Apologies all.
In my previous post of today regarding steelmaking coal “going the way of the Dodo”, I allowed my enthusiasm to get way ahead of me. The headlines that I cited are speaking to thermal coal rather than metallurgical coal and why I allowed that mix to occur was careless and I should know better. Yes, I own this mistake and was called out on it. Rightly so, and my apologies for any further confusion.
Thank you to Dave Whitten for pointing this out.
An inconsequential category error Bob.
A lot of smart money is betting on the future of green steel.
I mean $billions being invested around the globe in a race to dominate production of decarbonized steel.
This includes China, which produces more steel than the rest of the world combined and already has a formidable lead in development and manufacturing of EVs, solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other clean electrotech.
Generating process heat with electricity requires considerably less primary energy than generating the same quantity of process heat with fossil fuels.
The future of steelmaking will therefore be electric arc furnaces (mature technology) heated with super-cheap electricity generated from sunlight and wind (mature technologies), using hydrogen gas instead of coked coal to reduce the iron ore (rapidly developing technology).
Super-cheap electricity from sunlight and wind will also be used to produced the required hydrogen, making for smelting processes that are virtually free of fossil carbon inputs.
Blast furnaces and demand for coking coal WILL go extinct, the only question is how fast.
Smart money is betting sooner than later.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/green-steel-explainer-9.6933400?cmp=newsletter_Morning%20Headlines%20from%20CBC%20News_1613_2044561
Oh, and yes, I know I didn't use their proper names.