Green Steel

What is Green Steel?

Simply put, Green Steel is steel produced with the lowest possible carbon footprint, which will vary from producer to producer according to the technology they adopt.

Currently to manufacture steel, coke is used as a fuel and a reducing agent in melting iron ore. This is produced by baking the coal until it becomes carbon by burning off the impurities. When coke is used it generates intense heat but very little smoke, making it ideal for the smelting iron and steel.

The constant stride to reduce and eliminate the use of fossil fuels has increase the development in technologies and in particular one of the last bastions of fossil fuels in construction, the production of steel, which accounts for approximately 7% of global carbon emissions annually.

How is Green Steel Produced?

A four-step process to producing Green Steel will involve the following.

Step 1    Maximise the use of scrap in blast furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces.

Step 2    Replace the blast and basic oxygen furnaces with electric-arc furnace technology.

Step 3    Replace blast furnace iron produced from coke with direct-reduced iron.

Step 4    Replace the natural gas which is used to produce direct-reduced iron with renewable electricity and hydrogen.

What is Direct-Reduced Iron?

Direct-reduced iron, is produced from the direct reduction of iron ore into iron by  reducing the gas or carbon produced from natural gas or coal. The process reduces iron oxides to metallic iron at temperatures below the melting point of iron.

Where we are now?

Companies are already investing and developing technology to produce Green Steel, but this cannot happen overnight and we are looking into the middle of the decade before we can anticipate any full production facilities.

This also raises another question, at what cost financially will the development of Green Steel impact the overall cost of steel in the future and how will the transition be accommodated if Green Steel is more expensive?