We cannot lower carbon emissions if we keep producing steel with fossil fuels.
How else do u suppose we make steel?
How to Escape From the Iron Age?
Submitted 6 months ago by hahattpro@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024/03/how-to-escape-from-the-iron-age/
Comments
muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 6 months ago
cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Use renewable and clean energy sources to produce electricity then make steel with induction heater or other forms of electricity-based heat?
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 6 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.
pumpkinseedoil@feddit.de 6 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.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 6 months ago
electricity-based heat?
The most expensive heat, so probably not feasable.
hahattpro@lemmy.world 6 months ago
what about giving up on steel and moving into something more ‘vintage’, like clay @_@
pumpkinseedoil@feddit.de 6 months ago
That’s fundamentally different from steel. We don’t really have an alternative currently. You could use something like aluminium but that’s not environmentally friendly either (in the initial production, for recycling it’s great).
kromem@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I hear bronze is pretty decent. Could always go back to the classics.
InvisibleShoe@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Rio Tinto is moving to solar here in Australia for its aluminum refining and smelting operations. Would be good if the same could be done for steel too.
psud@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Aluminium has traditionally been smelted with electricity. It’s easy to move to green tech
Steel is harder. There is serious work that had been going on for years trying to come up with new low emissions ways of making steel
lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 months ago
The key problem is that, as the article highlights, iron is widely available and its energetic cost per ton is relatively small. This means that we actually need to reduce steel production, not just replace it with something else and call it a day. Doing the later would cause more harm than good.
For that, I think that consistent application of the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle - in this order, and stop forgetting the first two R’s dammit) would be a good start. And perhaps legislative measures against businesses trying to prevent you from applying the three R’s.
In the meantime, perhaps look for alternative steel productiion processes? You need some carbon as it’s part of the alloy, but I wonder if the bulk of the reduction could be done by electricity instead. And even the carbon could be sourced from renewable sources; more expensive, but doable.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 6 months ago
The folks who came up with the 3 R’s (plastics industry) knew that only the first one made any difference whatsoever.
Even today, plastics recycling only makes a trivial difference.
However, steel is the most recycled material today, and glass is also good at being recycled. But glass has a weight (and therefore energy) penalty, which likely outweighs recycling benefits.
rbesfe@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Electric arc furnaces are becoming more common across the steel industry, coke alternatives not so much. Being a commodity, any steel plant that choses more expensive ingredients is going to quickly go out of business
lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 months ago
That’s true, and perhaps governments could/should kick in. The shift would be overall advantageous for society, so I think that it could be viable to tax coke production and use those taxes to subsidise plants using greener energy, offsetting the costs.
In the meantime, perhaps some global measures. Such as a treaty specifically addressing steel-based carbon emissions. Big thing here would be to convince the big three (China, India, and Japan); if the shift is desirable and viable for those three, others are easier to convince.