What do you think is the best way to reduce emissions in the steel industry? Hydrogen, reducing steel use, electrochemistry? Or maybe a combination of all these?

@nc3826

Жыл бұрын

My two main counterpoints are: 1) Is SSAB's lack of transparency. For example In their blast furnace vs HYBRIT comparison chart, they claim zero CO2 is produced, when iron pellets are produced. But they do not show what they are doing differently vs the conventional blast furnace method? Or what percentage of CO2 comes from this stage of the process? Or even how It is directly related to using hydrogen, later on in the process ? So couldn't iron pellets be created net carbon free, without using hydrogen In the subsequent part of the process? 2) But more importantly we must ask. Is this the most effective way of using clean electricity, to produce hydrogen for steel production? Verses using biomass/cellulose waste such as paper and cardboard waste. Plus replacing coke with natural gas, Which doesn't eliminate the problem, but greatly reduces it, at a much lower cost. And which allows the unused clean electricity to be used for more efficient applications. I wish SSAB well. But I don't see it as a best option, in most of the world markets, IMHO. Lastly society should also focus on other forms and pollution. Such as the mountains of plastic waste. And incentivizing the replacement of plastic with cellulose/biomass packaging. Which could be a feedstock for producing steel.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

@@nc3826 please read through the actual exposition on they Hybrit project on SSAB's website. They don't lack in transparency at all, the project is explained in great detail.

@nc3826

Жыл бұрын

​@@JonathanMaddox Thank you for your off-base, unproven, factless, defensive, suppositions that only prove my points....

@nc3826

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox BTW the transparency reference, was about a chart in the post.... Feel free to critique it and find the information that I said it lacked.... Or from any other source.... Since so far you have not presented any relevant facts....You have only presented condescension.... Which is not much of a counterpoint....

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

@@nc3826 the information you are looking for is not in the chart in this post. It is on the SSAB website. Thank you for asking.

SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall are all majority owned by the swedish government. There is also a private sector project, H2 Green Steel, in the neighbouring town of Boden.

Wow the comparison with vehicle emissions was eye opening! ..and if the steel is greener, then carbon footprint of so much downstreem is shrinks. Great Video

Using low-carbon hydrogen to make steel makes far more sense than using as a transport fuel. It also makes a lot of sense to reduce the cost of transporting H2 itself by installing the steel-making factory next to the place where the H2 is produced.

The bottled water thing is funny, I could see putting that on the shelf as a conversation starter

Great stuff. This idea needs more publicity, it amazing just how many people haven't heard of "green steel"

@tami6867

Жыл бұрын

in Europe? i feel like everybody xD

@christo930

10 ай бұрын

There is no such thing as "green" steel, assuming green has a definition in the first place. The idea that China is going to produce "green" steel is laughable. Remember back when An Inconvenient Truth was new and fresh and they reported all of China's building coal fired power plants? Yeah, it's still going on. They are still building new ones.

South Australia's premier is thinking on the same lines as Rosie. There is an underpopulated area of SA that he is trying to turn into a Hydrogen hub since we already have a surplus of solar energy. There is also a nearby steel maker that is interested in making green steel. This could restore SA steel making to it's glory days with the perfect combination on nearby energy, hydrogen and iron ore.

I think your last point is majorly important and not only applicable to steel. Also Aluminium, Cement or Nitrogenfixation are major industries that use >1 % each of global energy production. If we would produce these basic elements and chemicals where green energy is abundant we would save a lot on transportation of volatile energy carriers such as H2. Only downside is that a few ~tenthousand jobs would move to the end of the world such as western australia, canada, chile... These are highly automated and well scaled industries after all. But if I learned one thing from German energy politics it is way harder to move 10000 jobs in the fossil industry such as lignite then to save 10x in renewable energy production...

@zen1647

Жыл бұрын

Yes! I don't know why this isn't getting more attention! Cheap Australian renewable energy close to mines can reduce emissions, refining costs, and transportation costs. What's not to like? Asia might have cheap labor but Australia will have cheap energy so energy intensive manufacturing could move to Australia.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

In the ten years from 2008 to 2017, the number of people employed in Germany mining coal fell by 25,404 from 38415 to 13011. Ten thousand jobs in the fossil fuel industry moved per four years, repeatably. My source (Statistia) doesn't have figures for the five years since, but according to trend, by now it must be a smaller number still: there likely aren't another ten thousand jobs in coal mining in Germany left to save.

It's possible to use Ammonia to make green steel too. Monash University developed a method of electrolysis that can produce Ammonia directly or it can be made by substituting green hydrogen into existing Haber Bosch facilities. We need to be careful with the NO oxides produced with ammonia processes. Great video!

Fascinating, thank you for this and all your work.

Thanks SSAB and Rosemary. I wonder what other competing projects are under development, perhaps even in the pilot stage.

