Steel and mining multinational ArcelorMittal SA conducted a first, successful test of green hydrogen for the direct reduced iron (DRI) process at its plant in Contrecoeur, Quebec, the company announced last week.
The test at ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada (AMLPC) “used power produced by a third-party-owned electrolyser to replace 6.8% of natural gas in the iron ore reduction process,” Renewables Now reports, in a post republished by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
That matters because “the iron ore reduction process alone contributes to more than 75% of the overall carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions” from the Contrecoeur facility, the news story states.
“We have just demonstrated that Quebec can become a global pioneer in the production of low-CO2 steel, by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions,” AMPLC President and CEO François Perras said in a release.
The green hydrogen the company used for the experiment came from outside the plant and was shipped in for the occasion, the release says. But AMPLC is considering further tests in the months ahead that “could eventually reduce CO2 emissions in Contrecoeur by several hundred thousand tonnes per year,” depending largely on the availability of “sufficient electricity to power the units”.
