Scaling up green steel production

One company is exploring using green hydrogen to power steel production

Spotted: With almost all hydrogen produced today coming from fossil fuels, switching to low-carbon, or green, hydrogen, presents a significant opportunity for reducing emissions. Sweden’s H2 Green Steel company is helping to lead the way. Building a greenfield steel mill in Boden in the north of the country, the company plans to produce both green steel and green hydrogen. The steel production process will emit 95 per cent fewer emissions than current methods. 

The electrolyser needed to produce industrial volumes of green hydrogen will be giga-scale and capable of creating enough of the gas to produce five million tonnes of steel annually. The plans are to be operational at that level by 2030. Hydrogen is one of the world’s most abundant chemical elements and has long been recognised for its power-producing capabilities.

The challenges for hydrogen have rested on producing the power source without greenhouse gas emissions and at a competitive enough cost that makes it a viable option for industrial use. H2 Green Steel uses fossil-free electricity to produce the element with water and heat as the primary waste products. As production at the mill scales up, subsequent housing, recreation, and local government development will benefit from the mill waste products in the form of recycled energy and power resources.

Having recently closed a Series B round of funding that raised €260 million, the company will continue its build of the mill and implementation of its hydrogen and steel production processes.

Springwise has spotted other means of producing cleaner hydrogen, including splitting it from water via sunlight and using bacteria to produce it from spent oil and gas wells.  

Written By: Keely Khoury