This video is very insightful. I currently looking into going back to college to pursue a new degree, and your channel has been helpful. ty

Very interesting, and, as usual so well presented - thanks Rosie.

It's just semantics due to our use of the term carbon to refer to GHG, but in one sense it's impossible to "decarbonize" steel, as carbon is the thing that makes steel steel and not iron.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

True. Important to remember that the carbon literally embedded *in* steel is (a) less than 1% by mass, and (b) is very securely sequestered.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox theoretically it should be possible to make negative carbon steel that way, which I bet in like a century when the climate crisis has mostly been forgotten is gonna be one of those terms that really confuse people.

Very clear! Thank you.

Here in Belgium they have an extension in a steel factory that converts co2 into ethanol

This sounds very promising. I look forward to reading more... thank you

Thank you, for giving us an overview of SSAB's HYBRIT project. I did have a few counterpoints to the information that SSAB gave you. That I posted in reply to your pinned comment.

thank you for this video very interesting and a step forward

8:13 Carbon fiber take up to 286 megajoules per kilogram while steel is from 20-50 megajoules and 6-15MJ for recycled steel.

Thanks Rosie mate, this has answered a bunch of questions I had. The only outstanding one I have is how hydrogen embrittlement (residual) hydrogen in the steel is effectively removed. I'll do some more reading.

@brlisong

Жыл бұрын

The severity of hydrogen embrittlement is a function of temperature: most metals are relatively immune to hydrogen embrittlement, above approximately 150°C.

@aSpyIntheHaus

Жыл бұрын

@@brlisong thank you very much, though only after posting did I realise I was thinking about High Temperature Hydrogen Attack.

@marcowen1506

Жыл бұрын

I'm with Gordon B: above a fairly low temperature, hydrogen's mobility in the metal is so high that it should diffuse out.

Iceland 'exports' it's renewable energy by processing bauxite ore from the tropics into aluminum, so the concept is already working.

“Not the most exciting thing” - I don’t know what you’re talking about! ;) One fun idea if we can make steel from hydrogen in windy places: there’s a big iron mine in Nunavut. They’d like to quadruple their output, but that would hurt wildlife from the extra ore shipping. If they could refine it locally with wind power it would be a huge deal; they could increase the export and the value of the export without increasing shipping. Probably too late for that mine, but maybe other projects.

@EngineeringwithRosie

Жыл бұрын

And reduce emissions from shipping at the same time 😊

Does the planned Hydrogen Hub in Whyalla tick most of the boxes for green steel making ?

Great coverage of the facts. I think the delivery needs to be slowed down of enhanced. I have a PhD in engineering and found the pertinent facts flew by to fast to absorb. Great converge on the capital already in fossil based manufacturing techniques. As a former power system engineer capital is king.

The map at around the 5:04 mark is really strange. The titel says 2022, but under the map it says 2021. Also, the colours in the legend seems to wrong, for me everything from 100,000 to 1,100,000 only have slightly different tones of red. (BTW, what is the unit used? I guess metric tonnes.) Rosie, could you please link to an updated map?

when cars are auto & much safer & no need to drive fast , car frames may switch to other more durable and energy saving material . Building (construction) material is one more energy saving topic . Thank you for this steel and energy video 👍🙏

I'm quite surprised by the stat that solar uses 40% of the steel-per-MW of wind. I thought wind would use a lot more steel per MW (dirty great stressed tower vs relatively slight ground-mounted frame and spiral anchors). Where did those stats come from? 1MW is something like 5km of frame support so the frame has to be 50 times lighter per m to be lighter or 125 times lighter to be 40% of the mass. I guess that could be right.

Charcoal is how iron and steel were first made. It caused a lot of trees to be cut down.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

Yep it's also what prevented large scale steel production, once methods for using mineral coal were invented steel and iron production massively increased and that is part of why the industrial revolution happened when it did.

Hi. Do those companies patented or willing to share their green steel technology or not? it would be great if the technology can be transfered to the larger steel producer.

That is what I currently do to investigate the life cycle assessment of wind turbine installation.

Hydrogen is great for a lot of things. Shame we don't have any.

Hi Rosie! You mentioned that we keep using more steel each year than we can recycle - is this because steel recycling isn't very efficient or profitable, or is it just a factor of population and economic growth, and increasing demand for the material via that? Do we have an estimated figure for what percentage of the steel in products at end-of-life is recycled? Since it's in so many things, I'm guessing that would be a difficult number to try tracking. I guess I'd just like to know if there is room for green recycling (melting with green-generated power) to reduce that demand for new steel by any significant amount. Thanks!

@davidmartin3947

Жыл бұрын

Nope. We use more steel than recycling can produce because worldwide the industrial revolution is still early stage, so for instance Nigeria where the population will expand a lot still has a fraction of the per capita use of, say, the US.

