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Comment by danans | Hacker News Reader

> I won't do the maths here but, if the electricity was generated through fossil fuels, I wouldn't be surprised if the process actually increased CO₂ emissions instead of reducing them. > But let's say that the hydrogen is from fossil-free electricity. You could be plugging that fossil-free electricity elsewhere instead.

This assumes a zero-sum situation where we have a fixed amount of fossil free electricity, but that's unlikely because fossil free energy (solar specifically) is the cheapest type of electricity generation we can build today.

Furthermore, the hydrogen can be electrolyzed at times when the supply of fossil free energy exceeds demand, thereby actually improving the economics of intermittent renewables by increasing their overall utilization, and hence incentivizing building more if it.

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>This assumes a zero-sum situation where we have a fixed amount of fossil free electricity

I'm not assuming a zero-sum. The concern still holds without a zero-sum situation, as long as some commonly used sources of energy are not fossil-free.

>but that's unlikely because fossil free energy (solar specifically) is the cheapest type of electricity generation we can build today.

Higher demand can increase prices. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, but considering how big the iron/steel production sector is, the impact of the electricity used for the H₂ be measured, not assumed.

>Furthermore, the hydrogen can be electrolyzed at times when the supply of fossil free energy exceeds demand, thereby actually improving the economics of intermittent renewables by increasing their overall utilization, and hence incentivizing building more if it.

That is actually a fair argument. Unlike the above.

> Higher demand can increase prices.

Sure, but absent material supply constraints for production of PV and wind (of which none exist), supply will respond to that demand as it always has.

Using green hydrolyzed H2 for making steel makes more sense because our only alternative for steel is to use coal to produce it, which we know is terrible from a C02 emissions perspective.

This is Sweden and almost at the most northern part of it. It is located a relative short distance from the polar circle. Solar is a very cheap form of electricity but it has some significant problems to overcome that far up north.

Hydro, nuclear and wind is what northern Sweden uses.

> This is Sweden and almost at the most northern part of it.

> Solar is a very cheap form of electricity but it has some significant problems to overcome that far up north.

Why would the hydrogen-reduced steel need to only be produced in Northern Sweden? It could just as well be produced somewhere with abundant solar.

The plant is near the mines in northern Sweden. They could in theory be transporting the hydrogen, but hydrogen can be a bit tricky to transport and it obviously would cost more money. The green hydrogen process is also fairly expensive right now (despite what people might say), and the cost is not just attached to the electricity price. They had a person from the project discuss the value proposition just a few weeks ago in Swedish news. Green steel need both subsidies and green credits, but even so the end cost is landing at a few percent higher than regular steel. The argument was that even if it cost more its better for the environment, and this is a pilot program so maybe the cost will continue down in the future.

That's where they have decided to build the plant.

Sure, but subsequent plants needn't be built in Northern Sweden. It would make a lot of sense to build them in other areas with lots of green power potential.

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