The Green Steel Challenge

Today, Sanjiv Lamba, CEO of Linde, joins us for an engaging conversation! Linde, a global leader in industrial gases and engineering, is at the forefront of developing solutions that drive productivity while supporting sustainability and decarbonisation efforts worldwide.From chemicals & energy to manufacturing, metals, and mining, Linde’s expertise spans a variety of industries. Their advanced gas processing technologies are helping businesses improve efficiency, expand operations, and reduce emissions.

Hydrogen is expected to be a key factor not only in steel industry decarbonisation but in much of manufacture and transportation, too, where the use of coal or hydrocarbons has previously been prevalent. Developing scalable technologies and funding the capital required for future hydrogen supply is very much a key to the Green Steel Challenge and the industry in general. In this episode, we talk to Pierre-Etienne Franc, co-founder and Chairman of FiveT Hydrogen, which is the world’s largest fund dedicated to low-carbon hydrogen infrastructure. The challenges and their solutions are eloquently described and discussed, and some very interesting conclusions are drawn as to how the future of Green Steel may look.  

Many consider the HyBrit project to be the original ore-based iron and steel-making decarbonisation project. One of the leaders behind that project is Martin Pei, the CTO of SSAB, based in Sweden, who also has steelmaking operations in Finland and the US. Here, we are lucky enough to hear how that process was developed, where it is now, and how it will fit in with the future SSAB. The story is critical in understanding how the European steel industry will inevitably have to fundamentally adapt. In addition, we learn how SSAB is already producing SSAB Zero in the US. This is the world’s first emission-free steel of its kind, which is made from recycled steel and produced with fossil-free electricity and biogas.

Tenova is the metals technology part of Techint, an Italian Argentine conglomerate that also owns the steelmaking companies Ternium and Tenaris, amongst others.  Today, we talk to its CEO, Roberto Pancaldi, about how Tenova is playing a critical role in the Green Steel Challenge, especially regarding its ENERGIRON DRI and electric arc furnace (EAF). He offers an honest appraisal of where we currently stand in all regions of the world and how the journey may continue.

Electrolysis is seen by many as being the end game of the Green Steel Challenge. In this episode, we sit down with Sandeep Nijhawa, CEO of Electra, one of the leaders in the use of “cold” hydrometallurgy to electrolyse iron-bearing ores to pure iron, with oxygen as the main by-product in a very low carbon process. He describes an enthralling journey so far for this Boulder, Colorado-based start-up that is on track to redefine ore-based steelmaking. With Nucor and BHP as investors, it makes for a very interesting story.

Much of the Green Steel Challenge is about reducing the amount of CO2-emitting coal used in the blast furnace to reduce iron ore. However, carbon itself is an essential component of steel, and this is an issue in EAFs where coke also usually has to be added to obtain the required quality of steel. In this episode, we chat with John Mellowes, Cofounder of BioCarbon, an Australian start-up that takes waste biomass resources such as woodchip and sawmill waste and coverts it to a range of biocarbon products that can be used in heavy industries such as steelmaking using an innovative pyrolysis technology.Tune in to hear how their vision is reshaping the future of steel production.