Green steel

Steel made with little or no fossil carbon, typically by stripping oxygen from iron ore with hydrogen and melting it with clean electricity.

• Iron ore is iron oxide; blast furnaces strip the oxygen with carbon from coal, emitting roughly 2 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel.
• Steel accounts for about 7–9% of global CO2 emissions, among the largest of any single material.
• The main route is hydrogen-based direct reduction followed by an electric arc furnace, so the by-product is water rather than CO2.
• It costs roughly 20–30% more today, and a large plant needs a gigawatt or more of steady clean power for its hydrogen.