@dvivek07

Жыл бұрын

Also, a large part of steel is corroded (oxidised) when it comes to the end of its life, meaning that is not fit to get recycled anymore.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

@@dvivek07 That's not true, it's just more expensive to do so but you absolutely can and it is done so long as there is enough steel for it to be practical.

Rosie did you see the photo from China this week showing the fully operational production line of the world's most powerful wind turbine at 16MW - a 90 to 180-degree turn of the blads will power a house for a day or two

A major issue is the quality of the steel needed to use hydrogen, which is higher, making ramping up to really substantial volume difficult. Of course,the problem is being tackled both by ramping the ability beneficiate, and to decrease the need to by altering the process, but it is a real issue in ramping up. I am unable to post links, as the comment is simply deleted if I do so, so those interested will just have to google.

@davidmartin3947

Жыл бұрын

Sorry, s/be, the quality of the ores, not the steel.Most ores can't be used as is in hydrogen produced steel.

last year one of the big organization that represents copper interest followed what was said by a big organization that represents aluminium a few years earlier in that we do not need to dig anymore out of the ground. This was because there is enough intrinsic copper and aluminium just laying around, not being used or just scrap if the world could get recycling all this material "we" could save a lot of money, energy and CO2 etc as well as stop the environmental damage of digging. Wonder if steel and iron manufacturing and mining is anywhere close to this and/or if is it linked to the base price of iron and steel vs the other two metals? If this is the case or even part of it how much reduction in emissions can we get before changings in the way Iron and steel are produced? After that add in hydrogen and electrochemistry. Also, I would not be surprised if iron and steel factories not wanting to design and build their own wind farms to power their own works to reduce costs.

Steel is the original recyclable material. Scrap steel is used on a huge scale so that steel is endlessly recycled. Of not many materials can this be said. As explained here, it has long been around 30% of all steel used; this percentage seems unlikely to change. For the manufacture of steel from iron ore (the other 70%), the alternatives to using coal (carbon) remain of doubtful viability. The comparative cost between the established method of smelting and the alternatives not producing CO2 (eg by using hydrogen) seems much higher for the other methods. The speaker doesn't discuss this comparison of costs. Her sponsor company SSAB iosn't going to say that their method is very expensive relative to using coal in smelting steel. Hyrdogen is expensive to produce as the video explains, and unstable as well. One concludes from the video that it is not a fuel that we should rely on for many energy needs.

Well, being sponsored by SSAB isn't bad at all. They do good, mostly. They don't fight with the Sapmi villages and such ( the Sami is an indidenous people, who were here 10.000 years before everybody else). SSAB special steel actually makes us all safer. When the US administration put tariffs on Swedish steel (in the nineties), their cars lost two stars, in the five star Euro-Ncap rating.

1kg steel = 1 kg co2. That is already very good. I doubt that steel can be replaced by other materials.

"Energy transition" is a somewhat overly optimistic term. Wind and solar cannot replace fossil fuels; they simply don't produce enough energy reliably enough. But there is a source of massive, constant, high grade clean energy in the molten interior of the earth. Magma Energy technology was proven by NASA/Sandia Labs in the 1980's: Status of the Magma Energy Project Dunn, J. C. (Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM.) Abstract The current magma energy project is assessing the engineering feasibility of extracting thermal energy directly from crustal magma bodies. The estimated size of the U.S. resource (50,000 to 500,000 quads) suggests a considerable potential impact on future power generation. In a previous seven-year study, we concluded that there are no insurmountable barriers that would invalidate the magma energy concept. Several concepts for drilling, energy extraction, and materials survivability were successfully demonstrated in Kilauea Iki lava lake, Hawaii. The present program is addressing the engineering design problems associated with accessing magma bodies and extracting thermal energy for power generation. The normal stages for development of a geothermal resource are being investigated: exploration, drilling and completions, production, and surface power plant design. Current status of the engineering program and future plans are described. Publication: Presented at the Symposium on Geothermal Energy, New Orleans, La., 10 Jan. 1988. A quad is a quadrillion btu, and current world energy demand is around 600 quads. Here, NASA/Sandia estimate a minimum of 50,000 quads of magma energy just from the US alone. Worldwide, the magma energy resource is effectively limitless. Hydrogen is the natural fuel by which magma energy would be distributed from where it's produced - there are 450 volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire, to where it's needed. Burnt in power stations with minimal modifications, hydrogen produced from magma can turn existing grids - and all downstream energy use carbon free at a stroke. Because of the political and economic difficulties involved in a genuine energy transition, it makes sense to feed magma - electricity - hydrogen energy in to the economy from the supply side, with large primary industrial energy users like steel, cement, chemicals transitioning first. It's great to hear they are receptive.

there's lots of ruckus in Sweden happening right now about Hybrit. companies want to invest in electrolyzers and offshore wind to produce hydrogen for hydrogen based production of steel, but the new borderline fascist government took back its promise to help with the building of new transmission for the wind farms and to improve/simplify regulations for new renewables. now they want to build nuclear (but not really). there are also some idiots with connections to the new government making unfounded claims that go a bit like "well, we don't really want hybrit, even though it was developed here, because it's just not good and too costly". I paraphrased, but that's basically their argument. It seems wherever conservatives go, they attempt to destroy renewables and shut down entire industries. there's a good chance that sweden will lose many tens of billions of euros in investments because we elected "not the best people".

