Steelmaking is responsible for nearly three times the emissions of aviation. Companies including H2 Green Steel are trying to transform the industry.
Outside the small Swedish city of Boden, surrounded by a forest, a massive green steel plant is under construction. By the end of next year, if all goes as planned, the factory will begin making steel for customers like Ikea and Mercedes-Benz, using hydrogen made from renewable energy instead of coal. By the end of the decade, the plant plans to produce 5 million tons of green steel a year. That's still a tiny fraction of global steel production: The world makes nearly 2 billion metric tons of steel each year, for use in everything from high-rises and wind turbines to cars and office chairs. Right now, production is a huge source of emissions. Steelmaking is responsible for more than 2.6 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, nearly three times as much as the aviation industry. But companies such as H2 Green Steel, the Swedish startup, want to prove that the industry can transform. The construction site [Photo: H2 Green Steel] The startup, which announced this week that it raised more than $5 billion in new financing, is racing to build its solution as quickly as possible. "Others have chosen to start with pilot-scale operations," says Karin Hallstan, who heads communications for H2 Green Steel. "Our view is that speed is of the essence and the world doesn't need another pilot. It's time for action at scale instead. The technology is proven and mature, and we proved the business case and the demand for green steel. That is why we are going straight for large-scale production." Concept rendering of the final facility [Rendering: H2 Green Steel] Most global steel production starts by putting iron ore from mines into huge blast furnaces, where coal is added to create a chemical reaction and make iron. "It's about as dirty as you would expect," says Hilary Lewis, steel director at Industrious Labs, a nonprofit focused on helping heavy industry decarbonize. "Each blast furnace is approximately equivalent to a coal-fired power plant." Some steel mills have…