[HN Gopher] Sweden delivered the world's first fossil fuel-free ...
___________________________________________________________________
Sweden delivered the world's first fossil fuel-free steel
Author : intellaughs
Score : 95 points
Date : 2021-09-04 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| kleton wrote:
| Low temperature electrowinning of iron would be the holy grail
| https://energy.nl/en/factsheet/low-temperature-electrowinnin...
| tuatoru wrote:
| That is interesting, thanks.
|
| If I'm reading the PDF right, it uses about 12 PJ per tonne of
| iron produced.
|
| Best current practice with coking coal is about 15 GJ per
| tonne.[1]
|
| So just a little energy efficiency improvement required.
|
| 1. Smil, V. _Energy In Nature And Society_ 2008, p. 283 of
| paperback.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I doubt this is the _first_ fossil fuel-free steel, even in
| modern times. Here in Argentina one of our biggest steel
| factories had a very big eucalyptus forest just to make coal.
| From https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceros_Zapla_S.A
|
| Autotranslation:
| https://translate.google.com/?tab=TT#es/en/Aceros%20Zapla%20...
|
| > _" Aceros Zapla" (ex- "Altos Hornos Zapla") was a steel forest
| mining complex located in the department Palpala province of
| Jujuy, Argentina. It was the first steel center of Argentina_
| [...]
|
| > _It had 15,000 ha of a forest of 30 million eucalyptus trees to
| extract the necessary coal in the process,_ [...]
| K5EiS wrote:
| Is coal not fossil fuel?
| kd5bjo wrote:
| Yes, it is. From the description given, they were probably
| turning the trees into _charcoal_ , which isn't technically a
| fossil fuel: The carbon being released was only captured
| within the last few centuries, during the life of the tree.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Yep, it's charcoal. Sorry for the bad translation, but we
| use the same word here.
| imtringued wrote:
| Elba island was completely deforested to produce iron/steel.
| yesbut wrote:
| How did they mine the iron ore without fossil fuels? The mining
| industry accounts for ~10% of world energy consumption. Around
| ~80% of the world's electricity use.
| oxymoron wrote:
| Swedish electricity production is essentially carbon neutral.
| There's a 50/50 split between nuclear and renewables. At times,
| there's imports from the European grid, which does include coal
| and gas &c, so by that accounting it may not be fully neutral.
| However, the mining industry is in the far north which has an
| abundance of cheap hydropower, so it's probably true that the
| ore can be mined entirely using renewable energy in Sweden.
| yesbut wrote:
| "can" doesn't mean they are. Sweden produces ~80 million tons
| of ore per year. I can say with 100% certainty that they are
| not doing the heavy lifting with renewables.
| oxymoron wrote:
| I'm sure there's machinery in use which is powered by
| fossil fueles. You did mention separately that the mining
| industry is a heavy user of electricity, though, so I was
| referring to that aspect in particular. Apologies for not
| making that clear.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| They do have a test mine that is carbon free and are
| working actively on scaling it up:
| https://www.lkab.com/en/about-lkab/technological-and-
| process...
| moogly wrote:
| What is often forgotten, when mentioning the imports of
| "dirty" power from abroad, is that Sweden exports way more
| electricity per year than gets imported (for 2020, 37 TWh
| exported and 12 TWh imported).
|
| Sweden has had an electricity surplus since 2011, mostly due
| to wind power.
| moogly wrote:
| That's a great question. They've stated the aim is to electrify
| the whole fleet of machines and vehicles (the main transport by
| train has been in place for a long time[1]), including the
| entire mine, but I doubt there's been enough time to
| design/construct that kind of equipment. Information is scarce
| on this.
|
| I would guess it's a bit of a marketing stunt only counting the
| actual production process for now (and possibly transport) for
| this pilot project.
|
| BTW, the steel industry in Sweden currently eats up about 15%
| of the electricity production of the nation (and the two main
| companies together, LKAB and SSAB, are responsible for about
| the same percentage of all CO2 emissions). This new project,
| when fully operational, will require an additional 50% of the
| current total capacity, which will definitely be a challenge.
|
| [1]: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Iron_Ore_Line?lang=en
| lucb1e wrote:
| I'm a bit sad there's so much nitpicking on a good thing. Sure,
| it's not technically the first. Can we just enjoy the advance of
| making goods more sustainably?
| wccrawford wrote:
| We absolutely can. But if people lie, they should expect to get
| called on it.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Yeah, but the amount is what I commented on. At the time of
| writing, if I remember correctly there was hardly another
| type of comment to be found.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| It's the first _coal_ free steel and the vast majority of
| coal used is fossil and the rest comes from forests that
| probably wouldn't be able to sustain the required level of
| steel production (Sweden produces 80% of the iron ore in the
| EU and needs its forests for other things than creating
| steel)
| azinman2 wrote:
| Isn't "green hydrogen" a sham? I thought the production of it
| wasn't actually very CO2 friendly and comes out of fossils fuels
| themselves?
| jhgb wrote:
| Green hydrogen isn't; the thing you're thinking of isn't called
| green hydrogen.
