-make-green-steel-real/
Crownhart, C. (2022, June 28). How green steel made with
electricity could clean up a dirty industry.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/28/1055027/green-steel-electricity-boston-metal/
Lea, A. (2022, June 10). Green steel needs hydrogen prices
below $2/kg.
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2340240-green-steel-needs-hydrogen-price-below-2kg
Wood Mackenzie. (2022, July 19). Will green steel be cost
competitive by 2035?.
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