UK Scientists Discover Method To Reduce Steelmaking's CO2 Emissions By 90% (thenextweb.com) 53
Researchers from the University of Birmingham have developed an innovative method for existing furnaces that could reduce steelmaking's CO2 emission by nearly 90%. The Next Web reports: The iron and steel industry is a major cause of greenhouse gasses, accounting for 9% of global emissions. That's because of the inherent carbon-intensive nature of steel production in blast furnaces, which currently represent the most-widely used practice. In blast furnace steel manufacturing, coke (a type of coal) is used to produce metallic iron from ore obtained from mining -- which releases large quantities of carbon dioxide in the process. According to Dr Harriet Kildahl, who co-devised the method with Professor Yulong Ding, their technology aims to convert this carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide that can be reused in the iron ore reaction.
This is realized using a thermochemical cycle which performs chemical reactions through changes in temperature. That way, the typically damaging CO2 is turned into a useful part of the reaction, forming "an almost perfect closed carbon loop." This drastically reduces emission by the amount of coke needed and, subsequently, lowers steelmaking's emissions by up to 88%. As per the researchers, if this method was implemented in the remaining two blast furnaces in the UK, it could save 1.28 billion pounds in 5 years, all while reducing the country's overall emissions by 2.9%.
"Current proposals for decarbonizing the steel sector rely on phasing out existing plants and introducing electric arc furnaces powered by renewable electricity. However, an electric arc furnace plant can cost over 1 billion pounds to build, which makes this switch economically unfeasible in the time remaining to meet the Paris Climate Agreement," Professor Ding said. "The system we are proposing can be retrofitted to existing plants, which reduces the risk of stranded assets, and both the reduction in CO2, and the cost savings, are seen immediately." The study has been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
This is realized using a thermochemical cycle which performs chemical reactions through changes in temperature. That way, the typically damaging CO2 is turned into a useful part of the reaction, forming "an almost perfect closed carbon loop." This drastically reduces emission by the amount of coke needed and, subsequently, lowers steelmaking's emissions by up to 88%. As per the researchers, if this method was implemented in the remaining two blast furnaces in the UK, it could save 1.28 billion pounds in 5 years, all while reducing the country's overall emissions by 2.9%.
"Current proposals for decarbonizing the steel sector rely on phasing out existing plants and introducing electric arc furnaces powered by renewable electricity. However, an electric arc furnace plant can cost over 1 billion pounds to build, which makes this switch economically unfeasible in the time remaining to meet the Paris Climate Agreement," Professor Ding said. "The system we are proposing can be retrofitted to existing plants, which reduces the risk of stranded assets, and both the reduction in CO2, and the cost savings, are seen immediately." The study has been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
But... (Score:2)
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Because...?
A retrofit to retain utility is much preferable to a complete shutdown which is the only alternative give that I want to still be able to breathe in a few years.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
But how long will it take to retrofit current furnaces? Because they can't afford to be down for weeks, even days.
What's your napkin calculation? From the summary: "if this method was implemented in the remaining two blast furnaces in the UK, it could save 1.28 billion pounds in 5 years," (I have no grounded sense of how much these things cost to run, but I'd assume most of it was energy costs and £1.28B seem like a lot of money in 5 years.)
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
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...and years of elapsed time to demolish and rebuild.
Why is that an issue? It seems the reasonable thing to do would be to build the new plants elsewhere and run the old ones while the new are being built.
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It seems the reasonable thing to do would be to build the new plants elsewhere and run the old ones while the new are being built.
That would have been the reasonable thing to do 20 years ago, when the scientific community was already warning how CO2 emissions were transforming the climate. Now, building new plants instead of retrofitting existing ones is just a too long process if we want to reduce as much as possible the impacts of the already happening climate changes.
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It would take a decade just for the planning to build a new plant somewhere. HS2 and Hinkley Point took many years just to get past this stage as various lobby groups fought it tooth and nail.
Steelmaking in the UK is more or less and loss-making business and the only reason it's still going is the Govt sees it as a strategic necessity for defence purposes [they bought out a small specialist forge in Sheffield to stop it being bought out precisely because it's the only company in the UK that can make pressur
Economically Unfeasible (LOL) (Score:1)
"However, an electric arc furnace plant can cost over 1 billion pounds to build, which makes this switch economically unfeasible"
Once again, businesses take advantage of the public's short memory.
