‘World’s first fossil-free steel’ delivered to Volvo

Note, this is just a trial delivery, which though a really impressive step, doesn't represent full industrial-scale production yet. The article notes that "By 2030, the aim is for the business to have the capacity to produce 5 million tons of steel per year."

Further, for context, "Global crude steel production reached 1,869.9 million tonnes (Mt) for the year 2019" (https://www.worldsteel.org/media-centre/press-releases/2020/...). So even at full scale, 5 million tons a year is a very small drop in a very very large, dirty bucket.

The article is also unclear as to whether the hydrogen used here was in fact green hydrogen. My bet is probably not, given the vast majority of hydrogen out there is blue hydrogen or worse. We'd need the green hydrogen industry to expand significantly for hydrogen-based processes like these to truly be carbon neutral.

Finally, there's no mention of cost comparison. So it's unclear if this process is price competitive with coal-based processes, or would be any time soon.

In short: Very cool, but a long way from where we need to be if we wanna hit net zero in my lifetime (which, you know, we won't, but...)