4 ms·

I would guess that even better than shipping ammonia or hydrogen to European steel plants would be to build new steel plants near the hydrogen producers, wherev

I would guess that even better than shipping ammonia or hydrogen to European steel plants would be to build new steel plants near the hydrogen producers, wherever they may be, and shipping iron ore there while shipping steel back out. Since iron ore and steel are much denser than either ammonia or hydrogen and do not need pressure vessels or chilling they can be shipped at lower speeds (save transport energy consumption) and save money too.

tonyarkles 4y ago
I'm asking this 100% from a place of curiosity because I don't know the answer. From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? If the waste fraction is large, people might balk at the idea of either leaving that waste behind in the hydrogen-host country or burning fossil fuels to ship it around to have a carbon-free extraction process.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Anywhere you have water you have hydrogen.
  - to11mtm 4y ago
    Interestingly, the paper mentions that the reactions do produce (some) hydrogen, which could perhaps be recaptured. However, a bigger concern upon a glance is that this process does produce NOx emissions...
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      NOx from big industrial processes tends not to be an issue. Catalytically reducing it to N2 and O2 is easy, and at the same time, you get out 'free' high grade heat, which there is usually some use for elsewhere in the plant.
    - jabl 4y ago
      > Interestingly, the paper mentions that the reactions do produce (some) hydrogen, which could perhaps be recaptured. The hydrogen is used for reducing the iron oxides, that's the whole point of the process! That is, FeXOY + H2 => Fe + H2O
- to11mtm 4y ago
  > From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? Depends on how we define 'waste' and at what part of the process. When they start with the rock from the ground/pit, the rocks/etc are often crushed, running through some sort of slurry while basically separating the 'ore' out from silicates/etc that will be around them. I'm guessing this is already done close to the site, since transport cost could be fairly high even by past standards. What you wind up Iron ores that are considered 'worth' mining, the actual Iron content is anywhere from ~48% to ~72%. They'll typically have Oxygen, Possibly also Carbon or hydrogen as the 'impurities'. So, there's still a lot of potential waste in transporting all of that. [0] - Also, that would theoretically be useful in filling the pit back up, one would hope. But not sure on that one.
- bigger_cheese 4y ago
  I work in the steel industry so can provide some info here. In the mining of iron ore there is a step called "beneficiation" which involves the wet processing of minerals - this is not unique to iron ore and is common to many mining operations for a wide variety of materials, wet processing produces a waste slurry known as "tailings" which are typically stored in a dam or similar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings_dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings_dam) - tailings dams have been the cause of major environmental issues in the past. Such as the Brazilian Dam failure in 2019 which killed 250+ people. After beneficiation Iron ore is transported to a steelworks where it is smelted. The smelting process produces a further waste product "slag" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag) how much slag is generated depends on a few factors such as the efficiency of the plant and the quality of the raw materials. Steelmaking slags can have some further use, for example it can be used in the concrete and cement industry and as a road base but how much if any of it is recycled very much depends on the country and the steelworks in some countries, particularly those with looser environmental restrictions slag is sent to landfill.
conradev 4y ago
This is how Iceland exports the bulk of its hydroelectric energy, but they use aluminum
- shagie 4y ago
  I was going to correct you with geothermal, but then I looked it up and it turns out that the majority of Iceland's electrical production is indeed hydro rather than geothermal (TIL). In finding the source for this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland aluminum was the thing of note there. I was aware that this was the main power consumption (tangent to reading Artemis by Andy Weir). > ... This trend continued and increases in the production of hydroelectric power are directly related to industrial development. In 2005, Landsvirkjun produced 7,143 GWh of electricity total of which 6,676 GWh or 93% was produced via hydroelectric power plants. 5,193 GWh or 72% was used for power-intensive industries like aluminum smelting.
  - conradev 4y ago
    Yes! It's the similar with Norway. One of the largest exporters of oil, but entirely hydroelectric for electricity generation. It's the fjords!
frankus 4y ago
Anhydrous ammonia’s volatility is on the order of that of propane/LPG (although a lot more hazardous to inhale), so the containment is easier than what the words “pressure vessel” might evoke.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Exactly, I struggle to see any situation, barring mismanagement or disaster, where you should be shipping tankers full of hydrogen byproducts like ammonia and losing most of the energy in the process. We are currently importing all the natural gas in Europe, and both the price and carbon footrpint are more than double of what pipeline delivered from Russia. You could build a pipeline from the middle east to Europe for hydrogen. We are already building powerplants in Sahara to export energy to EU. But I do not see why you should ever need to. Iron ore and Aluminium ore is literally everywhere. We could move all of primary metal refining close to equator for solar power. China is close enough to equator, and produces huge quantities of Iron. Australia could be producing iron, they have plenty of sun. Or Europe could produce hydrogen in the summer and store for the winter to keep refineries running.
- rainbowzootsuit 4y ago
  Hydrogen, being so small, penetrates directly through the molecular structure of steel and in the process causes embrittlement of the steel. Is a long distance H2 pipeline a solved problem using alternate materials?
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    I believe plastic pipes?
  - yxhuvud 4y ago
    It is not. Thankfully the electricity required for hydrolysis can either be moved around or created sufficiently close to a steel plant.
  - senectus1 4y ago
    thats one reason why ammonia is a good choice. the storage requirements are much kinder to the transporter
KMag 4y ago
But the mass of the extracted oxygen exceeds the mass of the ammonia used, and we're only talking about 250 PSI to liquify anhydrous ammonia at room temperature. A large pressure vessel's mass is going to be negligible compared to the mass of the ammonia it holds. So, the same displacement ship traveling at the same speed can supply the production of more steel if you ship the ammonia to the iron ore instead of the other way around.
icegreentea2 4y ago
From this (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618326301#fd4 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...), they estimate a scaled up process requiring ~50kg of hydrogen to generate 1000kg of steel (which would be about 1500kg of iron ore). 50kg of hydrogen should be equivalent to like ~600kg of ammonia (if I did my math right). So there's a substantial mass difference in one way shipping of 600kg of ammonia versus two way shipping of ~1000kg of solids to consider. In addition, since the tanker is empty on the return trip, if we were willing to play the travel time game, we could reduce tanker return speeds to try to compensate for running faster while carrying. So I don't think it's completely cut and dry that shipping the iron ore/steel makes more sense.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  Thanks for the numbers! You and KMag have changed my mind. This is a lot less mass to ship around.

