A milestone in decarbonization as Sweden’s SSAB made the world’s very first “fossil-free” steel delivery, created with green hydrogen instead of coal and coke, to a customer, Volvo, where it will be used in electric trucks.

SSAB’s HYBRIT process uses hydrogen as the reductant as iron ore and limestone are combined to create steel, replacing “coke,” or baked coal. The traditional coal-fired blast furnace is also replaced with an electric arc furnace.

The company makes sure the hydrogen electrolyzers, as well as its own arc furnaces, are run on “fossil free” renewable energy as well. What’s more, all of the iron ore used in the process will come from “fossil free” mining operations.

What’s this “fossil free” business? Well, SSAB is wary of the term “green,” since there’s no official definition or standards with which to hold anyone accountable. So it imposes its own: “created without using fossil-fuels or fossil raw materials. Fossil-free steel is made without creating CO2 emissions and by using fossil-free energy sources.”

The resulting metal is of exactly the same quality as regular steel, but of course significantly more pricey. What effect will that have on the price of, say, a Volvo? Well, a base-model Volvo XC90 T5 SUV retails for a bit under US$50,000 in the USA. And a Bank of America Global Research Report quoted by Yahoo Finance indicates that raw material prices have fluctuated wildly in the last year or so, with the raw material cost of an average American car fluctuating between US$2,200 and US$4,125, with around 39% of that cost, or US$858 – $1609 being steel.

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