Is Sweden's Green Steel Transformation still on Track?
The Swedish state mining company LKAB is delaying some of its more ambitious plans for a green steel transformation. However, other green steel projects in the Nordic country are proceeding.
It is hard to overstate how harmful today's steel industry is to the earth's climate. Direct emissions from steelmaking are responsible for around 7 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. Steelmaking requires a chemical process that converts iron oxides into iron. Usually, this is done in blast furnaces using coal, and those are the main reason for steel's massive carbon footprint.
But in 2016, three Swedish companies came forward and said that there is another way. The steelmaker SSAB, the mining company LKAB, and the electricity company Vattenfall presented the Hybrit project, a plan to decarbonize Sweden's steel industry using green hydrogen. The technology has since been tested in a pilot plant at SSAB's site in Luleå.
Recently, however, Swedish media reports indicate that "LKAB has put the brakes on fossil-free transformation". Some of LKAB's more ambitious plans have been delayed.
