(AOF) – Steel producer US Steel and CarbonFree have signed a 20-year agreement to capture carbon emissions generated by US Steel’s Gary Works blast furnaces (a steel plant located in Indiana). The project will use CarbonFree’s SkyCycle technology to capture and mineralize up to 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This is the equivalent of the emissions produced by nearly 12,000 passenger cars per year. Construction of the SkyCycle plant at the US Steel Gary Works facility is expected to begin as early as summer 2024.
Operation is expected to begin in 2026.
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The multiple challenges of environmental criticality
It first refers to the supply and availability of different metals in the subsoil. The other determining element is demand. According to the International Energy Agency, lithium consumption will increase more than 40-fold by 2040. Copper is also the perfect example of this criticality. According to S&P Global, copper consumption will double by 2035, from 25 million tonnes per year to 50 million tonnes. However, investments in new mines are penalized by falling prices and rising financing and production costs. Shortages are therefore to be feared in ten or fifteen years. Finally, the mining industry will face growing opposition from populations because of its impacts (particularly in terms of waste and water pollution).