Thread by @yestiseye

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols Good, I'm glad someone raised the SSAB HYBRIT case. It's a useful place to start from.
So it is tweet-storm time (again🙄).
There are several of these R&D type initiatives. Decarbonising steel production is extremely important. And hard to do. 1/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols CSIRO: csiro.au/en/Research/MR…
Bill Gates investment: fortune.com/2019/01/09/bos…
…more on HYBRIT: af.reuters.com/article/africa… (note the 500,000 tonnes/year figure for later)

Speaking of Bill Gates… 2/x

https://twitter.com/seeker401/status/1130673129548738560

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols That's from a recent energy conference at Stanford. Full video here:

He also mentions Smil - a very important figure in the decarbonisation debate. His favourite author for a reason. Here from 2009: vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/upl… 3/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols Now the majority of these interesting ideas will fail, if not almost all of them, for reasons of technical & economic shortcomings. It is always like this, and serious results are *decades* away. So our met coal exports will keep on keeping on for the foreseeable future. 4/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols Note I think even the @Greens plan "only" wanted to end thermal coal by 2030.
But there is an important thing about using these moonshot ideas to avoid dealing with the inherent flaws of how people like that want us to solve climate change. And do it *their* way, only. 5/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens For example, people resorting to some exciting novel chemical composition of batteries that will minimum need a decade of serious R&D, as a "game changer".
When you pull on any of these many strings, the *entire* edifice of their world view will potentially crumble. 6/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens One thing there is no way around is the need for large amounts of energy to power this & other industrial processes (note earlier reference to fertilisers/ammonia as well

https://twitter.com/atrembath/status/714889329764511744

).
This is the ever present obstacle - low CO₂ energy is the key to all of it. 7/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens And significantly in Sweden they have access to all that hydro power, which makes for a critical difference. And they can go from a low CO₂ mix of hydro+nuclear to a low CO₂ mix of hydro+wind(+some solar). Why though, is the real question? 8/x
electricitymap.org/?page=country&…

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens For Sweden & HYBRIT, low CO₂ steel does position themselves for a competitive advantage in coming years *within* the European market, potentially. Certainly over German competitors, who will fight any effective carbon price placed on things like steel, tooth & nail. 9/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Now, step back, big picture. Half the world's production of steel is in China (our biggest customer just quietly). That's more than everyone else combined. For the global *monthly* output of steel >120Mt. (remember the HYBRIT potential output? yeah) 10/x
businessinsider.com/china-is-now-p…

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Now funnily enough there's been an ongoing battle in the Southern Highlands of NSW over a new met coal project. And being in Alan Jones' backyard, no surprises what his attitude is (for those in Qld, if you don't know who that is, don't bother, not worth knowing). 11/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Some background info for anyone curious:
abc.net.au/news/2019-02-2…
humecoal.com.au
12/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens What truly makes this interesting is there is yet another alternate proposal. 13/x nuclearforclimate.com.au/posco-coal-ber…

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens (And an aside: the HTR-PM type nuclear reactor mentioned, has another potential use where you take an *existing* (modern) coal plant, and swap out the coal burner with this reactor module but re-use the rest of the plant.
… 14/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens …
If you picked one tech that more than any other could save the world… that would be at the top of the list) 15/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens As with the other alternate approaches to making steel, there's plenty of work still to be done to prove it is technically & economically viable. But if China ever goes down the low CO₂ steel-making path, I guarantee that this is the most likely option. 16/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens If we are to be future focused, then that doesn't happen successfully unless you open up *all* the options. To not do so, is to choose to fail.

Now to bring it back to the push for renewables like wind & solar to *replace* coal (& even all fossil fuels). 17/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Let me be clear why the (non-hydro) renewables approach is so clearly inadequate.
I did a basic simulation of what it would mean to have much greater wind & solar in the Queensland grid from this summer's data. 18/x

https://twitter.com/yestiseye/status/1131743703901458432

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Most relevant to this question (& the making of 'renewable' H₂ btw) is that the peaking of wind+solar occurs at ~20% of the time.
That means you are likely to need to dial back your steel plant (or *any* industrial scale manufacturing - aluminium, hydrogen, whatever)… 19/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens …more often than not. And given the capital cost for building those kinds of industrial infrastructure, not running your plant 24/7, is a fast way to bankrupt yourself.
The *entire* proposition is a non-starter. 20/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens It is in this scenario we have Sanjeev Gupta and his stated plans for the Whyalla steelworks. Renewables + Batteries according to his press releases. I would treat these claims with serious scepticism. 21/x
outline.com/TPWxzu

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens But it is one to watch. Just don't fall for the hype; look to the empirical evidence.
My prediction: without a supply of cheap gas-fired electricity, Whyalla is done for. And those are good blue-collar industrial (union) jobs that will go. 22/x

@mark_o_cain @AustinVTran @Trish_Corry @Ysolda_Nichols @Greens Now full disclosure: I'm a Keating-esque globalist neo-liberal BlueDog Democrat leftie (so basically devil spawn). The author of this👇 book is proper leftwing however. But I like him a lot because he's not ashamed of our Promethean roots. It's a great read. 23/23 (yay!)