Green steel is distant, pricey, but teal steel is coming

COMMENTARY Clyde Russell

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here is a conundrum in plans to decarbonise the steel sector.

It’s entirely feasible with current technologies, but also wholly unlikely because of the massive cost of deploying them.

The steel chain from iron ore mining through to finished products accounts for about 8% of global carbon emissions, and reducing this impact is often viewed as vital to combating climate change.

If there was a consensus at the gathering of the iron ore and steel industry this week at the Singapore International Ferrous Week, it's that cutting emissions from steel-making is entirely possible.

But what was also obvious is that while miners and steel makers are in the early stages of transitioning, the process will be slow and massively expensive.

The major problem with this is that nobody is sure who is going to pay.

‘Australia’s iron ore miners, who supply about two-thirds of China's imports, are capable of building a green iron supply chain, which would use solar and wind energy to create green hydrogen, which would then be used to beneficiate iron ore into direct reduced iron (DRI) and hot-briquetted iron (HBI).

Using HBI cuts out about 80% of the emissions created in the entire steel-making process by eliminating the current practice of using coal to turn iron ore into pig, or crude, iron by removing oxygen and other impurities.