Can we decarbonise the steel industry?

The steelmaking industry has been said to be "hard-to-abate" and due for an overhaul in its production processes. It's currently responsible for about 7% of the global CO2 emissions. To keep up with the ever-growing renewables installations that require steel, we're going to need to start decarbonising the steelmaking processes.

Companies and organisations all over the globe are currently researching and developing all manners of ways to produce steel without coal, also known as "Green Steel". In this video I talk with Dr Bart Kolodziejczyk about the traditional steelmaking process and where CO2 emissions come from. Then we discuss different ways we can get from iron ore to steel through low-emissions processes.

Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
01:11 The problem with decarbonizing the steelmaking industry
02:13 How is iron ore turned into steel?
02:38 Traditional Steelmaking - Iron reduction via Blast Furnace
03:01 Using captured carbon to produce “Blue Steel”
03:39 Other ways of reducing the CO2 emissions in steelmaking processes
04:02 Traditional Steelmaking Continued - Refinement of pig iron into steel via Basic Oxygen Furnace
04:19 Electric Steelmaking - Recycling scrap steel via Electric Arc Furnace
05:06 Direct Reduced Iron - Iron reduction using gases
05:41 Introduction to Dr Bart Kolodziejczyk
06:17 Is steel actually a “hard-to-abate” sector?
06:53 The option of using hydrogen to decarbonize steelmaking
08:19 What are the other methods of producing green steel?
08:23 Boston Metal’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis
09:45 Low Temperature Electrolysis
10:18 Advantages of Low Temperature Electrolysis?
11:16 Bart’s outlook on the future of green steelmaking
12:22 Rosie’s opinions on green steelmaking
12:59 Current green steel projects around the world
13:43 Outro

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Sources:
IEA Iron and Steel Technology Roadmap: https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap
C&EN Can industry decarbonize steelmaking?: https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/steel-hydrogen-low-co2-startups/99/i22
World Steel Association Map: https://worldsteel.org/steel-by-topic/statistics/annual-production-steel-data/P1_crude_steel_total_pub/CHN/IND