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Released July 02, 2018 | GALWAY, IRELAND
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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Sweden's prime minister has officially broken ground for the world's first plant for creating fossil-free steel.
Located at the Lulea Steel Works in the north of the country, the so-called HYBRIT initiative will use hydrogen from electricity produced by renewable energy instead of coking coal for ore-based steel making, which will replace the typical carbon emissions with water.
"I'm really happy and proud to be here today," said Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. "We in Sweden are showing the way and driving something that could be the biggest technology change in 1,000 years. The cooperation between SSAB and LKAB has been going on for a long time, with the ambition to make some climate-friendly steel production. And in Luleå there is that knowledge. Therefore, the establishment fits perfectly here."
HYBRIT is a partnership between Swedish energy major Vattenfall (Stockholm), steel producer SSAB (NASDAQ OMX:SSAB A) (Stockholm, Sweden) and Sweden's state-owned mining giant LKAB (Lulea) which is Europe's largest iron ore producer. The entire project will cost approximately $158 million. The Swedish Energy Agency is also providing partial funding and estimates that HYBRIT could lower Sweden's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 10% and those in Finland by 7%.
"By testing in pilot scale, we can leave the small-scale laboratory environment and instead mimic the coming industrial process, and prepare for efficient production," commented Mårten Görnerup, chief executive officer at HYBRIT. "We are very happy to be able to enter the next phase and get one step closer to our target of fossil-free steel production, with all its environmental benefits."
Jan Moström, president and chief executive officer at LKAB, added: "Fossil-free steel production starts in the mine, we are working intensely with how the future pelletizing plant should be constructed to find an energy-efficient production process. The challenge for LKAB in HYBRIT, and our contribution, is to develop carbon dioxide-free direct reduction pellets. This is where the pilot plant will play a crucial part, before we can take it to an industrial scale."
HYBRIT promises a radical new way for steel production. In the current blast furnace-based process, coal is the main source of energy. Coke ovens produce metallurgical coke and coke oven gas, and that coke is used in the blast furnace process while the coke oven gas is used as the major fuel in the whole steel mill. In the HYBRIT concept, specially developed iron ore pellets are reduced by hydrogen gas in a so-called direct reduction process. Reduction occurs in a solid state at a lower temperature than in the blast furnace process and produces an intermediate product, sponge iron or direct reduced iron (DRI), with water vapour emitted from the top of the furnace. Water vapour can be condensed and scrubbed before reuse in the plant. Hydrogen gas is produced by electrolyzing water using renewable electricity with oxygen gas as a by-product. The process faces two major challenges: developing an effective process to use 100% hydrogen on an industrial scale and producing hydrogen in an energy-efficient way so that it is economically justifiable/commercially viable.
"Vattenfall wants to make it possible to live fossil-free within a generation," SAID Magnus Hall, president and chief executive officer at Vattenfall. "Helping steel production to change is one of the most important contributions we can give. By using our fossil-free electricity to large-scale production of hydrogen, we can enable technical shifts that will have a great impact on climate emissions."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Our European headquarters are located in Galway, Ireland. Follow IIR Europe on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn For more information on our European coverage send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.eu or visit us online at Industrial Info Europe.
Located at the Lulea Steel Works in the north of the country, the so-called HYBRIT initiative will use hydrogen from electricity produced by renewable energy instead of coking coal for ore-based steel making, which will replace the typical carbon emissions with water.
"I'm really happy and proud to be here today," said Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. "We in Sweden are showing the way and driving something that could be the biggest technology change in 1,000 years. The cooperation between SSAB and LKAB has been going on for a long time, with the ambition to make some climate-friendly steel production. And in Luleå there is that knowledge. Therefore, the establishment fits perfectly here."
HYBRIT is a partnership between Swedish energy major Vattenfall (Stockholm), steel producer SSAB (NASDAQ OMX:SSAB A) (Stockholm, Sweden) and Sweden's state-owned mining giant LKAB (Lulea) which is Europe's largest iron ore producer. The entire project will cost approximately $158 million. The Swedish Energy Agency is also providing partial funding and estimates that HYBRIT could lower Sweden's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 10% and those in Finland by 7%.
"By testing in pilot scale, we can leave the small-scale laboratory environment and instead mimic the coming industrial process, and prepare for efficient production," commented Mårten Görnerup, chief executive officer at HYBRIT. "We are very happy to be able to enter the next phase and get one step closer to our target of fossil-free steel production, with all its environmental benefits."
Jan Moström, president and chief executive officer at LKAB, added: "Fossil-free steel production starts in the mine, we are working intensely with how the future pelletizing plant should be constructed to find an energy-efficient production process. The challenge for LKAB in HYBRIT, and our contribution, is to develop carbon dioxide-free direct reduction pellets. This is where the pilot plant will play a crucial part, before we can take it to an industrial scale."
HYBRIT promises a radical new way for steel production. In the current blast furnace-based process, coal is the main source of energy. Coke ovens produce metallurgical coke and coke oven gas, and that coke is used in the blast furnace process while the coke oven gas is used as the major fuel in the whole steel mill. In the HYBRIT concept, specially developed iron ore pellets are reduced by hydrogen gas in a so-called direct reduction process. Reduction occurs in a solid state at a lower temperature than in the blast furnace process and produces an intermediate product, sponge iron or direct reduced iron (DRI), with water vapour emitted from the top of the furnace. Water vapour can be condensed and scrubbed before reuse in the plant. Hydrogen gas is produced by electrolyzing water using renewable electricity with oxygen gas as a by-product. The process faces two major challenges: developing an effective process to use 100% hydrogen on an industrial scale and producing hydrogen in an energy-efficient way so that it is economically justifiable/commercially viable.
"Vattenfall wants to make it possible to live fossil-free within a generation," SAID Magnus Hall, president and chief executive officer at Vattenfall. "Helping steel production to change is one of the most important contributions we can give. By using our fossil-free electricity to large-scale production of hydrogen, we can enable technical shifts that will have a great impact on climate emissions."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Our European headquarters are located in Galway, Ireland. Follow IIR Europe on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn For more information on our European coverage send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.eu or visit us online at Industrial Info Europe.