tonyarkles 4y ago

I'm asking this 100% from a place of curiosity because I don't know the answer. From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? If the waste fraction is large, people might balk at the idea of either leaving that waste behind in the hydrogen-host country or burning fossil fuels to ship it around to have a carbon-free extraction process.

adastra22 4y ago
Anywhere you have water you have hydrogen.
- to11mtm 4y ago
  Interestingly, the paper mentions that the reactions do produce (some) hydrogen, which could perhaps be recaptured. However, a bigger concern upon a glance is that this process does produce NOx emissions...
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    NOx from big industrial processes tends not to be an issue. Catalytically reducing it to N2 and O2 is easy, and at the same time, you get out 'free' high grade heat, which there is usually some use for elsewhere in the plant.
  - jabl 4y ago
    > Interestingly, the paper mentions that the reactions do produce (some) hydrogen, which could perhaps be recaptured. The hydrogen is used for reducing the iron oxides, that's the whole point of the process! That is, FeXOY + H2 => Fe + H2O
to11mtm 4y ago
> From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? Depends on how we define 'waste' and at what part of the process. When they start with the rock from the ground/pit, the rocks/etc are often crushed, running through some sort of slurry while basically separating the 'ore' out from silicates/etc that will be around them. I'm guessing this is already done close to the site, since transport cost could be fairly high even by past standards. What you wind up Iron ores that are considered 'worth' mining, the actual Iron content is anywhere from ~48% to ~72%. They'll typically have Oxygen, Possibly also Carbon or hydrogen as the 'impurities'. So, there's still a lot of potential waste in transporting all of that. [0] - Also, that would theoretically be useful in filling the pit back up, one would hope. But not sure on that one.
bigger_cheese 4y ago
I work in the steel industry so can provide some info here. In the mining of iron ore there is a step called "beneficiation" which involves the wet processing of minerals - this is not unique to iron ore and is common to many mining operations for a wide variety of materials, wet processing produces a waste slurry known as "tailings" which are typically stored in a dam or similar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings_dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings_dam) - tailings dams have been the cause of major environmental issues in the past. Such as the Brazilian Dam failure in 2019 which killed 250+ people. After beneficiation Iron ore is transported to a steelworks where it is smelted. The smelting process produces a further waste product "slag" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag) how much slag is generated depends on a few factors such as the efficiency of the plant and the quality of the raw materials. Steelmaking slags can have some further use, for example it can be used in the concrete and cement industry and as a road base but how much if any of it is recycled very much depends on the country and the steelworks in some countries, particularly those with looser environmental restrictions slag is sent to landfill.

