Changing the Narrative - Green Metal

I explain in simple terms how green iron and green steel are made and why these new processes will revolutionise how steel is made from iron ore.

What is Dave Coffey -- Changing the Narrative?

Changing the Narrative with Dave Coffey is a community-radio style podcast unpacking the big issues shaping Australia, the world and us as individuals — from energy and economics to culture, politics and everyday life in Far North Queensland.

Drawing on conversations from breakfast radio and social commentary segments, Dave breaks down complex topics in plain English, asking the questions many people are already talking about around the kitchen table or would like to see an alternative perspective presented.

Expect short explainers, thoughtful opinion pieces and honest conversations that aim to inform without shouting — because sometimes changing the narrative starts with simply understanding it better.

In this segment we’re going to talk about green metals.

No, they’re not mouldy door hinges. Green metals are metals that are produced in a way that is more environmentally friendly than the traditional methods we’ve used for decades.

Let’s take iron as an example, because iron is a huge part of Australia’s mining export industry.

The process we mostly follow in Australia right now is pretty simple: we dig up this red dirt, put it on the back of a train, send it to the coast, load it onto a massive ship, and ship it off to China.

And from our perspective, who really knows what happens after that.

But what that red dirt actually is, is iron ore. It contains iron at a higher concentration than ordinary soil, but it isn’t pure iron. What we’ve actually got is iron oxide.

In simple terms, the iron has already rusted — chemically speaking it’s iron combined with oxygen.

So the first step in making steel is stripping the oxygen away from the iron.

Traditionally this has been done in a blast furnace. The iron ore is mixed with coal and heated to extremely high temperatures. The coal provides carbon, and when the reaction happens the oxygen that’s attached to the iron atom bonds with the carbon from the coal.

When that happens, the iron is freed from the oxygen, melts, and sinks to the bottom of the furnace.

But the oxygen and carbon combine to form CO₂ — carbon dioxide — in huge quantities.

So that’s the traditional system: it works, but it produces a lot of emissions.

Now here’s where things get interesting.

There’s a new way of removing that oxygen from the iron ore. Instead of using carbon from coal, the new process uses hydrogen.

Hydrogen performs the same job — it pulls the oxygen off the iron oxide — but the chemistry is different.

Instead of the oxygen combining with carbon to make CO₂, the oxygen combines with hydrogen to make H₂O… water.

So instead of producing carbon dioxide, the by-product is water vapour.

That’s a massive environmental improvement.

The iron that’s produced is exactly the same, but the emissions profile is completely different.

Now here’s the big question: where does the hydrogen come from?

Coal is easy — we dig it up.

Hydrogen has to be made.

But if you’ve got a cheap source of electricity, you can produce hydrogen from water through a process called electrolysis.

In very simple terms, you pass electricity through water and it splits the water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen.

So if you can generate very cheap electricity, you can make very cheap hydrogen.

And if you have cheap hydrogen, you can use it to turn iron ore into iron and steel without producing CO₂.

That’s why people talk about green steel or green metals.

And economically, it could be a huge shift.

Instead of shipping raw iron ore overseas and letting other countries turn it into steel, Australia could potentially produce the iron — and maybe the steel — here, using renewable energy to generate the hydrogen.

Countries around the world are now gearing up for this. They want the ability to produce green metals, because industries everywhere are trying to decarbonise.

Australia has enormous advantages here:

- Vast renewable energy resources

- Huge iron ore deposits

- Lots of land for solar and wind generation

There is policy discussion about this in Australia, and we’ll talk more about that in coming weeks.

But from where I sit, I don’t see nearly enough urgency in the policy conversation.

There’s a lot of airtime spent talking about things like ISIS brides and other diversions — and not nearly enough discussion about building green energy capability in outback Australia, right next to the mining resources.

Because if the world is moving toward green metals, the question for Australia is simple:

Are we just going to keep digging up the red dirt and shipping it away…

Or are we going to start making the metal ourselves?