Hot steel pouring from big casting ladle into a mold in an iron foundry.
Electra, the Bill Gates and Amazon-backed startup, has launched its first steel production plant in the United States. Using renewable energy, the pilot Colorado plant will produce clean metallic iron from high-impurity ores.
The announcement regarding the launch was made on Wednesday, March 27.
Called “green” steel, Electra’s steelmaking process will, it is hoped, help slash the environmental cost of steel production. Ironmaking accounts for 90% of the CO2 emissions in steel production.
Electra claims that this accounts for a whopping 7% of global emissions. To this end, Electra makes emissions-free iron possible by integrating renewable energy resources.
Electra says it uses “proven industrial-scale electrochemical and hydrometallurgical processes” to refine low-grade iron ores to high-purity iron at 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). That is around the temperature of coffee and is far lower than that achieved by traditional processes that use coal-fired furnaces.
The process takes in various types of ores and selectively refines the main impurities in iron ore, such as alumina and silica, as co-products. Electra’s clean iron has a purity of over 99%, which offers the highest value for electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmakers when combined with recycled scrap steel. Furthermore, it reduces the value chain’s cost, and waste.
“Clean iron produced from a wide variety of ore types is the key constraint to decarbonizing the steel industry sustainably,” said Electra CEO and co-founder Sandeep Nijhawan. “With support from our partners across the value chain, the pilot brings us closer to our goal of producing millions of tonnes of clean iron by the end of the decade,” he added.
“Electra’s pilot plant is a significant step towards a cleaner, more sustainable, and circular steel industry,” said Noah Hanners, Executive Vice President of Raw Materials at steelmaker Nucor.
The pilot project aims to manufacture clean iron plates in a 3.3-foot (1-meter) square size. The company will gradually increase its production capacity to validate its modular design.
As per a report, Electra will connect the iron plates produced by the pilot project to scale up production to commercial levels. BHP, a major supplier of seaborne iron ore to the steel industry and an investor in Electra, provided the iron ore for the pilot project.
In 2022, Electra secured $85m in funding from backers, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s energy innovation fund.
Carmichael Roberts, who co-leads the fund’s investment committee, said that “electrifying cost-effective ironmaking without carbon emissions is a paradigm shift in how steel has been made for centuries by burning fossil fuels” and is a “trillion-dollar market opportunity.”
“While the road ahead is long, the arc of our progress is fast. The commissioning of the Pilot within three and a half years of the company’s founding reflects the strength of our team and our ability to leverage knowledge from adjacent industries and push the boundaries of clean iron production to tackle one of the hardest-to-abate sectors of our economy,” added Electra CTO and co-founder Quoc Pham.
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Christopher McFadden Christopher graduated from Cardiff University in 2004 with a Masters Degree in Geology. Since then, he has worked exclusively within the Built Environment, Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Consultancy industries. He is a qualified and accredited Energy Consultant, Green Deal Assessor and Practitioner member of IEMA. Chris’s main interests range from Science and Engineering, Military and Ancient History to Politics and Philosophy.
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