Rebecca Dell of ClimateWorks Foundation discusses why industrial crackers for chemical synthesis have not yet been electrified at commercial scale.
Assertion Supported
Dell: No steel company is commercializing large-scale blast furnace carbon capture
“There's very little going on in the world of carbon capture in the steel industry right now. There are a there are no large-scale efforts to commercialize this technology. Like, there isn't a single steel company anywhere in the world that's like, we're gonna …”
Insight
Dell: Urea Production Should Not Count as Meaningful CO2 Utilization
“A lot of people point to this as, like, the most important CO₂ utilization that is already commercialized in our economy, but that's actually a really problematic way of thinking about it, because the way you make urea, you start with a pure concentrated point…”
Assertion Contradicted
Dell: Steelmaking emits more greenhouse gases than anything except electricity
“Making steel emits more greenhouse gases than anything else except making electricity.”
Assertion Supported
Dell: Almost Every Steel Mill Produces More CO2 Than Steel
“So if you look at, like, the total process Of the iron making and the steel making together for a vet, just like a very typical conventional blast furnace facility, you're usually going to end up with more than two tons of CO two per ton of steel, which is kin…”
Assertion Contradicted
Dell: Electrifying a single standard steel mill requires four gigawatts of power
“If you were to fully electrify this process, that might be something like four gigawatts of electricity. Average load. Not peak load. Average load. So we're talking about, like, four nuclear power stations to run one normie steel mill.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Dell: Boston Metal's commercial iron cell should deploy in one to two years
“We're still waiting for the commercial deployment of the sort of the actual iron-making cell, which should come in the next, I think, year or two, but honestly, you would know better than me.”