This actually is a Big Thing. Steel, produced without coal. You might not know this about me, but I actually sold steel as my first job and learned a lot about steel production at Mannesmann a long time ago.
@Sibbo The hybrit process is coal-free. And yes, the sponge iron it produces is very low carbon, so it must be added back. See https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/metals/metals-10-00972/article_deploy/metals-10-00972.pdf for more details.
@jwildeboer Interesting thanks. So majority of coal is saved in the reduction of iron. Thanks for the link, it is a really nice paper!
@jwildeboer I honestly don't get what's so hard about it. Takes like 5min at 900C in H2 https://mastodon.nl/@jasper/100939249979980069
Got propaganda-ish rumblings that Dutch, and American "could do it". Dutch news even propagandized "iron powder" as an energy source.
Kindah think for them "we can't do it" and "it's a little more expensive" are the exact same thing to them.
@jwildeboer of course they may not be able to compete. Which means they cannot take that action.
However, even then, there is an action they could take, which is consistently argue that the CO2 emissions cost must be drastically increased. (which would flip around the economics.)
@jasper the difference being that the hybrit group actually built a plant and is moving forward with production. There’s a difference between „we could do it too“ and „how many tonnes do you want to buy from us?“ ;)
@jwildeboer Where does the hydrogen come from? Produced with electricity from coal plants?
@jwildeboer I like this a lot, however I always thought that steel is iron with a few percent of carbon. So do they mean they just use coal-free ovens, or do they actually also get the carbon inside the steel from something else now?