| klyrs wrote:
| Well there's "blue hydrogen" and "brown hydrogen" which are
| produced from natural gas and coal respectively.
|
| Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, from renewable
| energy sources like hydro, wind and solar.
| sampo wrote:
| > Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, from
| renewable energy sources like hydro, wind and solar.
|
| Terminology correction: From low-carbon energy sources, like
| wind, solar, nuclear and hydro.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| This particular steel is made to be 100% CO2 neutral (as is all
| hydrogen in Sweden). Very much most likely made from hydro
| power (accounts for about 40% of power generation in Sweden -
| and the owner of most hydro in Sweden, "Waterfall", which is
| state owned, is a partner in the project) of from wind. Both
| energy sources is very common in the north of Sweden.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > CO2 neutral (as is all hydrogen in Sweden). Very much most
| likely made from hydro power
|
| Now that you put them together like this, I noticed this will
| probably confuse a lot of people in years to come: hydro
| power is a very different thing from hydrogen power.
| [deleted]
| null_object wrote:
| More and more I distrust and even begin to resent these high-
| profile, headline 'advances'.
|
| Sweden is particularly good at this PR effort: always aiming to
| profile ourselves as the eco-friendly pioneers of the world.
|
| But at the same time, ancient woodland is clearcut at an alarming
| rate, and wood-burning for energy is largely exempted from
| Sweden's carbon footprint.
|
| Cycling and alternative transport is neglected, while cars just
| get bigger and spending on roads spirals upwards.
|
| But so long as we make headlines for supposedly fossil-free
| steel, everyone here is proud and happy
| moogly wrote:
| Old-growth forests were largely cut down a long time ago.
| There's some still left, and the majority (but not all) are
| protected.
|
| The area of 2nd level ("gammelskog"; forests older than 150
| years) continues to increase.
|
| Overall, Sweden has a higher amount of forested area now than
| in 1900, and it's not just planted young growth.
|
| The "save the forest" campaigns of yore were pretty
| misinformed.
| tored wrote:
| I do agree that Sweden is good at PR when it comes to green
| policies, but I can't really agree on all your claims.
|
| Cycling neglected? I guess it depends where you live in Sweden
| but in my city they have added much more bike paths (cykelvag)
| for several years. It exist regional funds that a kommun can
| apply for to build more bike paths.
|
| Alternative transport? Like what?
|
| Sweden has been bad on expanding regional train capacity and
| instead focused on country wide prestige projects like the high
| speed rail when most commuters travel regional.
|
| Costs for roads will increase as long as population increases
| are as high as today. That is unavoidable. And seems like the
| Green Party is all in favor of massive population increase
| regardless of environmental consequences.
|
| Ancient woodland clearcut at alarming rate? Source?
| badestrand wrote:
| The headline was not "Everything is perfectly sustainable in
| Sweden" so I don't understand your criticism here. The world
| starting to produce steel with hydrogen is a great step. It is
| not necessary that _everything_ is sustainable already to
| celebrate or at least posivitely acknowledge this news.
| swebs wrote:
| Wasn't all steel before the 1800's or so made with wood?
| chongli wrote:
| It was made with charcoal which is made from wood, yes. But
| charcoal is man-made coal which is still bad from an emissions
| perspective. This process, on the other hand, does not use coal
| at all.
| sp332 wrote:
| Charcoal is nearly carbon-neutral, with the carbon coming
| from the air via trees or other biomass. It's bad for
| deforestation reasons, but it's not carbon-intensive.
| extropy wrote:
| Could be seem as cannon negative, since the carbon is
| permanently captured in the steel.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| It does temporarily release CO2 into the atmosphere until
| new trees have absorbed it.
|
| So it will temporarily not be carbon-neutral, but be
| neutral over time if the average amount of coal stored in
| trees doesn't get affected by the new use of trees.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| charcoal can be good or bad from a forestation perspective.
| Good is a healthy cycle and removal of trees as a
| contributor to that process.
|
| Forests should not envelope all of the world, as that would
| kill of a number of other ecosystems.
|
| The idea that forest should dominate everywhere is actually
| anti-ecological, in that it disrupts that natural balance.
|
| We have in many cases, localized growth of forest, and
| regional deforestation [1]. Because the trees making up
| these ecological systems are local/regional also, we should
| seek to undo that damage where possible.
|
| [1] https://blog.tentree.com/fact-check-are-there-really-
| more-tr...
| jhgb wrote:
| > But charcoal is man-made coal
|
| It was fossil-fuel-free, though. Which makes the headline
| wrong.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Prior to the invention of the Bessemer Process, it was mostly
| made with charcoal, so yes. Of course it was also very
| expensive and made in small batches.
| aurizon wrote:
| there are new exploited deposits of hydrogen, formed at great
| depths under high pressure and temperatures.
| https://hydroma.ca/en/ is one I do not know if there are more
| and their production volume?
| extropy wrote:
| It's still a fossil fuel though. Not emitting climate
| affecting gasses one but still.
|
| Turns out releasing hydrogen in the atmosphere has some
| greenhouse effects:
| http://www.ghgonline.org/otherhydrogen.htm
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-04 23:01 UTC)