conradev 4y ago

This is how Iceland exports the bulk of its hydroelectric energy, but they use aluminum

shagie 4y ago
I was going to correct you with geothermal, but then I looked it up and it turns out that the majority of Iceland's electrical production is indeed hydro rather than geothermal (TIL). In finding the source for this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland aluminum was the thing of note there. I was aware that this was the main power consumption (tangent to reading Artemis by Andy Weir). > ... This trend continued and increases in the production of hydroelectric power are directly related to industrial development. In 2005, Landsvirkjun produced 7,143 GWh of electricity total of which 6,676 GWh or 93% was produced via hydroelectric power plants. 5,193 GWh or 72% was used for power-intensive industries like aluminum smelting.
- conradev 4y ago
  Yes! It's the similar with Norway. One of the largest exporters of oil, but entirely hydroelectric for electricity generation. It's the fjords!

frankus 4y ago

Anhydrous ammonia’s volatility is on the order of that of propane/LPG (although a lot more hazardous to inhale), so the containment is easier than what the words “pressure vessel” might evoke.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

Exactly, I struggle to see any situation, barring mismanagement or disaster, where you should be shipping tankers full of hydrogen byproducts like ammonia and losing most of the energy in the process. We are currently importing all the natural gas in Europe, and both the price and carbon footrpint are more than double of what pipeline delivered from Russia. You could build a pipeline from the middle east to Europe for hydrogen. We are already building powerplants in Sahara to export energy to EU. But I do not see why you should ever need to. Iron ore and Aluminium ore is literally everywhere. We could move all of primary metal refining close to equator for solar power. China is close enough to equator, and produces huge quantities of Iron. Australia could be producing iron, they have plenty of sun. Or Europe could produce hydrogen in the summer and store for the winter to keep refineries running.

rainbowzootsuit 4y ago
Hydrogen, being so small, penetrates directly through the molecular structure of steel and in the process causes embrittlement of the steel. Is a long distance H2 pipeline a solved problem using alternate materials?
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  I believe plastic pipes?
- yxhuvud 4y ago
  It is not. Thankfully the electricity required for hydrolysis can either be moved around or created sufficiently close to a steel plant.
- senectus1 4y ago
  thats one reason why ammonia is a good choice. the storage requirements are much kinder to the transporter

KMag 4y ago

But the mass of the extracted oxygen exceeds the mass of the ammonia used, and we're only talking about 250 PSI to liquify anhydrous ammonia at room temperature. A large pressure vessel's mass is going to be negligible compared to the mass of the ammonia it holds. So, the same displacement ship traveling at the same speed can supply the production of more steel if you ship the ammonia to the iron ore instead of the other way around.

icegreentea2 4y ago

From this (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618326301#fd4 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...), they estimate a scaled up process requiring ~50kg of hydrogen to generate 1000kg of steel (which would be about 1500kg of iron ore). 50kg of hydrogen should be equivalent to like ~600kg of ammonia (if I did my math right). So there's a substantial mass difference in one way shipping of 600kg of ammonia versus two way shipping of ~1000kg of solids to consider. In addition, since the tanker is empty on the return trip, if we were willing to play the travel time game, we could reduce tanker return speeds to try to compensate for running faster while carrying. So I don't think it's completely cut and dry that shipping the iron ore/steel makes more sense.

philipkglass 4y ago
Thanks for the numbers! You and KMag have changed my mind. This is a lot less mass to ship around.