New battery technology could tackle two major decarbonization challenges with one stone

While the global clean energy transition is well underway, there are still some unresolved technical hurdles standing between our current energy industry and our ability to meet global climate goals by mid-century. Most of the more obvious and accessible items on the decarbonization to-do list – such as promoting the adoption of electric vehicles, installing solar and wind farms, and making our homes and appliances more energy efficient – ​​are already being tackled on a large scale around the world. globe. However, other key platforms leading to net zero emissions rely on yet unproven technologies.

Two of these difficult issues are finding a scalable, long-term energy storage solution that would enable reliance on a 100% renewable energy mix without compromising energy security, and decarbonizing sectors where greenhouse gas emissions are difficult to reduce, such as transport heavy vehicles, shipping, aviation, iron and steel, and chemicals and petrochemicals. Unlocking the secret to solving these murky issues has the potential to disrupt the clean energy industry as we know it and put us on the path to carbon neutrality, as well as create new economic sectors with enormous potential for rapid growth.

Now comes the amazing part. While trying to solve the puzzle of long-term energy storage, a green battery company accidentally discovered a solution to one of the other key problems facing the decarbonization movement – cleaning up the iron and steel industry. In a stunning development, Form Energy is using its innovative battery technology to solve two completely different problems plaguing the global energy industry.

A Massachusetts-based green energy provider is using an innovative “iron air” battery to store clean energy for longer periods of time than standard lithium-ion batteries can. The battery stores clean energy, turning rust into pure iron, and feeds it back to the grid, turning iron back into rust. The same process can be used to clean up a significant part of the iron and steel industry.

Refining iron ore for use in steelmaking has traditionally been one of the most carbon-intensive parts of the extremely dirty steel supply chain. In general, the process of purifying iron oxide and hydroxide extracted from the Earth requires large amounts of high-emitting coking coal. As a result, steelmaking is the world’s most emitting manufacturing sector, solely responsible for at least 7% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

There are already some options for cleaning up the steel industry, but none is an effective solution. But the team behind the breakthrough iron-air battery says it could become that kind of breakthrough. The new technology involves placing powdered iron ore in a low-temperature alkaline solution. When an electric current is passed through it, powdered metallic iron is produced.

The Form Energy team claims that this process can be carried out continuously and with high efficiency. In fact, they say it has the potential to compete financially with conventional fossil fuel furnace technologies. While Form has yet to prove it is commercially viable, its competitive potential is significant. “The furnaces require a minimum investment of billions of dollars,” says Canary Media. “The Form electrolytic technique may be easier to use because it can be scaled up in smaller increments.”

“We have found a cheaper, more scalable and more efficient process for producing raw iron,” Form Energy co-founder and CEO Mateo Jaramillo told Canary Media. “We know it has the potential to create tremendous value, so we will continue to do so.” Form Energy’s clean iron initiative was one of 13 projects selected to receive funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E).

It is difficult to overestimate the potential impact of finding and developing a scalable technology for clean steel production. “As a component of the global economy, steel’s carbon footprint touches almost every industry, from automotive and construction to machinery, transportation and energy,” says the World Economic Forum. As a result, the decarbonization of steel would have serious downstream consequences for a huge number of economic sectors. “If the two billion tonnes of raw steel produced globally every year were green steel, it would not only reduce steel emissions, but would significantly reduce emissions for all steel-dependent industries.”

Author: Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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