Summary reader response draft #3
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 benefits. With the steel industry producing 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, major changes are needed to lower 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, extract impurities, and emit oxygen gas.
By converting all of the global blast furnace steel
production to Boston Metal’s MOE, an electricity-powered process, through rough
estimation, it requires 5,000 terawatt-hours of electricity to produce green
steel, which is about 20% of global power consumption in 2018 (23,536
terawatt-hours). If green steel manufacturing progresses, converting from blast
furnace to electricity is simply shifting one source of emissions to another
(Crownhart, 2022).
After extensive research, I am in favour of the
innovation of green steel. Many world leaders are aiming to reach the goal of
net zero emissions by 2050 by reducing the carbon emissions in different
industries. Through the use of decarbonized steel made from technology and
electricity as well as utilizing renewable sources like hydrogen, green steel
is a step forward in reaching the net zero carbon emission goal, despite a few
setbacks like high production costs and a competitive steel industry market.
The first advantage of green steel is its ability
to decarbonize the steel industry. A blast furnace is required during regular
steel manufacturing. When coal-derived materials, such as coal, are combined
with iron ore, liquid iron is produced, which is then used to make steel rod.
Through this process, carbon and oxygen would react, thereby emitting carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere. When compared to regular steel, green steel uses
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).
With an increasing demand for steel, the use of
green steel has an advantage in reducing carbon emissions. By implementing
green steel, this could potentially decrease the world’s overall carbon
emissions over time. Green steel is beneficial in terms of achieving the global
effort of "meeting net zero emissions by 2050" (Borkar, 2022).
The second advantage of green steel is that it uses
renewable sources. Hydrogen plays a huge part in green steel production because
it is able to reverse the process used in fuel cells, whereby hydrogen and
oxygen react and in turn produce water and electricity. By producing
electrolysis, it removes carbon dioxide through the splitting of natural gas
modules. Instead of constantly burning coal in the original steel manufacturing
process, hydrogen is a replacement option for coal. Hydrogen is a renewable
resource that 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 metric tonnes left (Wilkes, Dezem, Shiryaevskaya, 2019).
Therefore, green steel is able to reduce carbon
emissions as well as utilise a "constant source of renewable energy"
(Borkar, 2022) like hydrogen as an option for manufacturing steel, compared to
the usage of coke or coal, which is a non-renewable resource.
Despite all the advantages, the reality is that
manufacturing green steel is expensive. By rough estimation, the cost of
production for hydrogen-based steel is about 20%–30% higher than steel. With
production costs corresponding to carbon prices, carbon steel roughly costs
$70–100/tCO2, from there, it is estimated that the cost for
hydrogen-based steel will be $91–130 (Blank, 2019).
We also need to consider the cost-competitive
market; with hydrogen being the ‘go-to’ solution for substituting fossil fuels,
it is expected that demand and the cost of green hydrogen will increase over
time. As of right now, the cost of renewable hydrogen is $3.70/kg, and in order
to compete with the present steel-making prices, the cost needs to drop to
around $1/kg or below (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 ("Will green steel?" 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 its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. There will be a few setbacks that need to be discussed, like reducing production costs, which increases 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, green steel can be a pivotal point for decarbonizing the steel industry.
Reference
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
Wilkes, W. Dezem, V. Shiryaevskaya, A. (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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