Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
There is much agitation in the climatosphere about the amount of “coking coal” used in making steel. A number of allegedly smart folks are working on ways to replace that coal with hydrogen to reduce the amount of eeevil CO2 produced in steelmaking. There’s a very recent post on the subject here on WUWT, describing a “green steel” method developed in Sweden.
So I thought I’d take a look at the numbers for steel for the European Union. If you know me, you know I like to run the numbers myself.
From “Hydrogen In Steel Production“, I find:
The steel industry accounts for 4% of all the CO2 emissions in Europe.
Now, Europe emits about 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. The four percent of that emitted by steelmaking is ~100 million tonnes per year. 8.43 billion tonnes of CO2 equals one ppmv of atmospheric CO2. So 100 million tonnes of CO2 avoided is a savings of about 0.013 ppmv of CO2 per year … except that about 45% of CO2 emissions are sequestered immediately, so they’ll only be saving about 0.007 ppmv per year … be still, my beating heart.
Then we have this estimate of the annual increase in electricity needed to convert EU steelmaking to hydrogen:
The total energy requirement for climate-neutral transformation of the blast furnace route, for example, amounts to around 120 terawatt hours (TWh) per year.
To provide that additional electricity they’ll need 14 new 1 GW nuclear power plants, plus a few more for peak production plus downtime. So call it 18 new nukes.
Plus, of course, the cost of the electricity itself. At say $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, that’s another $4.8 billion per year.
Next, will “green steel” be cost-effective and competitive in the marketplace? Don’t make me laugh.
Furthermore, imported steel that is not produced in a climate-neutral way should be taxed so that prices remain comparable.
If the steel industry has to fend for itself on this task, the prices of its end products will have to be raised enormously, which will make it internationally uncompetitive. The exodus of an entire branch of industry or at least the upstream production will be the result.
(Ibid)
Prices of European steel will have to be “raised enormously”? … wonderful. Steel is used in millions of products …
How about the capital cost?
We calculate that it will cost around EUR 100 billion [US$117 billion] to make the production of crude steel climate neutral.
(Ibid)
Plus the cost of the 18 new nukes, about $8 billion per GW = another $144 billion dollars. And then there’s the cost of the additional electricity itself, which by 2050 will be $4.8 billion/year times 28 years = $134 billion.
So all up, by 2050 the changeover will cost almost $400 billion.
If they did this tomorrow, by 2050 European steelmakers would have reduced the atmospheric CO2 by ~ 0.2 ppmv. And IF (big if) the IPCC is right, that would make the world of 2050 cooler by ~ 0.002°C …
Now, temperatures drop with altitude, at the rate of about one degree C per 100 meters vertical. So if you are standing up, a temperature drop of 0.002°C is less than the underlying altitude-driven temperature difference that constantly exists between your toes and your knees …
And please, please don’t say “If the EU does this the other countries will follow”. Outside of the EU, the US, and a few other foolish sheep, most countries are nowhere near that stupid. As a way to cool the atmosphere, this will cost about US$200 trillion per °C of cooling by 2050. By comparison, global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about $85 trillion per year, so it would cost well over twice the globe’s entire annual GDP to cool the planet by 1°C at that rate.
At a cost of $200,000,000,000,000 per degree of cooling, that’s gotta be far and away the world’s most expensive air conditioner … and the looney-tunes folks in the EU think it’s a brilliant plan.
And if Europe does go to “green steel”, what do they get for their $400 billion dollars besides an unmeasurably tiny cooling by 2050?
Oh, right—”enormously expensive” steel. Heck of a deal …
Mathematics. Don’t leave home without it.
w.
AS ALWAYS: I can and am generally happy to defend my own words. But I cannot defend your interpretation of my words. So please, when you comment quote the exact words you are discussing.
PS—How big is a trillion? Almost unimaginably big. As one example, a million seconds is 11.6 days … and a trillion seconds is 31,700 years.
