Challenging Net Zero and Climate Change | Reality Check Part 2

Post 13 | The Underpinnings of Steel and Concrete

Last week’s post Part 1 Indispensability of Ammonia and Plastics laid a foundation for examining net zero targets and left me skeptical at how 2050 targets are achievable. But if my skepticism was strong based on those first two compounds which account for ~7% of global CO₂ emissions, steel and concrete present an even more challenging proposition as they combine for about 18% of outputs. This post will examine both, plus offer some broad perspectives on the climate change movement driving this agenda.

Steel

Steel can be organized into four basic categories – carbon, alloy, stainless and tool. Modern steels begin with a base of casted iron from which the natural carbon content of 2-4% is reduced to as little as .3 percent, to achieve the right balance of hardness, flexibility and strength.

Carbon steel accounts for about 90% of our consumed volumes, is used in our infrastructure, buildings, appliances and transportation - and is literally and figuratively the girding of our manmade world. Alloy steel includes other metals and metalloids into the mix such as manganese, nickel, silicon, chromium, aluminum, molybdenum and titanium, to add characteristics such as ductility and corrosion resistance. Stainless steel includes up to 20% chromium, while tool steel has the highest tensile strength and can cut other metals.

Steel’s capacity to support large loads, flex, conduct current, and provide rigidity has made it a fundamental part of our modern world, with tempered steel tracked back to 900 BC and consistent carbon steel use dating to 500 AD.

Global steel production in 2022 was nearly 1.9 billion tons (gigatons) with China producing 54%, followed by India at 7%, and Japan, USA and Russia each 4-5%. Canada is 17^th on the list with a global contribution of less than 1%.

Estimates of steel’s direct contribution to carbon emissions vary between 8-11%, with 9% a consensus number, while steel production consumes about 6% of the globe’s energy supply per Vaclav Smil’s book How The World Really Works.

Steel is produced through two methods. Nearly 70% of global production comes via primary steel making which requires about 1.6 tons of raw ore to produce each ton of iron. Annually, about 2.5 billion tons of raw iron ore are mined (mostly using gas powered machinery) then processed through blast furnaces to separate out the iron, followed by a basic oxygen furnace (BOF) treatment to reduce the carbon content - both very energy hungry processes.

Recycled metal is reprocessed through electric arc furnaces (EAF), accounting for the 30% balance of worldwide volumes. This method can consume as little as one-fifth the energy of primary steelmaking, though it still draws massive electrical loads where even an efficient EAF can demand the equivalent electricity needed to power a mid-sized city. In addition are the substantial fossil fuel and human resources required to sort, break down and transport the metal feedstocks – with recycled metal being a huge international trade requiring major rail, truck and ship movement.

Concrete

The use of concrete dates back to Roman times, though modern concrete compounds have been with us since the early 1800s and used extensively since the early 1900s. Concrete combines varying sizes of aggregate, sand and water with up to 15% cement, the hardening agent and the ingredient most responsible for carbon emissions.

The making of cement requires considerable energy by firing limestone, clay and shale in massive kilns to produce clinker, which is then ground into cement powder. This production process is reasonably simple and consumes much less energy than steel. However, estimates of its CO₂ global contribution sit at about 9% due to the massive volumes being manufactured. Carbon emissions derive from both the kilning fuels and the chemical reactions from the clinking process.

Concrete is the most volumetrically used material of the four we’ve examined and you see it everywhere – notably in building foundations, stairs, walls, bridges, dams, interstates, and runways – most often reinforced with steel to improve its ability to withstand tension.

China dominates cement production, generating more than half the 4.1 billion global total, producing nearly 2.1 billion tons in 2022 according to Statista, followed by India as the next largest producer at 9%. Canada manufactures a mere 13 million metric tons.

Demand in China has helped fuel a massive increase in concrete consumption over the past decades, while future growth is expected in other developing Asia-Pacific nations driven largely by their build out of public infrastructure.

Looking at revenues, 2022 global estimates of the industry land at $344B and projected to reach near $538B by 2030, reflecting a 5% year over year increase in volumes.

Adding to the growth of new concrete demand is the expected massive replacement cycle of crumbling existing infrastructure. Concrete is susceptible to breakdown over a 30-100 year cycle depending on the product, application and conditions acting upon it including heat, cold and moisture. According to Smil, more than 700 billion tons of concrete were laid between 1990 and 2020, leaving the developed world with a massive rebuilding project over the 21^st century – and adding to concrete’s growth demand.

