Green Groups Furious As New Coalmine In Cumbria Is Approved
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
These two paragraphs outline the story.
Michael Gove has approved the first deep coalmine in 30 years, despite calls from environmental activists and Labour to turn down the project.
The levelling-up secretary’s planning approval for the mine in Cumbria comes after two years of opposition. Critics said that it would increase emissions and 85 per cent of the coking coal would be exported to produce steel.cumbria
In March 2019, I wrote Whitehaven Deep Coal Mine Plan Moves Step Closer, when local councillors unanimously backed the plan.
In that post, I speculated about the possibility of using the coal from Cumbria with the HIsarna ironmaking process and wrote this.
In Wikipedia, there is an entry for the HIsarna ironmaking process.
This process is being developed by the Ultra-Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking (ULCOS) consortium, which includes Tata Steel and the Rio Tinto Group. Reduction in carbon-dioxide produced by the process compared to traditional steel-making are claimed to be as high as fifty percent.
This figure does not include carbon-capture to reduce the carbon-dioxide still further.
However, looking at descriptions of the process, I feel that applying carbon-capture to the HIsarna steelmaking process might be a lot easier, than with traditional steelmaking.
If you are producing high quality steel by a process like HIsarna, you want to make sure that you don’t add any impurities from the coal, so you have a premium product.
So is Cumbrian metallurgical coal important to the HIsarna process?
I originally heard that the coal from Whitehaven was very pure carbon and I felt as the HIsarna process uses powdered coal, there might be a connection between the two projects. Reading today in The Times article, it seems that the Cumbrian coal has some sulphur. So either the HIsarna project is dead or the Dutch have found a way to deal with the sulphur.
The HIsarna process is a continuous rather than a batch process and because of that, it should be easier to capture the carbon dioxide for use elsewhere or storage in a depleted gas field.
There’s more to come out on the reason for the approval of the project.
I shall be digging hard to see what I can find. But I do believe a steel-making process, that uses a much smaller amount of coal, not coke, could lead to a more economic way of making zero-carbon steel than using hydrogen created by electrolysis.
Carbon capture would need to be used to deal with carbon dioxide produced, but progress is being made with this technology.
Whitehaven Deep Coal Mine Plan Moves Step Closer
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first three paragraphs.
The first new deep coal mine in the UK for decades has moved a step closer after councillors unanimously backed the plans.
The West Cumbria Mining Company wants to mine next to the site of the former colliery in Whitehaven that shut three decades ago.
The Woodhouse Colliery could create 500 jobs, but objectors have said mining will contribute to global warming.
I am not normally a friend or supporter of coal, but there might be a different agenda behind this mine.
The coal that will be mined at Woodchurch Mine, will not be burnt in a power station or steam engine, as it is being mined for a different purpose. It is high-quality metallurgical coal, Wikipedia says this about metallurgical coal.
Metallurgical coal is a grade of low-ash, low-sulfur and low-phosphorus coal that can be used to produce high grade coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled to the demand for steel. Primary steelmaking companies will often have a division that produces coal for coking, to ensure stable and low-cost supply
Currently, there is a shortage of this product and Europe import several million tonnes a year.
It also appears that the Cumbrian metallurgical coal is of a high quality and low in impurities.
In Wikipedia, there is an entry for the HIsarna ironmaking process.
This process is being developed by the Ultra-Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking (ULCOS) consortium, which includes Tata Steel and the Rio Tinto Group. Reduction in carbon-dioxide produced by the process compared to traditional steel-making are claimed to be as high as fifty percent.
This figure does not include carbon-capture to reduce the carbon-dioxide still further.
However, looking at descriptions of the process, I feel that applying carbon-capture to the HIsarna steelmaking process might be a lot easier, than with traditional steelmaking.
If you are producing high quality steel by a process like HIsarna, you want to make sure that you don’t add any impurities from the coal, so you have a premium product.
So is Cumbrian metallurgical coal important to the HIsarna process?
I obviously don’t know and it is not even certain that HIsarna will eventually become a mainstream way of producing high-quality steel.
But you can be assured that there are other companies trying to find the Holy Grail of producing high quality steel with low impurities and without creating masses of carbon-dioxide.
The company or organisation, who cracks this one will make a fortune ethically, as we’ll always need lots of high quality steel.
Conclusion
Mining coal in Cumbria may seem a retrograde step, but it could be central to cutting carbon-dioxide emissions in high-quality steel-making.
I’ll be watching this development with interest.
The Anonymous Widower 