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

The Nuclear Red Herring is one of the most annoying rhetorical tricks conservatives and neoliberals have come up with in a while. If they are that serious about it then why didn't they build any of it in the last 20 years where they basically dominated all western countries, or better yet back in the 70s when the issue first became apparant and nuclear was actually an atrractive prospect.

steel,cement,fertiliser industries and possibly shipping can use green hydrogen .

Here's hoping it works and can be spread throughout the industry.

wonder if iron and steel manufacturers looked at red hydrogen to both power the plant and use the hydrogen to reduce the Co2 in manufacturing?

Hydrogen reduction of iron ore to iron will never be commercially viable. Electrolysis of iron ore similar to the procees for aluminium is quite possible, however this will be expensive. Steel is an alloy that contains carbon and other elements.

3:00 This video is about a technology the sponsor of this video is responsible for? I guess I shouldn't expect too much skepticism about this tech.

When you said steel was used for PV panel mounts, I had to wonder: why not aluminium? Not strong enough over larger spans? I would've thought it'd do the job and be lighter/better, but then how does aluminium processing compare to iron ore - can we green that process, too?

@richdobbs6595

Жыл бұрын

Steel is way cheaper than aluminum, so for static structures it almost always wins out. Most cars still have major steel components. When car bodies are all aluminum and plastic, then it will make sense to create PV support structures out of aluminum.

@leftaroundabout

Жыл бұрын

Aluminium smelting is _more_ energy intensive than steel. The only plus side is that the energy it uses is by default electric, so it's easier to switch to renewables. But decarbonized steel will probably a greener option also in the forseeable future, since renewable energy production has a hard time keeping up the increased demand in electricity, from both industrialization of developing countries and switch to electricity in industry and transport. Aluminium isn't necessarily “lighter/better” either. While it's less dense than steel, it's also less strong. The specific strength of both is actually very similar, i.e. when changing something from steel to aluminium you typically need to make it so much thicker that it ends up weighing almost the same as before. Aluminium does have other advantages, but also other disadvantages. It's complicated.

@danielmulder1999

Жыл бұрын

Also aluminium production uses carbon anodes which are consumed creating co2.

@PinataOblongata

Жыл бұрын

@@danielmulder1999 Thanks all, for the info :)

@dvivek07

Жыл бұрын

@@richdobbs6595 The 'major steel components' are because of superior mechanical properties/strength, especially at elevated temperatures where Al is useless. It is not for the cost.

The other major effort is finding environmentally friendlier materials to replace steel.

How is hydrogen embrittlement avoided?

Hydrogen in steel increase fragility. Did they found a way to remove it?

Aren’t Twiggy Forest and Mike Cannon-Brooks looking at green steel to partner up with their green hydrogen plans? Not to mention magnetic resonance smelting.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

No hits on google for "magnetic resonance smelting". What is it?

@rmar127

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox my coffee hadn’t kicked in this morning and that was the only term that came to mind. It’s actually called induction smelting. My bad. 😂

There is no industrial process that can be powered only by wind and solar because they all need a large amount of energy supplied continuously and reliably.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

There is no industrial process that can be powered only by fossil fuels because fossil fuels are under the ground.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

Batteries exist.

We need to get the amount of steel being scrapped DOWN by going back to making products that LAST a long time.

The steel and cement industries produce almost 20% of global CO2 emissions. And, it is from a relatively small number of locations. This is where hydrogen can make a real difference, not vehicles or home heating. Australia 🇦🇺 should be producing sponge steel from renewables rather than shipping iron ore to China!

@EngineeringwithRosie

Жыл бұрын

I agree one million percent 😊

Just out of curiosity, are you aware of any studies about how much CO2 savings there would be if we made steel here in Australia as opposed to sending both kinds of rocks all the way to China? And would that be worth it subsidize manufacturing in Australia on the basis of meeting our carbon reduction goals?

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

I feel like that is a fairly easy no. Shipping is one of the most carbon efficient forms of transport we have right now, only really beaten by electric trains powered by renewables.

If it was easy it would be standard practice and not an opportunity for an Entrepreneur? The unfixable problem is Dark Money propaganda against the vastly superior competition of Fission Reactors, when talking to unbiased Scientists and Engineers who do the maths for.., and as a consequence of not cleaning up Energy. So, excellent service to humanity type video, thank you.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

Fission power doesn't really have anything to do with this though, the energy source is kinda irrelevant so long as it's carbon neutral and cheap.

