BECCS beats hydrogen for decarbonizing steel

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) offers a more cost-effective, readily available solution for decarbonizing the steel industry in Europe than clean hydrogen, steel producer ArcelorMittal’s head of strategy David Clarke said.

According to Clarke, who spoke at the online BNEF conference, ArcelorMittal saw BECCS as the approach with the most promise, based on four main factors: existing technology, availability of clean energy systems, economics, and other benefits beyond steel decarbonization.

“We know biomass worked as a replacement for coal, We’ve been using it in our operations in Brazil and other places for many, many years. We have a project in Belgium that we’ll be starting up next year using waste wood, using that to make bio-coal, We believe when you look at the numbers and the availability, and especially when you look at waste streams, that there is potential and not a big issue with the availability,”

Clarke

with a project to take the emissions from the bio-coal to produce bioethanol.

Clarke noted though that the supply chains and CCS facilities required needed to be built.