https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Green-metals-co...

https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Green-metals-consultation-paper-2024.pdf

Of Australia’s clean energy opportunities, the largest and most econom-ically viable appears to be using renewable hydrogen to produce ‘green’(near zero emissions) iron. With globally cost-competitive hydrogen, it will be cheaper to produce green iron here than to ship hydrogen and iron ore to countries such as Japan or Indonesia that have inferior renewable resources. Grattan Institute’s 2020 report, Start with steel4, showed that for the bulk of iron ore mined in Australia, iron production is probably the right place to stop along the value chain, and that Australia could producegreen iron cheaper than many of its neighbours. A compacted form of direct reduced iron (DRI), hot briquetted iron, is easy to ship, and turning it into steel requires more labour and less energy than the direct reduction process, giving low-wage countries an advantage in that step of the process. To capture this opportunity also requires access to the right type of iron ore. The direct reduction process requires a processed iron or product that contains more iron content and fewer impurities than ablast furnace. But currently, the overwhelming majority (96 per cent)of the iron ore mined and exported from Australia is hematite, which isnot well-suited for feeding a direct reduction process. Magnetite is the type of iron ore that is better suited for direct reduction. While 38 percent of Australia’s economic-demonstrated resources of iron ore aremagnetite (primarily located in WA and SA), it is currently not minedas extensively. The availability of magnetite and high-quality renewableresources also may not be aligned geographically."

This article has MGT written all over it.