Perspective: is green steel getting closer?

And what lessons can it teach us about other hard to abate activities

Before we start - this is a shortened version of a longer blog that was previously published on The Sustainable Investor. You can read the full version here and see all of our other content, on our dedicated blog platform, you just need to sign in, by clicking here. Its all free for now, which seems to us to be very good value for money.

Today's perspective looks at green steel. You might think that this is a slightly obscure technical topic that has very little to do with other transitions, and besides its not going to happen for a long time - is it? We argue you would be wrong (sorry) on both counts.

So, first, the news flow. Yet another green steel plant is announced for Europe. Norwegian company Blastr Green Steel is planning to establish a green steel plant with an integrated hydrogen production facility in Inkoo, Finland. Blastr has entered into a Letter of Intent with Nordic energy company Fortum that provides Blastr exclusive rights to utilise an existing industrial site located in Inkoo. The four-billion-euro investment is expected to create up to 1,200 direct jobs in the operations phase. The production is planned to start by end of 2026. In industrial terms that is soon.

Now, why is green steel important. First, from a GHG perspective, its a big deal. As the fine people from the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy point out, emissions wise its as material as passenger cars, yes all passenger cars globally. That is 6-7% of all global GHG emissions. Think for a moment how much attention we give to EV's and all related topics, especially charging. And now think about when you last read something about green steel. You get my point, it deserves more attention.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, the path that green steel takes will help us with lots of other hard to abate sectors. This includes not only the obvious ones such as shipping, chemicals and cement, but also home heating & getting mass market adaption of EV's. You may be surprised we put the last two into hard to abate, but lets think for a minute. All of these transitions require action elsewhere (subsides, border tariffs, green electricity and/or hydrogen), they need behavioral change (by end consumers), and they all involve "overcoming" or providing incentives to incumbents, who have invested a lot in the current way of doing things.

Hopefully by now we have started to persuade you that not only is green steel more interesting than you first thought, its also something you need to track if you care about a whole range of other currently challenging transitions.

If you want to read more, why not read the full blog and/or an earlier blog we wrote on the possible political trade-offs around green steel.