I would love to see something like the Grattan Inst suggest but there is a long way to go with this idea yet.
As they admit, the process is not proven at commercial scales.
I couldn’t find any evidence of the cost effectiveness of hydrogen steel against coke reduction steel.
The idea is based on Oz having abundant green energy available and that would make steel-making possible. How is it with abundant coking coal available that method of steel-making is no longer viable in this country? Perhaps the matter is more complex than the supply of raw materials.
One claimed benefit is to reemploy carbon workers in the new industry. No figures are given for how many might be employed. If you are creating an industry from scratch you would make it as cost efficient as possible, that is with the least workforce you can have.
The only mention of cost I saw is in their PDF brochure which shows a bar chart with the cost of hydrogen steel greater than coke for a greenfield plant. The chart has no scale. I can’t see anything that gives figure or the assumptions made in arriving at what they have provided. If you can find more please say on.
The article did say: Green steel production relies on this method to turn rubber tyres into metal.
What is green about tyres?
It is a waste reduction strategy for managing old tyres. The original source material is not green. There are other strategies for recovering tyres including recycling them into other useful products.
P.S.
The proposed 50% coke replacement, carbon and hydrogen feed is still going to produce large volumes of CO2 to waste.
If they use them on old dumps then perhaps the metal wastes might end up recovered rather than leaching into the rest of the environment. I don’t really see them as an answer to mass mining methods, but who knows…
The article is OK as far as it goes but it leaves out the most important part. Iron ore reduction not using coke has been technically possible for decades. The big issues are scaling it up to the level of producing millions of tons and making it cost-effective. These problems are distantly referenced in the article where in fact they are the core problem if it is ever going to be “the next big thing”.
No mention is made of who is trying to solve the problem, how they are progressing and when (if) they might have a solution. It seems reasonable to assume that in Oz there is nobody. The author is right that big money for development is going to be required to get it going. In the present environment in Oz I don’t see it happening.
If ‘green’ steel production was better than traditional blast furnaces using carbon, it would have surplanted the later years ago. Likewise, if it was cheaper. It hasn’t, so that says it all.
No, especially as TC has strict size limits. It is therefore desirable to use the words you have constructively. The fact that ‘green steel’ has been technically feasible for ages is not news and not worth the majority of space, the reasons why it isn’t being developed and what it will take to get it developed for large scale commercial use is the story and should have got much more space.
Oh please, the headline was ‘Green steel’ is hailed as the next big thing in Australian industry. I was referring to and explicitly mentioned development in this country. So is it being developed in Australia?
I read the article as advocating that Australia take advantage of the opportunities. Sounds wise to me.
Technical obstacles have been overcome to the point that a dedicated production facility is planned overseas. Australia has natural advantages. What, apart from politics, is holding us back?
A Swedish Steel Manufacturer Hybrit has sent it’s first Green Steel delivery to Volvo as a trial run before full commercial production in 2026 it states.
Aluminium production offers significant opportunities where there are plentiful low cost sources of energy, mostly in the form of electricity. It is also a go to metal for electrification, light weight manufacturing and possibly future battery technology.
Australia currently produces 5Mtpa out of global production of 67Mtpa. China produces nearly half of all global output, mostly from coal powered generation.
Australia has 3 Aluminium smelters. The Tomago smelter in NSW consumes approx 11% of electricity generation in the state. Combined with the demand by the Portland smelter in Victoria the two consume approx 10% of the electricity generated in the eastern states.
Progress?
Both will be competing for cheap grid scale storage capacity to buffer gaps in wind and solar.
Note:
Tomago alone has a demand of 850MW. The Snowy 2.0 pumped storage upgrade will deliver up to 2,000MW peak output and nominally 40,000MWh of recoverable capacity.
Aluminium metal trades at above US$2000 per tonne if anyone is wondering about the economic values.
