While the U.S. backtracks on green steel commitments, Chinese companies are starting to make iron with hydrogen. One just made its first export deal to…
There’s no such thing as green steel. Zero/low emissions steel requires expanded steel usage to meet the energy infrastructure requirements for production.
Getting enough hydrogen to process steel, in particular, takes a massive amount of energy. This means more renewable infrastructure to offset that, combined with more transmission infrastructure (and shorter renewable lifespans) you can easily exceed 10-20x the steel intensity per MW of non-renewable sources.
As with most ecological problems, the solution is to cut our usage to a minimum. The tired lie that we can grow our way out of growth problem should be put to rest. Reporting on any country “winning” a “green race” is puff piece propoganda.
That’s also a pretty tired response. There’s a huge percentage of the world population that are experiencing, or about to, a boom in their living standards. There’s absolutely no chance that global consumption will drop anytime soon. Given that realistic constraint, anything we can do to make production greener will help.
Renewables (with H2) can achieve type 1 civilization. Instead of interfering with a country’s attempt to provide us all with type 1 civilization status, and recommend cannibalism (surely a vote for eating the rich will prevail instead of eating you) instead for the lower consumption version of sustainability. Murderous war is perfectly acceptable alternative to cannibalism even if we (survivor class) are deprived of yummy babies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale . Type 1 for earth would be 10 QW = 10000 TW average consumption. We are currently at 18TW. Type 1 just from renewables is a bit of a stretch, as the definition is full coverage of earth’s surface in Solar. But 5.5x energy growth requires just 1% of planet surface.
I know what a type 1 civilization is but why is it something to aspire to? And how does it justify the irreversible ecological destruction which must be inflicted to get there?
Production (and it’s correlated consumption) as the sole measure of societal development is a Cold War anachronism, leave that in the 20th century. Talking about MW of power and Mt. of materials and dollar efficiency of infrastructure is completely detached from the derived human value.
And a type 1 civilization isn’t even close to attainable in the near future, let alone before climate change makes it more and more difficult to achieve. Especially if we’re sparing the rich and promoting yet another war in the name of energy as opposed to actually dialing back and being conscious of what we impact.
There’s no such thing as green steel. Zero/low emissions steel requires expanded steel usage to meet the energy infrastructure requirements for production.
Getting enough hydrogen to process steel, in particular, takes a massive amount of energy. This means more renewable infrastructure to offset that, combined with more transmission infrastructure (and shorter renewable lifespans) you can easily exceed 10-20x the steel intensity per MW of non-renewable sources.
As with most ecological problems, the solution is to cut our usage to a minimum. The tired lie that we can grow our way out of growth problem should be put to rest. Reporting on any country “winning” a “green race” is puff piece propoganda.
We need both; avoiding the use of energy-intensive materials, and minimizing emissions when we manufacture them. This isn’t an either/or situation.
That’s also a pretty tired response. There’s a huge percentage of the world population that are experiencing, or about to, a boom in their living standards. There’s absolutely no chance that global consumption will drop anytime soon. Given that realistic constraint, anything we can do to make production greener will help.
Renewables (with H2) can achieve type 1 civilization. Instead of interfering with a country’s attempt to provide us all with type 1 civilization status, and recommend cannibalism (surely a vote for eating the rich will prevail instead of eating you) instead for the lower consumption version of sustainability. Murderous war is perfectly acceptable alternative to cannibalism even if we (survivor class) are deprived of yummy babies.
What is this word salad supposed to mean?..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale . Type 1 for earth would be 10 QW = 10000 TW average consumption. We are currently at 18TW. Type 1 just from renewables is a bit of a stretch, as the definition is full coverage of earth’s surface in Solar. But 5.5x energy growth requires just 1% of planet surface.
I know what a type 1 civilization is but why is it something to aspire to? And how does it justify the irreversible ecological destruction which must be inflicted to get there?
Production (and it’s correlated consumption) as the sole measure of societal development is a Cold War anachronism, leave that in the 20th century. Talking about MW of power and Mt. of materials and dollar efficiency of infrastructure is completely detached from the derived human value.
It’s a better goal than forcing people to die.
Who’s to say we’re the survivor class?
And a type 1 civilization isn’t even close to attainable in the near future, let alone before climate change makes it more and more difficult to achieve. Especially if we’re sparing the rich and promoting yet another war in the name of energy as opposed to actually dialing back and being conscious of what we impact.