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Startup just hit a big milestone for green steel production

(www.technologyreview.com)
28 points ohjeez | 1 comments | 13 Jul 25 00:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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samuli ◴[13 Jul 25 04:38 UTC] No.44547564[source]▶
SSAB is completing their new 190-tonne alternate current electric arc furnace by end of next year, which should yield about 500-800k carbon free tonnes of steel plate and coil per year.

They plan to convert all their Nordic plants to carbon free by 2030 and have some plants also in the North America.

https://eurometal.net/ssab-starts-construction-of-eaf-at-oxe... https://www.ssab.com/en/news/2025/03/new-electric-arc-furnac...

replies(1): >>44549215 #
tuatoru ◴[13 Jul 25 10:37 UTC] No.44549215[source]▶
Different thing. Electric arc furnaces are old technology.

What is new here is direct reduction of iron ore to iron metal, electrolytically. It makes the input feedstock for your EAFs.

Smelting has always been the most carbon-intensive part of steelmaking.

replies(1): >>44549353 #
1. defrost ◴[13 Jul 25 10:56 UTC] No.44549353[source]▶
There's also what's called an electric smelt furnace, that has a couple of variations, currently being trialed by two global scale producers at bigger than MIT lab scale, but less than production:

ESF- https://www.energyinnovation.net.au/article/the-electric-sme...

Fortescue- https://metals.fortescue.com/en/our-projects/green-metal-pro...

BlueScope, BHP and Rio Tinto- https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2024/bluescope-bhp...