Using the world’s first green steel to make a dump truck

To cleanup their reputation, steel makers are experimenting new technology to make steel with a smaller carbon footprint, with the first to be used to make a smart dump-truck. — REUTERS

The world’s steelmakers need a makeover. Their industry is one of the dirtiest, and it’s blamed for about 7% of global carbon emissions. The biggest producers essentially rely on the same manufacturing processes they used a century ago, and now they face a reckoning. With the planet’s viability at stake because of global warming, producers know they must adapt to survive in a low-carbon future.

Sweden’s SSAB AB, with operations from Alabama to Shanghai, partnered with utility Vattenfall AB and miner LKAB to produce the first fossil-free steel by substituting green hydrogen for coal. Deliveries of the clean metal started in August, with customers including Volvo Group, Mercedes-Benz AG and Cargotec Oyj of Finland.