ABB (Asea Brown Boveri), the Swiss technology giant, released a new industry report on November 9 titled What does a "Fossil fuel-free" Steel path look like and How to achieve a Sustainable future?. The report outlines a clear roadmap for the steel industry's transition to fossil fuel-free operations, identifying carbon capture, hydrogen, and electrochemistry as the primary pathways to low-carbon steel production.
Focused on actionable insights and global technological advancements, the report highlights latest low-carbon steelmaking innovations across Brazil, China, India, Sweden, and the United States. It integrates perspectives from leading steelmakers-including Sweden's SSAB (Swedish Steel Group), Tata Steel, and Aperam-as well as industry experts from the American Steel Technology Association and ABB itself.
A key section of the ABB report addresses the core challenges facing the steel industry's low-carbon transition, including cost barriers, the complexity of adopting low-carbon technologies, and secure access to critical resources such as green hydrogen, clean electricity, high-grade iron ore, and lime. Alongside these challenges, the report spotlights three pivotal "green steelmaking" technologies driving change:
- HYBRIT Hydrogen Ironmaking Technology: A breakthrough pilot project led by SSAB, Swedish Mining Group (LKAB), and Vattenfall in Sweden. This technology leverages high-grade iron ore from LKAB and replaces coking coal with green hydrogen and green electricity, enabling fossil fuel-free steel production.
- ResponsibleSteelTM-Certified Charcoal-Based Steelmaking: Backed by the non-profit ResponsibleSteelTM initiative, this technology replaces coal-based coke with charcoal in the steelmaking process. Using charcoal sourced from 100,000 hectares of forests owned by Brazil's Embron, it delivers significant carbon emission reductions.
- Tata Steel's HIsarna Melt Reduction Technology: An emerging innovation that uses powdered raw materials instead of processed ores (such as sinter or pellets) to produce liquid pig iron. Compared to conventional blast-furnace basic oxygen furnaces (BF-BOF), HIsarna reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20%.
Beyond long-term technological solutions, the ABB report also details short- and medium-term carbon reduction actions that steel producers can implement immediately. It also outlines feasible collaboration plans for steelmakers to partner with stakeholders across the value chain to realize a "green steel future."
Frederik Esterhuizen, Global Business Line Manager for Metals at ABB, emphasized the urgency of collective action: "Regulatory, commercial, and social drivers are accelerating the low-carbon transition in the steel industry. To address the core challenges identified in the report and phase out fossil fuels, the steel industry needs integrated solutions and must collaborate at all levels of the global steel supply chain to succeed."