Comment on How to Escape From the Iron Age?

• douglasg14b@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That’s… Not how steel production works.

  Coal is a significant component in the production of steel to impregnate it with carbon.

  I wonder if we can move more towards charcoals, but even then I wonder if that’s just much less effective.

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  • cyd@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    How much of the coal in a blast furnace is actually necessary for the carbon impregnation, as opposed to supplying the heat via combustion? Steel contains only a few percent carbon by weight, so it doesn’t seem like much carbon is needed (not to mention that the carbon in steel is essentially sequestered).

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  • lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Charcoal steel is actually better, as charcoal is generally purer, and steel suffers from phosphor and sulphur impurities. The problem is that it’s costlier.

    I think that it would be viable to at least reduce the carbon used in steel production just to impregnate it, and conduct the bulk of the reduction through another process.

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  • Skua@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The hybrit process that some Swedish steelmakers (including SSAB - not a typo, it isn't Saab) are using looks promising. They've been testing it with Volvo and are apparently making it part of Volvo's regular process in 2026

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  • cordlesslamp@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Cool, I learned something new today.

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• pumpkinseedoil@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Coal is required for steel, electricty-based heat would only work to lower carbon emissions (especially when recycling steel since you don’t need coal there), but you couldn’t prevent them.

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  • WallEx@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    “… Only work to lower carbon emissions” But thats exactly the point, that it is high emissions now.

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• NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  electricity-based heat?

  The most expensive heat, so probably not feasable.

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  • niisyth@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Resistive, sure. Inductive, not necessarily.

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    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not positive, but it seems to me both would require the same amount of energy to increase a given mass to a given temp.

      And since electric heating is effective 100% efficient (all the energy is tranformed to heat), I can’t really see how either would be more efficient.

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      • niisyth@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        There’s usually an interface material when using resisitive heat. And there’s heat loss from heating the interface material before the heat getting to the actual material that needs to be heated.

        Inductive heating can be applied directly without heating the interface material.

        Though this is probably more applicable to cooking vs industrial kilns and furnaces.

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    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s the same. It’s not because of some losses somewhere on the way. Electricity is simply by far the most expensive form of energy.

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