In 1980, U.S. Steel announced that they were going to build a new state-of-the-art steel mill in eastern Ohio near the border with Pennsylvania. It would cost $6 Billion and would be the largest, most advanced steel mill in the world.
The plan was cancelled because it was "too expensive". Instead, in 1981, U.S. Steel spent $6.3 Billion to buy The Marathon Oil Co.
Everything is always "too expensive" . . . . until it isn't.
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The UK probably wants those two factories to stay and if they increase regulation, they may just say BYE and go to a more friendly country. Then the UK will have to import even more steel while at the same time the amount of CO2 put out on a global scale will go up because the company won't be building some fancy electric only factory but likely whatever is cheapest AND you will have to ship the steel back to UK, which produces more co2 yet.
So hopefully retrofitting the two plants that exist will keep the i
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Sometimes they have to go down either way, the lining of the hearth erodes over time. Then repairs are necessary. if you google for "blast furnace campaign", you will find a few articles that describe the problem.
It might take a long time until all steel furnaces are retrofitted though, if you do it only when a rebuild is needed anyway. The articles I found hint at campaign durations over ten years.
Re: But... (Score:2)
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Commenting to undo moderation
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Re: So if you only use half the carbon capacity? (Score:4, Informative)
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Is the energy budget better or neutral?
Wondering if this is a fancy shell con.
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I would assume that the energy requirement is higher, but the supply requirement is lower. (They don't need to keep buying as much coke.) But if you mean is it more costly, ???
And if you mean the energy used means more CO2 release, that depends on the power source.
OTOH, the increase in electric cars means the grid is going to be under a lot of strain, which is likely to delay the abandonment of CO2 generating power sources. So that's probably a valid point.
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Go read the paper. A least twice.
Note that this paper, like much save-the-earth-from-carbon-heat-death stuff, is under a Creative Commons license and the linked site will serve it to you free rather than charging a fee unless you're associated with a subscriber to their services.
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each coal atom removes two oxygen atoms (carbon dioxide). Now they say that if each coal atom just remove one oxygen atom (carbon monoxide) it can be reused in the process.
Using CO instead of raw carbon to pull the oxygen out of the iron ore means you have to use twice as much carbon. But since you take the resulting CO2 , rip an oxygen off to make CO again, and use it over and over, that's no big deal. (You also get to collect and sell most of the oxygen, extracting it when sorting out the gasses from th
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Apparently it lasts about 24 trips, so you only emit 12% of that emitted by the unmodified process.
Miscalculated. Make that about 16 2/3 trips.
That's great. Now get China and India to sign on. (Score:1)
The UK could sink into the ocean tomorrow and it would barely register as statistical noise compared to those two countries.
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Make sure it's IP free, and it will make it easier for countries to uptake new technology.
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Make sure it's IP free, and it will make it easier for countries to uptake new technology.
China doesn't care about that bit. But, if you grease the palms of the right Party members...
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"China doesn't care about that bit. But, if you grease the palms of the right Party members..."
How is that any different than literally every Western country?
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"China doesn't care about that bit. But, if you grease the palms of the right Party members..."
How is that any different than literally every Western country?
In every western country, you have to grease the palms of members of at least two parties.
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China doesn't care about [paying for IP]. But, if you grease the palms of the right Party members...
This is expected to be cheaper than the unmodified process. Give the Party members a 5% cut of the savings and I expect they'd be all for it. ;-)
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The UK could sink into the ocean tomorrow and it would barely register as statistical noise compared to those two countries.
And yet, most of the stuff those countries (china/india) make is sold in occidental countries (UK, Europe, US ...). Our current societies just offshore the CO2 emission debt to other countries. The only thing we have forgotten, is that in the grand scheme of things, Earth doesn't care if CO2 is emitted in China or in the UK. Climate change is happening at the planet level.
Vote with your money, buy locally produced stuff, and consume less useless sh*t.
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It does however care if the UK is reducing steelmaking CO2 emissions by 90%, or China is reducing steelmaking CO2 emissions by 90%.
Stop using that non-sequitur. It's as bad of an argument as it is bad faith.