Using hydrogen to reduce iron ore rather than carbon does not produce the same product. When using carbon, some carbon remains in the iron which is necessary if steel is the desired product. Using hydrogen leaves some hydrogen which is what causes hydrogen embrittlement....and you still need to permeate carbon into the product if you want steel.

I'd not be surprised if the worst problem isn't financial - there such a lot of competition in the steel market anyhow, isn't there? There has to be an incentive to toss out the old processes and put in the new. Also the first company to invent some process needs to not throttle the market by overcharging to license it.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

Steel is generally kinda overproduced (or there's a higher potential supply than actual demand) because of it's strategic importance, since it forms one of the key foundations of modern industrial society and basically all defense sectors are reliant on it. For that reason it's not surprising that all the players in this coalition are Swedish state owned companies and it's likely that in the rest of the world incentive will also come from the top. Swedish raw materials play a key role in the EU’s plan to decarbonize so it's clear why the Swedish government is so keen to invest in this project. It's likely that similar processes will play out in the rest of world now that green energy has become a vital strategic asset, other countries will want to decarbonize steel to prepare for a world where the supply of coal is much lower and there's a pletiful and cheap supply of renewable electricity. In this one case finances might not play as important a role as strategic considerations, countries across the world have for two centuries been more than willing to protect and subsidize steel due to it's absolutely vital role. That won't change and decarbonization is a necessary step at some point, and all the major world powers recognize that now. Really it might be more of a question of whether or not Europe can maintain it's current lead and take advantage of it.

Ummm, please research Whyalla. Massive electricity infrastructure, iron ore and a the promise of making hydrogen from the sea water. We already have the steel making plant. Rosie, you really should have mentioned this.

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

The water source used to produce hydrogen really doesn't matter, the important thing is the energy source.

This all sounds very nice and I agree we need to find a way for production with less CO2 output. However... * How much does this new process cost? Because I seriously doubt it's the same price as the current coke-produced steel. Both in terms of one-time investment for the equipment, the maintenance costs of this equipment, and ongoing production costs. And let's face it, no one is going to cover the difference in cost for you - it'll be passed to end-line consumers. With a nice 'green' sticker, of course. * How will it handle China undercutting it by a factor of 10 with it's steel? I'm sure they'll swear up one side and down the other it's totally green too, while China's consumption of coal keeps rising year after year, for some unknown reason. * As to the CEO drinking the "waste water"... Well, I'd like to remind everyone about Thomas Midgley Jr. the inventor of tetraethyllead and 'leaded gasoline'. He too had a press conference where he showed how safe TEL is, despite having experienced lead poisoning before and indeed, after. CEOs will do and say anything for their company - and thus, anything they say is worthless.

@GalvayraPHX

Жыл бұрын

@Ray Johnson It's hard to judge just how expensive this entire process is, especially on an industrial scale. I expect the price difference to be significant. For one, they'll need to electrolyze a whole lotta water - which means a whole lot of power. Yeah you can do it with renewables, but then you need to take weather/batteries into account - which means even more costs. And countries can't just drop a huge tax on steel production, that would be a serious threat to any semi-advanced economy. Sidenote: a lot of solutions discussed these days around (blue) hydrogen center around electrolysis. If we succeed with this and convert our economy to use electrolyzed hydrogen on an industrial, world scale - did anyone give any thought about what all that 'leftover' oxygen is going to do to our atmoshere? Just wondering ;)

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

@@GalvayraPHX Electrolysis is a fully dispatchable load, and hydrogen very straightforward to store in large quantities. You can (and arguably should) limit electrolysis to use only electricity from intermittent sources that is in excess of other demand. It would reduce the associated costs of weather and batteries in the rest of the system, rather than incurring more. Many countries already impose a huge tax, not on steel production but on emissions of greenhouse gases. Converting to electrolytic hydrogen made without the direct use of fossil fuels reduces that tax cost. Over the course of some centuries we have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million to 415 parts per million: an increase of 48%. If we were to release as many "leftover" oxygen molecules from water electrolysis as the entire increase in atmospheric CO₂ molecules over the entire industrial era, and assuming were all to remain as additional oxygen in the atmosphere rather than being absorbed by the various buffers of the ocean, biosphere and geology, we could in theory increase the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere from 209,500 parts per million to 209,635 parts per million, an increase of 0.06%. Even in the most optimistic scenario for a future "hydrogen economy", hydrogen will only ever make up a small fraction of the energy economy, namely that portion which is "hard to decarbonise" in other ways, and it will work by substituting directly for things that we now use fossil fuels for. So there's no way we'd increase atmospheric O₂ by even that much. I don't think we need to ourselves with oxygen pollution as a global phenomenon. Maybe it could become a minor issue in the immediate vicinity of very large electrolysis facilities, but somehow I doubt it will be regarded as a hazard beyond the premises.

