“Blue steel” fever in Europe

HYBRIT – short for “disruptive hydrogen iron production technology” – is a joint venture established in 2016 between three Swedish companies: SSAB Steel, LKAB Mining and Electric Power Company. Swedish state Vattenfall.

At the end of 2021, this joint venture launched a remarkable “green steel” and Volvo (Sweden) became the first car manufacturer to cooperate with HYBRIT. Volkswagen (Germany) also signaled that it wanted to use “green steel”.

A factory producing “green steel” of HYBRIT in Lulea City – Sweden Photo: SSAB

With European automakers committed to significantly reducing emissions, “green steel” is what they need right now. The World Steel Association estimates that steel production will emit about 2.6 billion tons of gas in 2020, accounting for about 7% of CO emissions.₂ globally.

HYBRIT is aiming to reduce this number by replacing coke (commonly used in making steel from iron ore) with renewable electricity and hydrogen. At that time, the waste will be water vapor, instead of CO2 which is harmful to the environment.

In the face of increasing demand, steel producers in Europe have announced plans to expand the scale of production of steel that does not require the use of coal. Particularly, the Swedish steel industry has planned to not use fossil energy in its steel production process by 2045.