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From the article: Until the product is actually built and tested at commercial scale, it’s too early to say how well or affordably it will really work. Moreov

From the article: Until the product is actually built and tested at commercial scale, it’s too early to say how well or affordably it will really work. Moreover, merely producing a green version of a product for around the same price won’t be enough to transform the industry, given the billions of dollars in sunk costs in steel mills that can operate for decades. Even if the perfect technology came on the scene today, it’d probably be several decades before we could effectively transition to it Talk about playing the long game... I wonder how much cheaper their method would need to be, given the above. Would it be faster/cheaper to develop perfect scrubbers to retrofit onto existing mills? (Funded through donations, and/or to sell to offset carbon taxes.) Still good to have this new technology available to transition to down the line.

Gibbon1 8y ago
I read a retrospective paper by a Norwegian group that worked on electrowinning iron from mixed sulfide ores. Taking iron sulfide waste and converting it to sulfuric acid and iron sheet. I think they were getting 4.25kwh per kg. Nop idea if that is good or not but at $0.15/kwh that's $640/ton. I thought about that over the last few years because it's aqueous process so should be able to run intermittently. Edit: Paper http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.843.3769&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.843...
- hectormalot 8y ago
  640$/ton won’t be profitable as that’s about the current price for high end steels. OTOH, I remember industrial electricity prices to be closer to 7-10cents per kWh, so it won’t be that far off what we have now.
  - 46Bit 8y ago
    I'm amazed how cheap that sounds. Does that mean that for a cost of a decent laptop I could get two tons of steel delivered?
    - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
      That's probably slabs of billet: unprocessed steel right from the mill. Not cold rolled bars or rods, or sheet. I only know a little about steel prices from being a hobby machinist, but I know a bit more about hay prices. For the price of a cheap laptop, you can get two tons of hay delivered :-)
      - hectormalot 8y ago
        Actually I was thinking of hot rolled. Turns out the regional differences are huge: Hot rolled in US is 928$ per metric ton Hot rolled in EU is 620$ per metric ton China is in the mid 500s. Unclear to me if the new US tariffs are to blame, gap is larger than the 25% I expected. Source: http://steelbenchmarker.com/files/history.pdf http://steelbenchmarker.com/files/history.pdf
  - qbrass 8y ago
    It doesn't have to turn a profit, it just has to lose less money than it costs to dump the waste products it's made out of. Depending on how regulated that becomes, it might be worthwhile in the future.
  - jillesvangurp 8y ago
    Energy prices are going to be key here. The mistake would be assuming they are a constant though. They've been trending down and lately coal has been considered on the expensive end of the spectrum. Those prices have been trending down due to clean energy prices dropping. Both solar and wind are now winning bids on price that used to go to coal plants. Also as coal plants shut down and coal mines are closed, coal might actually get more hard to get (i.e. more expensive). Some recent solar plants are delivering power well below the prices you cite (I've heard prices going as low as 3-4 cents/kWh). I could imagine most steel plants are big enough that they'd want their own infrastructure in any case. So, for a future steel plant based on this stuff with its own cheap energy supply, it might end up being cheaper and cleaner. That could end up being really disruptive.
    - salty_biscuits 8y ago
      Energy prices and the price of carbon dioxide emissions, especially in Europe.
    - opwieurposiu 8y ago
      Cokeing coal for making steel is a different grade then what is typically burned at power power plants.
cerfirm 8y ago
There are other tests as well. the Hybrit method that will be going through a pilot phase starting this year. Fossil free steel making. Still some issues to solve but it is still interesting http://www.hybritdevelopment.com/ http://www.hybritdevelopment.com/

Gibbon1 8y ago

I read a retrospective paper by a Norwegian group that worked on electrowinning iron from mixed sulfide ores. Taking iron sulfide waste and converting it to sulfuric acid and iron sheet. I think they were getting 4.25kwh per kg. Nop idea if that is good or not but at $0.15/kwh that's $640/ton. I thought about that over the last few years because it's aqueous process so should be able to run intermittently. Edit: Paper http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.843.3769&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.843...

hectormalot 8y ago
640$/ton won’t be profitable as that’s about the current price for high end steels. OTOH, I remember industrial electricity prices to be closer to 7-10cents per kWh, so it won’t be that far off what we have now.
- 46Bit 8y ago
  I'm amazed how cheap that sounds. Does that mean that for a cost of a decent laptop I could get two tons of steel delivered?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    That's probably slabs of billet: unprocessed steel right from the mill. Not cold rolled bars or rods, or sheet. I only know a little about steel prices from being a hobby machinist, but I know a bit more about hay prices. For the price of a cheap laptop, you can get two tons of hay delivered :-)
    - hectormalot 8y ago
      Actually I was thinking of hot rolled. Turns out the regional differences are huge: Hot rolled in US is 928$ per metric ton Hot rolled in EU is 620$ per metric ton China is in the mid 500s. Unclear to me if the new US tariffs are to blame, gap is larger than the 25% I expected. Source: http://steelbenchmarker.com/files/history.pdf http://steelbenchmarker.com/files/history.pdf
- qbrass 8y ago
  It doesn't have to turn a profit, it just has to lose less money than it costs to dump the waste products it's made out of. Depending on how regulated that becomes, it might be worthwhile in the future.
- jillesvangurp 8y ago
  Energy prices are going to be key here. The mistake would be assuming they are a constant though. They've been trending down and lately coal has been considered on the expensive end of the spectrum. Those prices have been trending down due to clean energy prices dropping. Both solar and wind are now winning bids on price that used to go to coal plants. Also as coal plants shut down and coal mines are closed, coal might actually get more hard to get (i.e. more expensive). Some recent solar plants are delivering power well below the prices you cite (I've heard prices going as low as 3-4 cents/kWh). I could imagine most steel plants are big enough that they'd want their own infrastructure in any case. So, for a future steel plant based on this stuff with its own cheap energy supply, it might end up being cheaper and cleaner. That could end up being really disruptive.
  - salty_biscuits 8y ago
    Energy prices and the price of carbon dioxide emissions, especially in Europe.
  - opwieurposiu 8y ago
    Cokeing coal for making steel is a different grade then what is typically burned at power power plants.

cerfirm 8y ago

There are other tests as well. the Hybrit method that will be going through a pilot phase starting this year. Fossil free steel making. Still some issues to solve but it is still interesting http://www.hybritdevelopment.com/ http://www.hybritdevelopment.com/