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It does however care if the UK is reducing steelmaking CO2 emissions by 90%, or China is reducing steelmaking CO2 emissions by 90%.
Indeed. And China is making steel mainly to make the things you like to buy for a cheaper price than if it was made locally. Buy locally when possible, and when not possible ask yourself if you really need it (as in: do you really need a 2nd car? do you really need to upgrade your tech every 2 years? Do you reall.
Or don't if you don't want to, what do I care. Keep being happy to buy cheap stuff produced in a distant country on one hand, and on the other hand complaining about their CO2 emissions being b
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Maybe China's steel quality will improve too.
Uh (Score:2)
This is realized using a thermochemical cycle which performs chemical reactions through changes in temperature.
Literally all steel production is carried out through "a thermochemical cycle which performs chemical reactions through changes in temperature."
So, no downsides at all? Dubious... (Score:3)
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There are always downsides. And they are rarely mentioned in PR releases.
OTOH, it's my guess that this is a "laboratory scale" result, and they need funding to do a pilot plant. (But if the UK has only two blast furnaces...that might be difficult. But maybe the earlier poster was wrong, or they're angling to try it somewhere else.)
That said, I'm speculating WELL outside my areas of expertise. But there *are* always downsides. Investors tend to look into them before investing, but PR flacks never mentio
Re:So, no downsides at all? Dubious... (Score:5, Informative)
From the paper:
This research presents the first-principles calculations [...] Further research is needed to understand the viability of this system under real-world conditions. One area of focus should be on the replacement of coke as a structural support in the blast furnace since the removal would likely lead to suboptimal heat and mass flows within the blast furnace. Another area of focus should be the separation of nitrogen and carbon monoxide gases in an energy-efficient manner. Finally, repeated cycling of the perovskite material under the reaction conditions over a period of years is needed to fully characterise the replacement rate of the perovskite in the TC-BF-BOF.
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One of the elements in the reactant is Niobium which currently goes for about $40,000/ton
https://www.metalary.com/niobi... [metalary.com]
I wonder how many tons you need when you are smelting thousands of tons of iron ?
Reading through TFA,
To produce the CO required for the BF, 5000 kg of BCNF1, split into two reactors, would be continually cycled.
that's only about 5 tons of niobium. expensive but if it's continually recycled, not a problem. And if it really works incredibly cheap compared to the cost of building a new bl
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The paper include the cost of the Perovskite (in section 5):
The raw materials to produce the required amount of BCNF1 would cost £210 million, which may need to be replaced every 5–10 years based on current estimates.
Their savings numbers are on the conservative end, putting the entire cost into the 5-year cost model.
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The biggest one is that the materials used cost a fair amount of money, which is (apparently) offset by the potential of selling things like the oxygen byproduct of the reaction.
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Well, the paper is a concept draft only. There have been no real-world tests or observations of this actually resulting in what they claim.
So yes, have doubts.
Yet another application for NUCLEAR (Score:1)
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My read of that is it just provide the hydrogen via the nuclear reactor; how is that novel?
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An expensive way of letting you not build an arc furnace I guess.
It's british steel - I know a way of 100% reducing (Score:2)
Nearly as good and less than twice the price! (Score:4, Informative)
could reduce steelmaking's CO2 emission by nearly 90%.
So this technology hasn't been reduced to practice, but in theory it could reduce CO2 emissions by 88%, only 12% worse than Boston Metal's [bostonmetal.com] cheaper Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) process.
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Cheaper to build. How does it compare to operate?
(Final numbers aren't in on the new one yet, but how does Boston Metals' process compare to the old full-carbon blast furnace tech this replaces? The new one substitutes heating reaction gasses for baking raw material into coke in an oven. The heaters take twice as much juice as the coke oven did, but the extra electric
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Also: Even if Boston Metals is cheaper, you still might be ahead to convert the old blast plants and run them a few decades until they would have reached end-of-life anyhow, rather than scrapping them right away and kissing their unamortized construction costs goodbye.
Hidden elephant in the room (Score:2)
CO is pretty toxic. Probably not as awful as methyl isocyanate [wikipedia.org], but still, pretty bad.
Given the huge amounts that will be produced, how will they ensure that workers or other people won't be exposed to any of it?