Making steel is a fossil fuel intensive process, but there are ways to decarbonize on the horizon.
Thomas Koch Blank, head of breakthrough technologies at RMI, says the green steel industry is at the beginning of an S curve. Almost 2 billion tons of steel are produced each year, and half of that is virgin material. Producing steel is responsible for about 7 to 9 percent of total global carbon emissions. So, it’s easy to understand why there’s a lot of investment pouring into creating sustainable steel technologies.
According to Blank, the production of green steel is ramping up slowly compared to the number of resources coming in, a.k.a. the bottom of the S.