Green Steel: The harbinger of sustainable steel manufacturing

In the 18th Century, the world witnessed industrial revolution that paved way for immense technological advancements and revolutionized the way industries were operated since time immemorial. A striking resemblance is evident today in the 21st century wherein the importance of global sustainability is picking pace and it wont be an understatement to say that we are silently going through environmental sustainability revolution in a global scale. Now that we have set the backdrop for today’s weekly blog post, we would like to provide our readers with a useful insight about the recent development that has been taking place in the Steel manufacturing industry. With the increasing emphasis of countries to incorporate sustainable practices in the overall operation of industries on a national level, the concept of green steel manufacturing has gained importance. Typically, the process of steel manufacturing is synonymous to creation of immense level of pollution and environmental degradation. Due to this very reason, the production of “Green Steel”- a specialized type of steel which is manufactured using a process that is characterized by reduced carbon emission due to usage of hydrogen as the reducing agent in the steel manufacturing process is grabbing eyes. Recently, H2 Green Steel, the Swedish steel manufacturing giant has raised €1.5 billion in the largest private placement in Europe this year to build the world's first large-scale green steel plant in Boden, Sweden. The funding will also finance Europe's first giga-scale electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen for steelmaking using renewable electricity. Major investors include Altor, GIC, Hy24, and Just Climate. The plant aims to produce steel with 95% lower CO2 emissions than traditional methods through replacing coal with hydrogen. This marks a major step towards decarbonizing basic materials production at scale.