@GalvayraPHX

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox I'm willing to agree with you on the oxygen issue - I just hadn't seen any discussion about it and oxygen in high concentration is dangerous. At the same time, if that scenario comes to pass, I would want the oxygen levels and results there of to be monitored ;). As to the electrolysis - yes, you can get energy off the grid. However, it's not quite true that this energy can be produced anywhere. There are transmission losses and we are talking about industrial quantities here. Here's my admittedly unprofessional assessment of the energy required. Going by the information from the video ( which may be just a simplification or incomplete) we need to replace coal with hydrogen in a 1:2 ratio per atom. Carbon has an atomic weight of 12, Hydrogen of 1. So for every 12 units of carbon we need 2 of hydrogen, or a 6:1 weight ratio. I found info online stating you need 770kg of coal processed to 600kg of coke to produce 1 tonne of steel. Coke is quite pure so let's assume it's all carbon, giving us a 100kg of hyrdrogen per tonne of steel. Oxygen has an atomic weight of 16. So hydrogen is 2/18 water by weight, aka. you get 1kg of hydrogen from 9kg of water. So, you need to electrolyze 900kg of water for every tonne of steel. You need a bit over 13MJ per litre of water. A litre weighs roughly 1kg. Thus 11.7GJ to produce enough hydrogen for 1 tonne of steel. Or 3.25MWh. World production 2021 of steel is 1 953 304 thousand tonnes. Say 2 * 10e9 tones. That would require 6.5 * 10e9 MWh, or 6.5*10e6 TWh. World energy use 2021 is 176431 TWh. aka 0.18 * 10e6 TWh. So it would take roughly 36 times more energy then the entire world uses now just for the current level of steel production. I'm sure my numbers aren't accurate and are just a ballpark estimate. But that's a LOT of energy. Even if we could produce it from renewables, where would get the materials to make all those panels/windmills/etc...Not to mention other costs like installation, transmission infrastructure, maintenance etc.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

​@@GalvayraPHX You're out by a factor of one thousand (tera is 10e12, mega is 10e6). Indeed assuming the rest of your calculations are accurate (and I can't see another error), you've very generously assessed that steelmaking via the hydrogen route would require about half as much energy as steelmaking with coal does today. In reality there are energy losses at every step, so in practice it would probably work out much closer, or maybe even somewhat more energy needed for the hydrogen method. Let's be pessimistic and allocate 10% of total current energy consumption to produce current annual quantities of steel (compared with about 7% today).

@GalvayraPHX

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox Yeah I messed up that one unit shift. That would put it at 0.065*10e6 TWh needed versus 0.18*10e6 TWh total energy production. As you said, it's about a 1/3. However, this is just the raw energy required for water electrolysis for the new process versus the entire total energy production of the world - not just steel related. Also, since the hydrogen is a new part of the process I'd expect this to be an additional load on top of whatever it currently uses - so we would need to add that much renewable generation and more for whatever losses in transmission/storage. And some storage too. This doesn't include any other energy costs involved with the hydrogen transition - like storage and transport of it. Also storage and transport of the required water. For that 2 * 10e9 tonnes of steel you'd need to electrolyze 1.8 * 10e9 tonnes of water, annually. That's 4.93*10e6 tonnes of water EVERY DAY. A lot of water to be moving. It would almost certainly be sea water too and that requires some additives for electrolysis, so further costs and logistical issues. In the end, I'm not against the idea. And we certainly need to keep looking for ways to improve steel making. That's why we shouldn't be blindly optimistic about any new idea that comes up - that would close the way to finding other, potentially better solutions to the problem.

Dont get it has the still got carbon in it, because it cant be pure iron. Steel has carbon in it what is the chemical formula for this "steel"

Buy the time replace fossil fuel with renewable and then create hydrogen gas your at net same carbon. Hydrogen will only be competitive when we subquest 4x the energy you can't use.

So how do you balance the Australian electrical system........so that everybody in the country have electricity att all times, I assume it is three fase, Or do you have a spare generator as a must as the Kiwis......We do not have spare generators in sweden.....we had the best electrical system in the world! ANd that is now ruined! And the prices sky high! ANd since we live quite up north we use MORE energy just to warm our houses........but we stiil buy at the same market as more south countries as Denmark with all the windmills tha got stabillity from Swedens el.system. when Barsebäck was turned of the Danes forced Sweden by the EU to export electricity to the Danse event though The Danes forced Sweden to close Barsebäck. Please enlighten us all of the Australian balancing system! in the three fase electrical network!.......

Big problem, Hydrogen is not readily available.

There is no "green" problem.

yeah and we have already proved that building bridges using wood causes deaths and roads closed because the bridge broke, these all seem like bad choices in making a better safer place to live and work. I get that ignoring this like ignoring climate change seems like a bad idea but some things should be checked far more diligently by people who are far smarter than me without building the bridge that collapses because the wood joint failed when building as designed. Thanks for the video.

