Friday 17 February 2023

Europe’s first commercial green steel?

Swedish company H2 Green Steel expects to roll out its first commercial batches of green steel within two years.

Operating at its plant in the north of the Scandinavian country, if production goes as projected, the facility will become the first large-scale green steel plant in Europe.

Hydrogen reacts with iron ore to create a certain type of iron that can be used to make steel in H2’s process.

Currently, steel accounts for 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, as coking coal is used in blast furnaces – releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide.

In H2 Green Steel’s technique, water is produced as a by-product, as opposed to carbon dioxide – with all hydrogen used at the plant made the company itself.

Water from a local river is used in electrolysers; to split oxygen and hydrogen molecules and create no emissions in the process.

Hydropower and wind farms are used to generate the electricity used in this process to ensure the entire production is fossil free.

By 2030, the business is targeting five million tonnes of green steel each year.

Ida-Linn Näzelius, Vice President of Environment and Society at H2 Green Steel, said: “The next eight years are crucial for making sure that companies and investors globally make decisions towards green steel production, which is going to lock us in for another few decades.”