BRB w/ Nathan P – Green Steel, Spicy Tomato Truffle Pasta & The Ministry for the Future
How hydrogen & MOE can revolutionize steel production, a quick weeknight dish with TJ's new sauce, and a fictional read on the consequences of failing meet the Paris Accords (#41).
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of climate information to inspire climate action.
My mission is to make it fun, easy, and delicious to make more sustainable decisions.
Each Wednesday, I share 💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate.
💥 Breakthrough: Green Steel
Hydrogen-powered cars were all the rage 10 years ago, before EVs became the carbon-free vehicles of choice. There’s another hard to decarbonize sector where hydrogen can be even more impactful: steel.
Steel production accounts for over 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions – almost on par with concrete and greater than the entire European Union. Cutting those emissions with modern manufacturing or alternative materials is game-changing.
Let’s dive in. Today’s post will cover:
Why steel is so hard to decarbonize
Where & what key innovations are underway
How green steel can bring manufacturing back to the US
1. Why steel is so hard to decarbonize
We produce nearly 2 billion tons of steel every year. This is an industry with century-old technologies, supply chains, and production methods. It will take time to make it more sustainable.
Steel is a hard to decarbonize sector for a few reasons:
🔥 Steel requires extremely high heat to melt and shape
🪨 Most steel manufacturing requires carbon input (coal & coke) to remove oxygen
🏭 Factories have a long asset life and transitions to new facilities takes time
70% of steel manufacturing today is made with blast furnaces, which run on coal. But 30% of steel is now manufactured in alternative furnaces called electric arc furnaces (EAFs). These do not directly require coal, though it may be involved in earlier steps of the supply chain.
2. Where & what innovations are underway
There are two hot topics of conversation in green steel: hydrogen and molten oxide electrolysis (MOE).
🔥 The case for hydrogen
As the need for electricity increases, the world is looking for alternative energy storage sources that do not require batteries.
Options include compressed-air energy storage (CAES) or pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), like the massive 20 GWh facility inaugurated in Switzerland last July.
Producing hydrogen could be another viable option. Producing hydrogen through electrolysis – separating H from O in water with an electric current – could store energy in combustable and carbon-free hydrogen.
Hydrogen is attractive because it can produce the same heat as fossil fuels with none of the carbon emissions: its only co-product is water vapor. It is also closer to current methods from an equipment and process perspective.
🧪 The case for MOE
In the US, start-ups are also working to develop other steel-making technologies that don’t involve combustion at all.
Boston Metal is working to scale-up Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE), a modular process that takes iron of any grade, liquifies it, and transforms it into steel in a straightforward chemical process. They are aiming to commercialize in high-value steel markets as early as 2024.
3. How green steel can bring manufacturing back to the US
For many in the US, steel is reminiscent of the Rust Belt working class. In the early 1900s, Pittsburg produced 60% of the US supply of steel or 25 million tons a year. That production has now mostly been outsourced overseas to China and other developing countries.
The Biden administration is making strides to revive steel manufacturing in the US with green steel, including $6B of subsidies and tax credits to decarbonize industry.
Green steel could revitalize Pittsburg and other declining steel manufacturing centers in the US. A study published this year shows that fossil-free steel production could increase steelmaking in the region by 27-43% – a boon for both US manufacturing and the climate.
Europe is still ahead of the US on building green steel factories, with Germany, Sweden, and Spain leading the charge.
🥘 Recipe: Spicy Tomato Truffle Pasta
I just moved to a new apartment, so this week’s recipe is one for a time crunch with few ingredients: farfalle pasta with Trader Joe’s Truffle Picante sauce. Topped with grated cheese & pepper? Chef’s kiss.
TJ’s new sauce did not disappoint – don’t walk, run. And please do yourself and the planet a favor by paying a little extra for organic pasta.
No instructions hopefully needed here :)
PS: if you’re ever in Greenpoint Brooklyn, come say hi! And if you make it, please send pictures :)
📚 Book: The Ministry for the Future
The Paris Accords have not been met, and the changing climate is becoming unlivable.
A massive heatwave in India kills more people in a week than the number that died in World War I. And the global community is conflicted on what measures to take.
India is told to embrace austerity, yet the country is desperate for solutions and turns to aerosol geoengineering to reduce temperatures. India has sovereignty in their airspace, but these actions have global consequences – who decides whether or not they can proceed?
The Ministry for the Future is a fictional dystopian read set in the near future, one that is not unrealistic with its blend of real-world statistics. The Ministry for the Future is a new global committee created in 2025 to develop new methods, technologies, and systems to halt global warming.
This poignant read made me reflect on climate-related impacts and emerging global conflicts I hadn’t thought of.
For instance: scientists estimate we have around 420 billion tons of carbon we can burn before reaching catastrophic 2C warming. Yet companies and countries have categorized 3,000 billion tons of fossil fuel as assets. How do we prevent burning it?
This book also explains the mechanisms and implementation of creative financial programs and geoengineering solutions, like:
💵 Carbon coins, allotted proportionally to greenhouse gas mitigation
🏔️ Slowing melting glaciers by pumping meltwater
🛳️ Sail-driven container ships
🪴 Carbon farming
The Ministry for the Future offers valuable perspective on how we still have time to address climate, biodiversity, and food security before they threaten our existence on this planet.
We still have time – and there is no better time to act than today.
Some food for thought:
For a while, it looked like the Indian heatwave would be like mass shootings in the United States: mourned by all, deplored by all, and then immediately forgotten and superseded by the next one.
What’s the monetary value of human civilization? Trying to answer that question proves you are a moral and practical idiot.
To be clear, concluding in brief: there is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right, a floor below no one can fall; also a ceiling above which no one can rise. Enough is as good as a feast–or better.
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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