But the problem is - China. China is by far the biggest steel producer. China has funded the expansion of our iron ore mines in WA. Would China fund the production of renewable steel in WA, and buy it, so they can shut down their own steel industry?

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

Well hopefully the US would do that.

Clean water is the future!

@roidroid

Жыл бұрын

it's the future of what, dirty water? ok?

Like your informative channel, though I would find it a lot easier to watch and listen if you didn't talk so rapidly. While you pronounce your words ok, they are condensed to become a garbled tachylalia monologue.

First😀

@EngineeringwithRosie

Жыл бұрын

🥳

It will be great when we develop a process to bore 1000 miles down and use the Earth's core for melting steel 😆 I give it about 75 -150 years 😁

@EngineeringwithRosie

Жыл бұрын

I was just reading about a new drilling technique for geothermal, that uses microwaves to drill at temperatures too for for conventional styling equipment. I think the tech might be ready earlier than you think! www.quaise.energy/

@Jawst

Жыл бұрын

Wow that's pretty awesome!!! I'm sure it will lead to further advances pretty quick! We're sitting on an unlimited suply of energy and it's always going to be there 😄 little bit cleaner than oil

@hedgehog3180

Жыл бұрын

This is literally what people do in Dwarf Fortress, it'd be utterly hilarious if we ended up recreating industrial techniques from a fucking ASCII game about dwarves.

Get it through your head CO2 is not a problem.

This sounds fishy... No mention of how the steels carbon content is achieved without carbon, no mention of hydrogen embrittlement and how it's avoided.....

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

The hydrogen reduction process does not produce high-carbon pig iron as a blast furnace does, but low-carbon "sponge iron", exactly the same as methane-fired "direct reduced iron" which has been produced on the industrial scale for decades. Pig iron has far too much carbon to make good steel, so it is typically improved with a "basic oxygen furnace" that burns off some of the carbon at significant additional energy cost. The typical approach with low-carbon sponge iron is to mix it with a small amount of cheap, high-carbon pig iron in an electric arc furnace so that the average carbon content will work out right, without having to burn off any carbon. Presumably to achieve fossil-free carbon, pig iron will not be an option, so non-fossil carbon will have to be added in another way that protects the carbon from being simply burned off in the heat, perhaps by pre-packaging something like charcoal in metal pellets under an inert atmosphere. From SSAB's site: "Traditional steelmaking involves removing oxygen from the iron ore using carbon and coke in a blast furnace, a process that emits large volumes of CO2. In the HYBRIT Demonstration project SSAB will phase out two blast furnaces and a coking plant in Oxelösund and replace them with an electric arc furnace (EAF). The EAF will enable the demonstration of electric melting with high shares of hydrogen-reduced sponge iron. The process will be powered by fossil-free electricity. "The project will enable SSAB to introduce fossil-free steel to the market by 2026." (can't post URL, maybe this will work: www dot hybritdevelopment dot se slash en/demonstration-of-electric-melting-eaf/ ) By implication, the demonstration plant isn't claiming to be entirely fossil -free just yet, though the single first shipment to Volvo was described as such.

@MrRolnicek

Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanMaddox So if I understand it right the hydrogen embrittlement problem has been solved long ago since it was encountered when using methane to make sponge iron? I will say though, my expectation is that the superheating turbine that NASA invented which is capable of heat exchange from one gas to another where it makes the secondary gas even hotter (I believe) will see some use in this. HOPEFULLY small nuclear reactors will be used for power generation but also to produce industrial heat where these kinds of processes can be utilized without any efficiency losses in turning the heat into electricity and back into heat. You should be able to have carbon monoxide superheated, used and re-used until the carbon is all spent. We also already have the technology to make carbohydrates just from water and carbon dioxide that's naturally dissolved in the water, that was developed for the Navy. There's all these technologies that would handily save the world but they all ultimately need lots and LOTS of power so cheap nuclear must come first.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

​@@MrRolnicekas I understand it, hydrogen embrittlement is not so much something that happens during steelmaking, as an effect which happens to solid metals over time through chemical interactions with the environment (usually salty water or acids, though high pressure hydrogen gas can increase the effect especially when water or acids are also present) as hydrogen ions from outside the metal diffuse into and disrupt the crystalline structure that was established when the metal was originally quenched or annealed to form a structural solid. There's some literature on managing iron hydrides in ferrometallurgy. Hydrogen is even sometimes deliberately included in alloys for specialist purposes. In the case of steelmaking in the secondary electric arc furnace, however, I expect almost all of the hydrogen remaining in the sponge iron would escape either as a gas or through chemical interaction with slag minerals as the charge is melted down.

That the end of the day you're gonna be killing something or destroying something appetite. It's one of those. Rob Peter to Pay Paul. You're doing something that someone just who do you care to do it too? Or not care to do it too.

