Decarbonising Steel Making

Coal has long been critical to the steel making process, but at BlueScope’s Port Kembla site, engineers Ruwan Brell and Caleb Leeming are working on a cleaner future where coal is no longer needed.

They are part of a team developing a new steelmaking process in joint venture with Australia’s two largest iron ore miners, BHP and RioTinto. This “direct reduced iron” method uses cleaner fuels like natural gas or hydrogen to turn iron ore into iron, before melting it down with heat generated by electricity instead of burning coal. It’s a fundamental shift, not an adjustment to the current process, that has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 80%.

The future facility is in planning phase, with a site selected in Western Australia, but signs of lowering the carbon footprint of today’s steelmaking are already visible. Charging skips at the Port Kembla steel works now have higher walls to carry more scrap steel, helping cut the need for virgin iron and hence reducing emissions from the current process.

“In this work you need to be able to challenge the way you think about something,” says Ruwan. “You grow towards something that matters to you.”