Understanding the demand for Green Steel, page-278

CC_MVSA0350-CC-Report-Industrial-Decarbonisation_V8-FA-Screen-Single.pdf (climatecouncil.org.au)



"1,If Australia made green steel onshore by refining our own iron ore, rather than exporting more than 90 percent of the raw material overseas, we could avoid 1.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually (three times the amount Australia emits each year), and generate 10 times the profits that our iron ore industry does today.

2, An international think tank concluded that Australia could take the lead in the production of ... green steel, this would onshore more high-value industries, creating new jobs and prosperity for Australians while driving down emissions.

3. Over the past decade Australia‘s topearning export has been iron ore, with 82.4 percent of it going to China‘s steel smelters
(Griffith 2022). This highlights the opportunity that Australia has to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by unlocking ‘green steel‘ technologies and onshoring steel production, as well as the significant potential this presents for Australian jobs and economic prosperity. If Australia starts refining iron ore into green steel domestically, before export, it would generate roughly ten times current earnings for iron exports (Griffith 2022).

4.Exporting green iron provides a large-scale opportunity for Australian iron ore; combined with Australia‘s abundant renewable energy resources, the benefits are significant.

5.Sweden only produces approximately 86 million tonnes of iron ore per year, whereas Australia mined 922 million tonnes in 2020-2021. This highlights the massive opportunity for Australia to develop a home-grown green steel industry using the raw inputs which are right under our feet (Department of Industry, Science andResources 2022).

6.With Australia‘s world-beating capacity to generate clean renewable electricity and hydrogen through our plentiful wind and sun, our local industries should be in the box seat to benefit from this shift in technology. One limitation of this technology route is that it requires high quality, low impurity iron ore. Most of the iron ore that Australia currently produces is lower grade."

I just pinged the author to include magnetite mines in their report. They make it seem like high grade iron ore with low impurities is hard to find when we have 6 billion tons beneath us. Thats at least 100 years of goods that the world needs. Poor form climate council but good effort on publishing the report!