As 90% of hydrogen is produced from taking methane and reducing it using steam produced from burning fossil fuels, reverse the equation, use renewables to produce the steam (induction heating), leaving hydrogen and carbon, use the carbon to flash produce graphene a very useful product for many production sequences (batteries, concrete etc) all with a very clean energy pedigree, need to start thinking 3 dimensional rather than 1 dimensional.

@zen1647

Жыл бұрын

A lot of methane leaks when it is extracted so I'm not sure if the numbers would work out. 🤔 Good to consider other options though.

@fredkroh6576

Жыл бұрын

@@zen1647 a lot of methane already leaks into the atmosphere through old wells, gas hydrates etc, better to use this to produce a cleaner hydrogen. Also methane would not require liquification which is very energy intensive.

@zen1647

Жыл бұрын

@@fredkroh6576 I think natural gas producers already try to stop leaks but it's very difficult. Reducing natural gas production is prison the best way to reduce methane leaks.

@JonathanMaddox

Жыл бұрын

​@@fredkroh6576 vast quantities of methane are liquefied today in order to ship it between continents. The LNG industry is responsible for a huge chunk of the energy consumption and domestic emissions of the major exporters, Australia and Qatar, simply from burning some methane to power the machines that chill other methane. The energy can be and usually is recovered at the importing end through turbo-expanders and heat exchangers. Countries that are so poor in domestic energy resources that they need to import costly LNG are not going to throw away that valuable, high-enthalpy temperature differential by simply chilling the environment surrounding the import terminal. Hydrogen does not require liquefaction to be stored in a cavern or pressure vessel, or to be transported by pipeline. It does not have to be liquefied before it is used to reduce iron ore, or combined with nitrogen to manufacture ammonia and urea for fertilisers, or combined with carbon (and optionally oxygen) to produce methane or liquid alkanes or alcohols to substitute for fossil fuels and biofuels, or oxidised in a fuel cell or burned to generate electricity when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Hydrogen is not typically liquefied for storage or transport today, and it would not be even in a "hydrogen economy". Elemental hydrogen would only ever be liquefied in order to store and transport it in a relatively compact volume when hydrogen is needed at the receiving location *in the form of elemental hydrogen*. This is rare now and is unlikely to be commonplace in future.

its dangerous when you get payed to talk about the product of a company. Hard to stay objective and even harder for viewers to judge when you are

Come on Rosie, let your engineering skills come to the fore and do some calculations. The UK could do a few things First the UK imports 875000 tonnes of iron concentrates. It is possible that sintering could be carried out using fine charcoal, but that would quickly denude the UK or British Columbia of trees and the greens are already complaining about pellet production for Drax power station biomass, so we will go away from using

@robindumpleton3742

Жыл бұрын

Charcoal. Of course UK could just buy pig iron from Australia or China. Green Hydrogen then? UK produces 7.9million tonnes of steel, would you like to calculate how many TeraWatts of renewable energy would be required to produce 7.9 million tonnes. I've already done the calculations, and perhaps make the calculation for Germany also, who produce 42 million tonnes of steel.

It such an utterly nonsensical and futile waste of time ,in my opinion, to drag another critically needed industry through the climate scare mud. I am a polymer chemist by profession and work in metals extraction from brine water as well as oil and gas water recycling, ultra high hard concrete formulations and previously developed armor,explosives and radiation shielding technologies for the military. The facts are irrefutable that the entire world has benefited substantially from the massive advances in steel formulations through increasing resistance to corrosion, along with increased ductility and tensile strength that has shaped our world ever since black smith's discovered how adding carbon into iron [ fe203 and fe304] significantly increased those features to allow high rise structures, bridges, concrete reinforcement and ten thousand other applications. Every time I read of some author penning another story or blog about the perceived dangers of carbon emissions and its purported effects on global temperatures, I am bewildered at the lack of understanding of how this modern world actually functions. Fun fact, during WWI the European nations all studied the best ways of producing hydrogen gas for munitions carrying 800 foot long dirigibles and artillery spotting blimps. The Germans were the best at building these huge flying war machines, but the Brits invented the most effective way of extracting hydrogen from iron via heat and pressure as opposed to the French,the Italians and the Germans who extracted hydrogen from water electrolysis. The world is currently faced with a far more life threatening situation of its own making, by a looming shortage of diesel fuel. That fuel feeds the world, via tractors to plow fields, trucks to deliver the food to stores and manufacturing of fertilizers via the Fritz Haber process. Renewable energy supplies only 11% of our energy needs. Solar panels are manufactured using 37 of the most toxic chemicals known to man including the absolute worst chemical ,nitrogen triflouride which is 30,000 times more damaging to our ozone layer than carbon. The Swedes via SSAB whom I have worked in armor have some great technologies in ultra high hard steel technologies. But a French steel company has probably the hardest products.