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What's the difference between smelting the steel in Australia and shipping it to China, vs shipping the coal to China and smelting the steel on location? I don'
by missedthecue 5y ago
What's the difference between smelting the steel in Australia and shipping it to China, vs shipping the coal to China and smelting the steel on location? I don't think there is any material difference there.
- exyi 5y agoThen both should be equally carbon-taxed when sold in EU/US, that would actually incentivize figuring out how to do these processes in low-carbon way (or, how to lie about the emissions)
- andy_ppp 5y agoThe marine fuel used to transport 60%+ more stuff, it increases the carbon cost in a way that’s hugely inefficient. I worked on a project for an unnamed Australian mining company trying to optimise the shipping routes and I just see this sort of thing as profoundly wasteful.
- missedthecue 5y agoBut my point is that you aren't necessarily reducing the amount of fuel used. Either you ship coal, and make steel there, or you keep the coal here and ship the finished steel off. Either way, the metal has to get to China.
- andy_ppp 5y agoIron ore is about 60% iron and the stats I’m seeing suggest 1 tonne of steel takes about 0.77 tonnes of coal. So you need fewer than half the amount of heavily polluting ships if the steel was made in Australia.