Hydrogen-based steel making could be coming to France following an agreement between Paul Wurth, Stahl-Holding-Saar and GFG Alliance member Liberty Steel to assess the establishment of an industrial scale facility.
A Memorandum of Understanding will see the companies evaluate the building and operation of a hydrogen-based steel making plant in Dunkirk, making it one of the first operations of its type in France.
Success for Ovako in green steel hydrogen trial
The partnership will incorporate a two million tonne Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plant, with an integrated 1GW capacity hydrogen electrolysis production unit, next to GFG’s ALVANCE Aluminium Dunkerque site.
The DRI plant will initially use a mix of hydrogen and natural gas as the reductant to produce DRI and hot-briquetted iron (HBI), before switching to hydrogen when the electrolysis production unit is complete. The DRI/HBI produced will primarily be used in the electric arc furnace of Liberty Ascoval in France but any surplus will be used at Liberty’s Ostrava and Galati integrated steelworks as well as the SHS-group’s Dillinger and Saarstahl plants in Germany,
Liberty has been working with Paul Wurth and SHS on the technical and economic viability of the project since early last year. The MoU moves the project forward in two phases.
According to Liberty Steel, phase 1, which takes over 12 weeks, will improve the accuracy of the project’s commercial and technical feasibility including the reducing gas mix, potential partners (energy supply, hydrogen production and operation, DRI/HBI equipment) and funding opportunities. Phase 2 will then deliver the level of technical and financial detail required to implement the project.
Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of GFG Alliance and Liberty Steel Group, said: “Our industry needs to reinvent steel production fast, as the need to cut our emissions gets ever more pressing against a backdrop of rising global demand for our products and legislative pressure to become carbon neutral.
“Hydrogen steel making has the potential to solve this issue and we’re determined to collaborate with like-minded partners to make it happen. France is the ideal place to try, thanks to its strong industrial heritage, skilled workforce and low carbon energy infrastructure.
“Together with these technologically advanced and committed partners we are looking forward to exploring the potential for truly carbon neutral steel making, using green hydrogen to help us make Greensteel products.”
Not a single mention of green hydrogen (GH2) being manufactured from otherwise wasted electricity generated by wind and solar power plants (WASPPs) at times of low demand.
France’s nuclear power plants (NPPs) in combination with electrolyser plants can operate at full power, for 100% availability, and load follow by switching instantaneously between grid supply and GH2 manufacture. Electrolysers suffer no technological issues from load switching and there are prospects of multiple revenue streams – certainly in the UK.
Sizewell B fitted with an electrolyser plant would earn: income from electricity generation; income from GH2 sales; grid service payment for load following; grid service payment for frequency correction.
So why was this not considered instead of extracting more coal from Cumbria?
Very interesting in many ways. Wonder how the hydrogen will effect the steel properties, it usually causes embrittlement. Then there is the issue of hydrogen slip in the reactors, with the hydrogen proceeding to the stratosphere and reacting with ozone: maybe a research project to monitor hydrogen in the upper atmosphere is needed just in case we go from eco-frying pan to eco-fire in one step. Destroying the ozone layer would cause far more deaths than doubling CO2 ever could.
That’s the 1GW of electrolyser capacity.
The fact that the plant is in Dunkirk means its connected to the grid near the 6GW Gravelines nuclear plant, which has strong grid connections to most of northern Europe, including to where the offshore wind interconnectors make land fall.. When there is excess solar or wind, electricity is cheap, and the electrolyser will operate, taking a GW out of the network.