How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?
economist.com
economist.com
[edit]
I couldn't find any high-tensile steel with C alloyed below 0.18%, which is more carbon than what Wikipedia lists for wrought iron.
> But while decarbonizing heavy industry is a good thing, the folks behind this project are not my favorites. Lightsource BP is a joint venture between the steel company EVRAZ and the energy giant BP, as well as the utility giant Xcel Energy, which will provide the steel mill with fixed electricity rates through 2041. BP and Xcel wouldn’t exactly be my top choices to control the energy of the future, what with both companies’ histories of spewing out carbon emissions, greenwashing their polluting business plans, and screwing over workers. I personally don’t think these kinds of companies should get to make big profits on solar power or use it to paper over their destructive legacies. But hey, maybe that’s just me!
The alternative to this is what? Complete newcomers to the industry attempting to execute multi-million or -billion dollar projects? Anyone in an existing carbon-intensive industry is going to have a "climate unfriendly" reputation because they operate in a "climate unfriendly" industry. Attempting to block existing players in the industry from decarbonizing seems counterproductive.
Here's some other (probably better quality) links: - https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/2022/03/18/bighorn-sola... - https://www.constructiondive.com/news/worlds-largest-solar-p...
> Recycling rates, which fluctuate annually, were estimated to be 98% for structural steel from construction, 88% for appliances, 71% for rebar and reinforcement steel, and 70% for steel packaging. The recycling rates for appliance, can, and construction steel are expected to increase in the United States and in emerging industrial countries at an even greater rate. Public interest in recycling continues, and recycling is becoming more profitable and convenient as environmental regulations for primary production increase.
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/minin...
(All in favour of it, just everyone has to play along)
Kind of like how China is a WTO member, claims to support Copyright, upholds Patent Law, and respects Intellectual Property. They also respect their Constitution, including the provisions for Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech, and have an independent Supreme Court to enforce checks-and-balances on their President. They also have a Functioning Democracy with 8 other political parties. Anyone who has actually interacted with them in any of those fields...
Being a democracy is actually bad for taking action on this issue. The Republicans are still denying climate change.
It's worth doing even if others don't. Especially for the wealthy countries -- the poor countries emit relatively little carbon per capita.
The new energy transition is from op ex to cap ex. Looks expensive in the short term but a big win in the medium and long term. Plus you get the benefit of reduced emissions. Sure, other people do, but even if you're selfish it's a good deal.
If we believe that every country has the right to develop, than the poorest countries emission will increase. Better technology will flatten that increase but those are expensive. Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
Being charitable, it’d clearly be an environmental disaster if everyone in the world consumed oil at the per capita level of OECD countries. I imagine global oil consumption would multiply manyfold.
> Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
I too used to think this, but it seems like most of the progress in solar has come from China. Similar with nuclear power plants.
So yeah, I'm guessing it's mostly to sell to countries with better sar geographies, especially the US and Australia.
> China was responsible for about 38% of solar PV generation growth in 2021, thanks to large capacity additions in 2020 and 2021. The second largest generation growth (17% share of the total) was recorded in the United States, and third largest in the European Union (10%).
Like, instead of committing millions of your citizens to coal mining with picks and steam-powered lifts, you can just buy or produce turbines and solar panels, put them up and enjoy the benefits of electrification. Worst case, you build cheap has turbines and buy or pump LNG.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
This infrastructure uses a lot of steel and concrete. It is not just an input for export goods - they are places for people to live.
Given that infrastructure building has set commodity prices for a decade, it wild be surprising if it wasn't the main part of thier emissions.
We can't begrudge Chinese, Indian and African people a modern way of life. Building that stuff emissions carbon. Its a difficult problem.
In a way trying to call a Chinese freeway an input emission for westbound exports is a moral cop-out.
Like whats the alternative: get into an arms race to see who can boil the oceans fastest? Oh but we'll make slightly more money than India from steel manufacturing so it will definitely be worth it?
I don't know the solution because the problem is huge, but my strong suspicion is that focusing on industrial efficiency is the largest needle we can move. Specifically, making it economically sensible to use green technologies in developing countries.