The Austrian Steel Company Voestalpine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voestalpine) is also a European frontrunner to move to hydrogen steel. By end of 2019 they started the worlds biggest green hydrogen steel plant: https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/worlds-largest-green-hydrogen-plant-begins-operation-in-austria/2-1-708381
What worlds biggest means: It is designed to produce 1%(!) of actual Voestalpine steel output and Voestalpine is no commodity steel producer, so focused on quality and not quantity. In their Environmental Statement (https://www.voestalpine.com/group/static/sites/group/.downloads/en/group/2020-environmental-statement.pdf) they comment (p.4), that a conversion only to the “hybrid route” would need additional 3TWh of renewable energy and that the economic feasibility “has not yet been proven” (p.5)
To put it into context. The total electric energy consumption of Austria in 2019 was 63.6 TWh. So just the hybrid route would require an electric energy production increase of 5% for just the biggest energy intensive company. The construction cost for this 1% pilot plant was 18 Mio €.
So, Willis figures are for sure not exaggerated.
The small Swedish company that developed this process produces specialty steels for which they get higher prices. They must think there are other companies such as candle stick makers that wish to virtue signal by saying “We use green steel,” They are not likely to have any competitors in the steal industry.
Isn’t coke pretty much purified carbon? Doesn’t that make steel a carbon sequestering product?
Well, they have to have a “comprehensive framework” for very high tariff walls in the EU. It helps to have the US dragged along too. This helps authorized cheaters work with consultants in Panama and Monaco to do deals on the fringes.
Willis,
I thought I would compare your ‘18 New Nukes’ for carbon neutral or “Green Steel” with the views expressed by Dr.Alan Finkel,the recently retired Chief Scientist of Australia, in his April Quarterly Essay “Getting to Zero”in which he extolls the virtue of green hydrogen and green steel making.
The comparison is instructive.
Total greenhouse emissions in Australia in 2020 were 513 million tonnes down nearly 17% from 2005 and 3% from 2019 attributable to CoVid 19 restrictions.
The metals industry was a significant subsector with 11 million tonnes of emissions.
Dr.Finkel continues-
“The majority of this,7 million tonnes, comes from steel- making.
As described,today’s steel making consumes large amounts of coal.
Some reduction in the near term, perhaps this decade,will come from using natural gas instead of coal for the chemical reduction step, but in the long run it will be possible to eliminate the emissions from steel-making entirely by using renewable electricity for heat and clean hydrogen for the chemical reduction process.
None of these process changes will be easy and will require ongoing research, development and demonstration investments.”
Earlier on, in “ Hydrogen from Electrolysis” –
“The two ingredients to make hydrogen by electrolysis are electricity and water. To do it at large scale- say at the scale of our liquified natural gas industry – takes lots of electricity and a good deal of water.
For those of a technical bent, it takes 39.4 kilowatt- hours of electrical energy and 9 litres of water to produce one kilogram of hydrogen.
When burnt, except in special circumstances,all the water is returned to the atmosphere, but only 33.3 kilowatt- hours of energy is available to do useful things like power a truck.
The 6.1 kilowatt-hours difference is lost as waste heat that cannot be easily recovered.
The numbers involved in building future hydrogen industries are quite stunning. Let’s take a moment to think about hydrogen for future export.
If we were to export as much hydrogen by energy value as Australia’s 79 million tonnes of liquified natural gas (LNG) exports in the year to June 2020, because of the superior mass energy density of hydrogen we would have to export 33 million tonnes.
On my calculation, the electricity required to produce 33 million tonnes of hydrogen for export, including the electricity for handling and liquefying would be approximately 2200 terawatt-hours.
This is about eight times Australia’s total electricity generation in 2019.
To produce the electrical energy from solar, we would need to install nearly one thousand gigawatts of capacity which is 75 times more than Australia’s installed solar capacity in 2019.
It is more than the installed solar capacity worldwide.
The solar fields would cover about 20,000 square kilometres of land.
That’s about four fifths of the size of our biggest cattle farm,Anna Creek Station, in South Australia, but only 0.25 per cent of Australia’s land mass.
So, yes it’s a big requirement, but phased in over thirty years, it’s quite conceivable. Because of the superior capacity factor of wind, if the capacity came from a mix of wind and solar,the installed capacity would be smaller, perhaps 700 gigawatts or thereabouts.
Australia is richly endowed with sun, wind and land – sufficiently so that if construction costs are low and enough land is made available, we can produce all the solar and wind electricity we would need to support a large scale hydrogen export industry.”
