The article “How green steel made with electricity could clean up a dirty industry" by Crownhart (2022) discusses how Boston’s Metal has made a new approach to manufacture emission-free steel, known as green steel, with a pilot reactor, to combat the rapidly rising carbon dioxide emissions that are currently produced by the steel industry. Boston Metal’s current challenge is to scale up its production, to keep up with the increasing demands in the industry, as steel is used in almost everything, from machinery to construction. The two methods to produce green steel are known as molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) and direct reduction. A cell containing a mixture of dissolved iron oxides is used during the MOE process, which uses electricity to drive the removal of oxygen from steel, by heating the cells up to about 1600°C, and is capable of processing low-grade iron ore. For direct reduction, carbon dioxide is released when natural gas reacts with solid iron ore, to yield iron, and hydrogen can be used in place of natural gas, where water vapor is emitted instead of carbon dioxide, as stated by Crownhart (2022).
Green steel is not a viable option in replacing traditional steel presently due to the production methods of green steel's dependence on electricity, which is reliant on fossil fuels. This makes the methods for producing green steel unfeasible for reducing carbon emissions. Green steel is also more costly to produce and has lower durability than traditional steel.
Due to the high reliance on fossil fuels in the process of manufacturing steel, plans of reducing global emissions could prove to be difficult as demands for steel are predicted to rise over the upcoming decades, which proves for the Paris Agreement - where global net emissions must be brought down by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 - to be difficult. Therefore, green steel has been adduced as one of the solutions to combating rising carbon emissions.
However, despite green steel being marketed as a solution to decarbonization in the steel industry, Gordon (2023) states that a notable amount of electricity is still required to produce green steel, as both direct reduction and MOE require the use of tremendous amounts of electricity to produce green steel. As fossil fuels are required in the production of electricity, this means that the processes of making green steel still emit carbon at a large rate, regardless of how efficient the steelmaking process is.
Furthermore, the electricity needed for the green processes must be "must-run" electricity - meaning that electrical generation must continue to operate, even during times of low demand or excess generation because it is deemed necessary for the stability and dependability of the power system.
The article “How green steel made with electricity could clean up a dirty industry" by Crownhart (2022) discusses how Boston’s Metal has made a new approach to manufacture emission-free steel, known as green steel, with a pilot reactor, to combat the rapidly rising carbon dioxide emissions that are currently produced by the steel industry. Boston Metal’s current challenge is to scale up its production, to keep up with the increasing demands in the industry, as steel is used in almost everything, from machinery to construction. The two methods to produce green steel are known as molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) and direct reduction. During MOE, a cell containing a mixture of dissolved iron oxides is used which uses electricity to drive the removal of oxygen from steel by heating the cells up to about 1600°C, and is capable of processing low-grade iron ore. For direct reduction, carbon dioxide is released when natural gas reacts with solid iron ore, to yield iron, and hydrogen can be used in place of natural gas, where water vapor is emitted instead of carbon dioxide, as stated by Crownhart (2022).
Green steel is currently not a viable option in replacing traditional steel presently due to the production methods dependence on electricity, which in turn relies on fossil fuels. This makes the methods for producing green steel challenging in reducing carbon emissions. Green steel is also more costly to produce and has lower durability than traditional steel.
Due to the high reliance on fossil fuels in the process of manufacturing steel, plans of reducing global emissions could prove to be difficult as demands for steel are predicted to rise over the upcoming decades, which proves for the Paris Agreement - where global net emissions must be brought down by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 - to be difficult. Therefore, green steel has been adopted as one of the solutions to combating rising carbon emissions.
However, despite green steel being marketed as a solution to decarbonisation in the steel industry, Gordon (2023) states that a notable amount of electricity is still required to produce green steel, as both direct reduction and MOE require the use of tremendous amounts of electricity to produce green steel. As fossil fuels are required in the production of electricity, this means that the processes of making green steel still emit carbon at a large rate, regardless of how efficient the steelmaking process is.
Furthermore, the electricity needed for the green processes must be "must-run" electricity - meaning that electrical generation must continue to operate, even during times of low demand or excess generation because it is deemed necessary for the stability and dependability of the power system.
While there is renewable electricity available for the manufacturing of green steel, which indicates that the process of making green steel would be purely carbon-emission free, there is limited space for wind turbines and solar farms presently, and there is a large demand coming from many industries including the steel industry, for renewable electricity. It is unlikely that technological developments in renewable energy will be accessible in time to maintain present levels of steel production and achieve zero carbon emissions.
The effectiveness of green steel manufacturing in lowering carbon emissions is further discussed by Innovation News Network (2023). According to Doctor Watari, technologies for making green steel have yet to be widely adopted and still face significant technological, economical, and social obstacles. As stated in his research, green steel was found to have reduced in quality due to the impurities introduced by reusing steel scrap, making it unusable for higher grade applications like construction of buildings, cranes, and mining as stated by Rime (2023). Adding on, the amount of steel produced would be reduced by half, due to the restrictions of a zero-emission carbon budget, making it less competitive as compared to traditional steel.
Lastly, the price of producing green steel is higher as compared to producing traditional steel. As there is a limit on how much renewable electricity and green hydrogen we can pursue, the costs of producing green steel will be expensive as reported by Gordon (2023). Though there is a shift in prices per ton of steel, the market price for traditional steel is $550 per ton. Hydrogen-based direct reduction costs about 20 to 30% more as compared to normal steel production, especially as direct reduction is in the the early stages of the production process, as stated by RMI (2019). Moreover, in hydrogen electrolytic processes, 30% of the electricity is not made use of and converted into hydrogen, which will become problematic when done in large-scale processes.
In conclusion, the implementation of green steel in the industry will take some time to cut into the steel industry as the technology behind making it is not sophisticated enough currently due to the dependence on large amounts of electricity which relies on fossil fuels, or otherwise renewable electricity that is currently scarce due to competition within other industries, as well as the impurities introduced by the scraps producing weaker steel, and costing more than traditional steel.
References:
Crownhart, C. (2022, June 28). How green steel made with electricity could clean up a dirty industry. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/28/1055027/green-steel-electricity-boston-metal/
Can green steel production help reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Innovation News Network. (2023, January 20). Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/can-green-steel-production-help-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions/29042/
Gordon, O. (2023, January 20). The four-horse race to decarbonise steel. Energy Monitor. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/industry/the-four-horse-race-to-decarbonise-steel/
Thomas, B. (September 2019) The Disruptive Potential of Green Steel. . Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/green-steel-insight-brief.pdf
https://rime.de/en/wiki/high-strength-steel/#:~:text=High%2Dstrength%20steel%20is%20extremely,used%20in%20the%20automotive%20industry. (definition of high grade applications)
