The decarbonization of heavy industry figures prominently into the “all of the above” solutions which will need to be deployed to combat the climate crisis.  “Clean steel” is showing real promise.  Details here. 

The Future of Low Carbon Emissions in Steel Manufacturing

As reported by Bloomberg:

Boston Metal Notches $262 Million Funding Round for Clean Steel

One of green steel’s biggest players gets a huge boost in its quest to decarbonize a heavily polluting industry.

“Boston Metal, a startup that has developed a method to make low- or no-carbon steel using electricity, said it closed a third round of funding at $262 million.  The Boston-based company said the latest round of funding will be primarily used to scale its decarbonization technology for commercial use and hiring more employees globally. The company has already proven its process works for ferro-alloys — essentially steel that has other metals in it to make higher value metal — but the next step will be to show it can turn iron ore into steel for the traditional steelmaking process at scale.

Steelmaking accounts for about 7% of global carbon emissions, owing to conventional steelmaking’s reliance on coking coal to heat the iron ore and turn it into molten metal. Steel purchasers and investors are growing increasingly adamant that the industry clean up its act, and major producers are searching for alternative techniques to produce low- or no-carbon steel. Global demand for steel could grow 20% by 2050, according to a forecast by the World Steel Association, making the need for steel free of carbon emissions even greater in the coming decades.”

Greener Steel Production Is the First Step. Next Comes Scaling It Up

Trillions, not billions, of dollars will be needed to decarbonize the global steel industry.

“…[while] Boston Metal raised $262 million of venture funding for its electricity-based steel- and metal-making technology…Sweden’s H2 Green Steel assembled €1.5 billion in equity to build its first plant that will use hydrogen to create steel.  Decarbonizing steel will be difficult and costly, and if done at meaningful scale will remake one of the world’s biggest industries. Steelmaking is responsible for about 8% of energy sector emissions, and today, producing a ton of steel results in nearly two tons of CO2 emissions.”

One way to understand this critical challenge is to look at it in through numerical scales, from smaller to larger. 

• Start with thousands — or really, just one thousand. Global Energy Monitor counts 1,016 steel plants in 89 countries that combined have an annual capacity of 3 billion tons. That’s barely 7% as many steel plants as there are coal-fired power plants in the world, and a far cry from the more than 1 billion automobiles on roads today. Quantifying emissions from this group is doable, and the addressable market for steel decarbonization technologies is clearly defined.
• The second scale to look at is millions. Boston Metal’s series C round will not go to building a series of full-scale production plants, or even one: Instead, the company will spend it on growing its team and demonstrating its technology commercially. Hundreds of millions of dollars, in the steel sector, are a starting point at achieving scale, not an end point.”

What Next? Decarbonizing Heavy Industry

The CSIS Climate Solutions Series brought together a wide range of experts to examine ways to reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in different sectors of the economy. 

The fourth installment of the series addressed the issues facing the decarbonization of heavy industry: 

“In 2017, heavy industry emitted more GHG emissions than agriculture, buildings, power and heat, and transportation. (1)  To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, science dictates we must reach net-zero GHG emissions around 2050, which requires deep decarbonization from all sectors including industry.

The industrial sector includes heavy industry and manufacturing in several categories. These industries include cement, chemicals, steel, aluminum, paper, mining, manufacturing, food processing, waste processing, and other manufacturing and processing industries. These industries are diverse, and so there is no one solution for reducing emissions in all heavy industries. Many, however, are energy-intensive, consuming about 40 percent of global energy demand.” (2) 

The CSIS discussion of the decarbonization of heavy industry included an online event, complete with a transcript, which can be found at this link. There is a also a trade policy perspective on the future of green steel, which is discussed in one of the latest installments of the CSIS’ podcast The Trade Guys:  Green Steel, China Imports, and Infant Formula. 

Researchers at the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program highlighted the following considerations in their CSIS Brief: 

“Technological solutions are one part of the puzzle in decarbonizing industry. These could include using zero-carbon energy sources, utilizing new industrial processes, capturing and using or storing CO₂ from electricity and heat sources or from processes, and efficiency improvements:

• Low-carbon energy sources like biomass, hydrogen, or electricity could substitute for fossil fuels in providing process heat for industry. Many industries currently rely on coal- and natural gas-fired boilers for heat, which contribute about 42 percent of the sector’s total GHG emissions. (7) 
• Novel processes, including ones that incorporate electricity, could be another piece of the puzzle. These would be aimed at lowering process emissions, which come from the conversion of raw materials into intermediate or final products. Startup Boston Metal is marketing its metal oxide electrolysis process, for example, which it says converts iron ore to iron and oxygen with electricity instead of coking coal. This would avoid the CO₂ emissions from the coking coal, the limestone, or any of the various processing facilities involved in the steelmaking process.
• Carbon capture, use, and sequestration (CCUS) is another option that could allow industry to continue using the energy sources they rely on while reducing or eliminating the CO₂ they emit. This could also reduce or eliminate the CO₂ emissions that are a byproduct of materials conversion processes. Once captured, the CO₂ could be sequestered in geologic formations or could be used in products.
• Efficiency is likely to be key to reducing emissions from industrial processes. By one estimate, efficiency improvements can save 15 to 20 percent of the fuel used to generate energy across some of the highest-emitting industries. (17)  Efficiency measures alone will not decarbonize the sector but can move emissions in the right direction. However, energy efficiency measures can have unintended consequences. Energy efficiency improvements can lead to the rebound effect, where the ability to do more with the same amount of energy leads to an increase in production and, thus, less savings than anticipated (though it still means a net reduction of energy use).” (18) 

CSIS Sources:

1:  Data provided by Rhodium Climate Service
2:  Raimund Malischek, Adam Baylin-Stern, and Samantha McCulloch, Transforming Industry Through CCUS (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2019), https://www.iea.org/reports/transforming-industry-through-ccus
7:  Friedmann, Fan, and Tang, Low-Carbon Heat Solutions for Heavy Industry   
17: De Pee, Pinner, Roelofsen, Somers, Speelman, and Witteveen, Decarbonization of Industrial Sectors  
18:  Steven Nadel, The Rebound Effect: Large or Small? (Washington, D.C.: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, 2012),
https:// www.aceee.org/files/pdf/white-paper/rebound-large-and-small.pdf

Additional Resources

Food Security and Inflation: Food security is emerging as a major geopolitical concern, with droughts and geopolitical tensions exacerbating the issue. Inflation, directly linked to food security, is spurring political unrest in several countries. See: Food Security

Technology Convergence and Market Disruption: Rapid advancements in technology are changing market dynamics and user expectations. See: Disruptive and Exponential Technologies.

Materials Science Revolution: Room-temperature ambient pressure superconductors represent a significant innovation. Sustainability gets a boost with reprocessable materials. Energy storage sees innovations in solid-state batteries and advanced supercapacitors. Smart textiles pave the way for health-monitoring and self-healing fabrics. 3D printing materials promise disruptions in various sectors. Perovskites offer versatile applications, from solar power to quantum computing. See: Materials Science