“Lourenco Goncalves, the CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, said his company’s coal-fueled blast furnaces were ‘here to stay.” Cleveland-Cliffs is Coatesville PA's steel company. Green hydrogen electrolyzers can make sponge iron for AMERICAN, not Russian steel

Cleveland-Cliffs Coatesville PA steel plant, formerly ArcelorMittal, Bethlehem Steel & originally Lukens Steel Company is a steel plant that operates an electric arc furnace 

 Way back in Cretaceous Microsoft time of 1975 we used a water fueled hydrogen soldering torch in the dental lab. It offered pin point control & exact temperatures. Not this one but similar: 

“In December, Kobad Bhavnagri, head of industrial decarbonization at Bloomberg NEF, highlighted how the global steel industry is at an inflection point. 

‘The global steel industry is poised to begin a titanic pivot from coal to hydrogen, this transition will cause both great disruption, and great opportunity,’ he said. ‘Companies and investors don’t yet appreciate the scale of the changes ahead.”

"The global steel industry accounts for 8 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and consumes approximately 15 percent of the world’s coal. By far the most emissions-intensive part of the steel production process is making pig iron. U.S. steelmakers claim to be the cleanest in the world, but that claim does not take into account the emissions that are simply being outsourced to countries like Russia and Ukraine along with the production of pig iron.

The solution to the dirty pig iron problem is not to build more coal-based, pig-iron production facilities in America, but to use green hydrogen — which can be produced emissions-free using renewable energy — to turn iron ore into direct reduced iron (also known as sponge iron). Green hydrogen (in contrast to “gray hydrogen” made with natural gas) is derived from water, split into oxygen and hydrogen by units called electrolyzers.

Sponge iron can replace pig iron as the feedstock for steel production. This is a proven technology, with the European steel industry leading the way in transitioning its steel industry to hydrogen fuel. In Germany, the government is directly funding the replacement of pig iron-producing coal-fired blast furnaces with green hydrogen technology to produce sponge iron. In December, Kobad Bhavnagri, head of industrial decarbonization at Bloomberg NEF, highlighted how the global steel industry is at an inflection point. “The global steel industry is poised to begin a titanic pivot from coal to hydrogen, this transition will cause both great disruption, and great opportunity,” he said. “Companies and investors don’t yet appreciate the scale of the changes ahead.”

Energy costs will also drive this transition. The cost of renewable electricity used in green hydrogen technology continues to fall while the cost of coking coal — the kind of coal used to make pig iron — is at an all-time high. In January, management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. suggested that these higher prices could hasten the transition to green hydrogen replacing coal in steel production noting that the high coking coal prices “could become the norm rather than the exception.”

Major U.S. steel producers have no plans to invest in clean steel production, nor do they have an incentive to in the current high-price and high-profit environment.

Replacing dirty pig iron imports with clean sponge iron production directly supports the existing U.S. steel industry, creating new steel industry jobs and protecting existing ones. Overall, it is estimated that transitioning to a net-zero emission economy would create 20 million jobs, including many well-paying jobs in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, and renewable power plants.

Yet, major U.S. steel producers have no plans to invest in clean steel production, nor do they have an incentive to in the current high-price and high-profit environment. As with the oil and gas industry, U.S. steel producers profit from high-priced steel. The industry is unlikely to change without an incentive, so the U.S. elected officials and policy makers must create an industrial policy to make it happen.

The steel industry’s carbon emissions have historically been considered “hard to abate.” That is no longer true. The United States has the opportunity to lead the transition from coal-fired blast furnaces to hydrogen-fueled sponge iron production. Without it, we will be unable to complete the transition to a clean energy future."

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Russia-Ukraine War Is Another Reason to Break Free of Dirty Steel, but U.S. Companies Still Chase Profits Over Green Future

The war in Ukraine has broken the pig iron supply chain, creating an opportunity for the U.S. to lead the transition to green steel production.

Justin Mikulka, Zack Exley

April 19 2022, 12:21 p.m.