Dr. Finkel then looks at water capacity and suggests that although we are a dry continent we can find enough water including sea water etc.
On export industries he says-
“Take steel.Renewable electricity can replace metallurgical coal for melting the iron ore…
Given that we have all three ingredients for making zero emissions steel- iron ore, renewable electricity, clean hydrogen-the economic case for adding value to our iron ore rather than shipping it is attractive….”
I am mindful of Tom Baxter’s recent post here to the effect that splitting water molecules to produce green hydrogen causes a lot of energy to be lost in the process so that on average the cost of hydrogen per kilowatt hour will be greater than the electricity it is derived from.
Unless I am missing something,Dr.Finkel’s Essay, does not discredit what is said in this post,that competitive green steel is laughable.
1) Finkel does not know what he does NOT know. As a result, he puts society at risk. Steel making, primary aluminum smelting and other industrial processes NEED CONTINUOUS electricity supply. Intermittent electricity, at a minimum, raises emissions. Prolonged interruption of electricity supply (such as the routine daily drops in wind turbine & solar panel output) can cause molten metal to solidify. Repairing “freeze up” damage is co$$$$tly and time consuming. Freeze ups also create much environmentally damaging solid waste.
2) Green steel is MORE CO$$$TLY than Willis estimates. Coke batteries yield co-products, including electricity;-) So, investments needed to add capacity to make such products must be added to Willis’ $400+ billion. The replacement facilities’ operating costs must be added, too.
3) Willis, your big point is valid, relevant and superbly made. Many thanks.
‘Fighting’ yesterday’s ‘battles’?
Usually the ‘economists’ who use ‘macroeconomic models’ ‘believe’ that the solution to the current macroeconomic problem is the implementation of the ‘correct’ type of demand side policies. That is, how to increase income/output {‘growth’}.
Increase M0, M2 or M3, cut r, or make it negative. Increase G and finance it by ‘borrowing’ from the central bank or by borrowing from the private sector. Or ensure that private credit is extended only for GDP transactions.
All that is lacking is a ‘sufficient’ increase in effective demand!
The neoclassical/Austrian economists, who believe that income/output is ‘supply determined’, will argue that all that is required to generate a large increase the growth of the underlying productive potential of an economy is for taxes to be cut and more ‘competition’, etc be introduced!
Aside from the negative externalities of ‘growth’, what they ignore is the ‘energy supply side’?
‘We’ have 16 years?
“Global peak oil production may have already happened in October of 2018 (Will covid-19 delay peak oil? Table 1). It is likely the decline rate will be 6%, increasing exponentially by +0.015% a year (see post “Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil”). So, after 16 years remaining oil production will be just 10% of what it was at the peak. “
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/climate-change-dominates-news-coverage-at-expense-of-more-important-existential-issues/
Or,
‘We’ have ten years?
“ . . . our best estimate is that the net energy
33:33 per barrel available for the global
33:36 economy was about eight percent
33:38 and that in over the next few years it
33:42 will go down to zero percent
33:44 uh best estimate at the moment is that
33:46 actually the
33:47 per average barrel of sweet crude
33:51 uh we had the zero percent around 2022
33:56 but there are ways and means of
33:58 extending that so to be on the safe side
34:00 here on our diagram
34:02 we say that zero percent is definitely
34:05 around 2030 . . .
we
34:43 need net energy from oil and [if] it goes
34:46 down to zero
34:48 uh well we have collapsed not just
34:50 collapse of the oil industry
34:52 we have collapsed globally of the global
34:54 industrial civilization this is what we
34:56 are looking at at the moment . . . “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxinAu8ORxM&feature=emb_logo
Or, have 5 years? {unlikely?}.
“The greatest threat to humanity on Earth is the escalating Arctic atmospheric methane buildup, caused by the destabilization of subsea methane hydrates. This subsea Arctic methane hydrate destabilization will go out of control in 2024 and lead to a catastrophic heatwave by 2026.”
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/05/extinction-by-2027.html?fbclid=IwAR3FEKqILrzS_Le1Z4LRmEvqoSRz6p2rBIFjbNmY1NFB_rHeU4RpDT8u2Zg