"Europe’s steelmakers have one more strong incentive to get decarbonising. Under the eu emissions-trading system, they are currently awarded 80% of their allowances for CO2 emissions free of charge in order to remain competitive with dirtier producers in places like China and India. Over the next ten years the eu will phase out these freebies and replace them with a carbon tariff on dirty imports. If eu steelmakers stay grey, calculates Morgan Stanley, their profits could sink by up to 70%."
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/12/13/eu-...
They also produce the vast majority of the world's solar panels.
2021 Henan flood killed hundreds and forced evacuation of 800k people.
Imagine what you want, but nobody's laughing any more.
The west might have burned its way to economic development, but developing nations are forging their own paths, and hydrocarbons aren’t the industrial requirement they used to be, or even the most economical way to producing energy. Choosing “green” alternatives also means choosing alternatives that faster and easier to deploy, work incredibly well in decentralised systems, and are often cheaper and easier to repair.
https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/chinas-roadmap-to-green...
World’s biggest steel maker (based in China) eyes new green steel plant in WA (Western Australia)
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/world-...
> Western Australia is in the running to host a green steel plant bankrolled by the world’s biggest steel maker, China Baowu Group.
> During talks with Trade Minister Don Farrell in Beijing, company chairman Chen Dorong said the availability of clean energy and ore made Western Australia ideal as a site for the new facility.
> The biggest buyer of Australian iron ore wants to decarbonise operations but is also eyeing West Africa, South America and Saudi Arabia as alternatives.
The largest resource companies are making commitments they regret, but are now tied to public statements and shareholders to meet:
Rio Tinto boss says he regrets ambitious emissions targets
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/rio-ti...
> Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm has admitted he regrets the company’s ambitious emission reduction targets, doubling down on comments about the feasibility of moving to renewable energy at the pace expected.
> “There have been a lot of strong statements made [about the energy transition], but I don’t think people have realised and accounted for the process of getting the land, the cultural clearings and then executing the project,” Stausholm told a business breakfast in Perth on Friday.
The carbon in the steel serves two purposes. One, it alters the structure of the final steel. Too much, or too little and the metal doesn't behave right, so it's not fit for purpose. Two, it's a sacrificial reducer that keeps any stray oxygen from eating the metal during the heat and cool cycles (most of us call hot oxidation 'burning').
You're still going to need a little carbon to get the steel right and maybe to help catch a few stray oxygen atoms, but if you can heat the metal with something other than coal/charcoal, and you can provide another reducing agent, then you don't have to bathe the entire process in carbon. You'd just need enough to get the crystalline structure right, and perhaps a margin of error. And that sort of fraction could come from renewable resources.
An engineering mind would never prefer high risk authoritarian enforcement of theoretical solutions to solve a problem. You are reducing diversity to shoot yourself in the foot
Every individual action "contributes practically nothing to global CO2", so with this argument, nothing should ever be done.
But this is a strawman argument regardless: globally, steelmaking contributes ~11% of direct CO2 emissions[1]. Other countries[2] are progressing towards decarbonization. Per this very article, Europe will subsidize initially (progressively replacing subsidization with import tariffs over the next decade). And the whole point of all of this is to "internalize the externalities" - recognize that carbon emissions aren't free: Steel is incredibly emissions intensive, and free emissions lead it to be used in areas where other materials would be better from an emissions perspective.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking#Carbon_dioxide_emi...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/algoma-steel-420milli...
Not charging levies and taxes is not providing a subsidy.
These things push up costs of living, costs of housing, costs of doing business - at a time when such artificial costs are presenting an existential threat to our way of life.
It's all laughably irrelevant anyway. In 2021 China estimated >1,000 million tonnes of steel (and that doesn't count the steel they finance in other countries). EU: 152 million.
> And the whole point of all of this is to "internalize the externalities"
This childishly reductive paradigm of victimhood in relation to every macro and microscopic element of western life is a noose around our necks.
There is a part of the balance sheet that you aren't looking at that is presenting an existential threat. A higher bill for energy isn't an existential risk.
>This childishly reductive paradigm of victimhood in relation to every macro and microscopic element of western life is a noose around our necks.
It's called actions having consequences. If costs and benefits aren't properly accounted for, then you get market failure.
What consequences?
What will cause market failure?
Whether or not it changes 1000x times the historic norm is up to us.
On the flip side there is an unstable criminal with his finger on the WW3 button. When he’s done we might need some of that global warming.