How Much Steel Will All Those Wind Turbines & Solar Panels Need, & Can We Make It?

Credit to Author: Michael Barnard| Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2023 15:35:13 +0000

DALL·E generated image of a stack of steel ingots in a field of wind turbines and solar panels, digital artSteel will not remotely be a constraint for global transformation of energy over the coming decades. We make vastly more of it per year than annual requirements, and there’s an increasing amount of scrap being created.

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Steel’s Outsized Carbon Emissions Will Shrink Rapidly In Coming Decades Even As Demand Rises

Credit to Author: Michael Barnard| Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2023 18:35:28 +0000

DALL·E generatred image of feeding scrapped steel into an electric furnace, digital artWith more scrapping and more direct reduction using lower carbon technologies such as Midrex’ DRI and HYBRIT every decade, and the likely creation of those facilities closer to iron ore mines, high-emissions furnaces will go out of business over the coming decades, unable to decarbonize.

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Alberta’s Premier Does The Same Stuff Her American Counterparts Do

Credit to Author: Jennifer Sensiba| Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2023 16:05:17 +0000

Looking at social media, it’s easy to assume that Canada is like a left-leaning version of the United States. Celebrities promise to move there if elections don’t go their way, but they almost never actually do it. We’re also reminded regularly by Canadian Twitter users that we’re dumb when things go wrong that they don’t […]

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We’re Approaching Several ‘Positive’ Climate Tipping Points. Is It Enough?

Credit to Author: Nexus Media| Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:20:10 +0000

Reports on “positive tipping points” point to technical solutions, but they miss the role of politics in decarbonizing the economy. When it comes to climate change, tipping points are typically a bad thing. They refer to a threshold at which irreversible, self-perpetuating and catastrophic environmental changes – often referred to as feedback loops – will […]

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Steel Is A Major Climate Problem, But Can Decarbonize Rapidly In The Coming Decades

Credit to Author: Michael Barnard| Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:25:18 +0000

DALL·E generated image of a beached oil tanker being cut up for scrap steel, digital artSteel, like concrete, is such an integral part of our world that we rarely notice it. From wherever you are reading this, I guarantee that there is steel in your line of sight, and likely vastly more of it than you realize. Whatever device you are reading it on has steel inside of it. If […]

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Steel Is A Major Climate Problem, But We Have Proven Tools

Credit to Author: Michael Barnard| Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2023 17:35:18 +0000

DALL·E generated image of a river of hot steel being formed into ingots, digital artWe’ve already manufactured an awful lot of steel. There are hundreds of billions of tons of the stuff lying around, much of it obsolete.

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US Pipelines Contain 4 Years Of US Steel Demand, & Will Be Scrapped For It

Credit to Author: Michael Barnard| Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2023 17:05:36 +0000

DALL·E generated image of a rusting pipeline in America, digital artWe’ve mined enormous amounts of iron and coal in order to build infrastructure to extract, process, refine, and distribute fossil fuels, and we’re going to have lots of scrap steel to work with.

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