Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel

Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by gus_massa on Saturday September 04, 2021 @03:07PM (#28418093)

I doubt this is the first fossil fuel-free steel, even in modern times. Here in Argentina one of our biggest steel factories had a very big eucalyptus forest just to make coal. From https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceros_Zapla_S.A

Autotranslation: https://translate.google.com/?tab=TT#es/en/Aceros%20Zapla%20...

> "Aceros Zapla" (ex- "Altos Hornos Zapla") was a steel forest mining complex located in the department Palpalá province of Jujuy, Argentina. It was the first steel center of Argentina [...]

> It had 15,000 ha of a forest of 30 million eucalyptus trees to extract the necessary coal in the process, [...]

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by imtringued on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:41PM (#28419552)

Elba island was completely deforested to produce iron/steel.

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by gus_massa on Saturday September 04, 2021 @07:19PM (#28420282)

In this case it was[1] a huge artificial forest of eucalyptus. They grow pretty fast without those nasty koalas nearby. You can cut them and they regrow from the roots, but after a few times they planted new trees.

I'm not sure if they replaced the local forest with the eucalyptus, but my guess is that the areas was already used to cultivate corn, tobacco, sugar cane or something.

[1] I'm not sure about the current state. My guess is that it is still there, but that steel mill had a complicated story in the last 30 years.

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by labster on Saturday September 04, 2021 @08:10PM (#28420607)

The original meaning of “collier” was a charcoal maker, not a coal miner. The relevant part of steel making is discussed in this episode of Bret Devereaux’s blog:

https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-...

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by K5EiS on Saturday September 04, 2021 @03:40PM (#28418375)

Is coal not fossil fuel?

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by kd5bjo on Saturday September 04, 2021 @03:47PM (#28418417)

Yes, it is. From the description given, they were probably turning the trees into charcoal, which isn’t technically a fossil fuel: The carbon being released was only captured within the last few centuries, during the life of the tree.

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Re:Sweden delivered the world’s first fossil fuel-free steel by gus_massa on Saturday September 04, 2021 @03:49PM (#28418443)

Yep, it's charcoal. Sorry for the bad translation, but we use the same word here.

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