The industry continues to explore and deploy carbon-reducing methods driven by new feedstocks such as slag refuse from the iron smelting process, and the residue from thermal power plants called fly ash, while also improving production methods. This green cement market share in 2022 was about 9% at $32B and projected to reach $69B by 2030, which would then be about 13% of target total forecasts. However, green cement drives only up to a 40% carbon reduction versus clinker cement, and adoption remains slow when measured against net zero targets.

Challenging Net Zero and Climate Change

There remain no scalable replacement products for steel or concrete, there are limited feedstock substitutions and only modest production process manipulations to significantly impact carbon emissions. Unless and until we can power this complex and hungry supply chain – including extraction, raw production, fabrication and transportation – with non carbon energies, expectations for a net zero steel or concrete industry are not realistic.

Taken together with the Part 1 analysis of ammonia and plastics I’m left scratching my head how the 2050 net zero targets are within the realm of reasonableness, as we acknowledge these four fundamental compounds that underpin, support, move and feed our existence.

Meanwhile this doesn’t even begin to consider other areas such as the consumer and commercial transportation sector where the promise of full electrification and net zero carbon ignores realities of mineral sourcing and mining, battery production and recycling, infrastructure needs, and energy portability.

Regarding mineral sourcing, in brief — a typical lithium vehicle battery weighs 450 kg (1000 lbs) containing lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, graphite, steel, aluminum and plastics. The materials for a single battery require processing up to 40 tons of ore, and given the low concentration of some metals can require the excavation of 225 tons of raw material - for one battery. If you wish to ponder the environmental and social creds of your next electric vehicle (EV) purchase, take a peek online at how cobalt is mined and processed in the Congo, where 70% of global supply derives. You may feel less indignant about using Canada’s reasonably clean and very socially conscious fossil fuels versus the environmental and human rights nastiness of the cobalt industry to enable your battery. Meanwhile, in order to meet just 50% of currently decreed global electric vehicle production for 2050, we will require 15-20 times more metal materials than we have today. Where from? At what geopolitical costs? At what environmental costs? At what human rights costs? At what costs to national energy sovereignty and security?

I am deeply troubled by the extreme climate-driven policy actions that are rearranging our fiscal, geopolitical and societal landscape, the consequences of which we can’t possibly understand. Yet we persist down this unwavering road of net zero, making bets for and against energy types, sources and industries, driven by projections and models no one can argue are certain. And we are now seeing that the climate change movement driving these prescriptive solutions is increasingly fraught.

Review of raw UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documents exposes strong biases and narrative manipulation in their summary conclusions. Meanwhile, the climate change movement’s communications machine continues to change messaging and metrics to suit their cause and constantly foment fear. At the same time the media have been more than complicit in this process, dubiously linking every weather event and environmental occurrence directly to climate change and stoking the fear and panic feeding this movement. And it is rarely discussed that the enormous green industry including consultants, financiers, manufacturers, and service providers is ballooning in size and benefiting from the hysteria - not a trivial consideration.

How much are anthropogenic inputs driving a warming cycle? How much and which non-anthropogenic factors impact climate trends? What will be the outcomes by 2050 or 2100 – in temperature, ecosystem response, vegetation, and humanity’s living conditions? A balanced answer would be that we do not fully know, despite some powerful science, brains and modeling providing valuable scenarios and directional outputs. Yet the near-religious declarations of the climate change movement have told us unequivocally that they are certain and that they know the medicine to be administered. This frightens me almost more than the doom they foretell.

But intelligent pushback against the “settled science” has been steadily increasing in volume and credibility, with groups and individuals of substance who can no longer be dismissed as deniers and loons. As an example, recently more than 1800 global climatologists, environmentalists and scientists including several Nobel laureates signed a statement with Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) an independent foundation pushing back on the climate emergency narrative. And an increasing number of intelligent books, articles and commentary have been flourishing that encourage taking a step back to incorporate more scientific input, recommend a balanced focus on adaptation and mitigation, and counsel the need to focus on other important environmental needs and markers beyond the singular carbon crusade.

Basic pragmatism tells us that something is indeed amiss in the climate change and net zero movement. They have become too certain of their certainty about a problem with complexity we cannot fully wrap our arms around or capture in a model.

In Canada this has driven us to rush headlong into policies that put us on a path to national self-immolation. Net zero driven by unrealistic targets represents a big part of that perilous path and we need to throttle way back. Ammonia, plastics, steel and concrete tell just part of that story.

Stay tuned and stay pragmatic.