Nucor Introduces Elcyon(TM), First Sustainable Steel Product Engineered Specifically For Offshore Wind Energy Applications
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Nucor Corporation.
This is the first paragraph.
Nucor today introduced Elcyon™, the Company’s new sustainable heavy gauge steel plate product made specifically to meet the growing demands of America’s offshore wind energy producers building the green economy and its necessary infrastructure. Nucor will manufacture Elcyon at the company’s new, $1.7 billion state-of-the-art Nucor Brandenburg steel mill in Kentucky , which produced its first steel plate at the end of December 2022.
It sounds impressive, but it should be if $1.7 billion has been spent.
This paragraph, says more about the process.
Elcyon is a clean, advanced steel product made using Nucor’s recycled scrap-based electric arc furnace manufacturing process. Nucor’s circular steelmaking route has a greenhouse gas emissions intensity that is one fifth the global blast furnace extractive steelmaking average, based on Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Utilizing Thermo-Mechanical Controlled Processing (TMCP) at the new mill, Elcyon, the only steel of its kind in the United States was created specifically to meet the rigorous quality standards of offshore wind energy designers, manufacturers and fabricators. Along with meeting Euronorm specs, Elcyon is characterized by larger plate dimensions, improved weldability and excellent fracture toughness, as compared to competing products.
What more can a steelmaker want?
- It uses steel scrap to make new steel.
- The process could be powered by green electricity.
- The process cuts emissions to twenty per cent.
- The steel is what customers want.
- The steel has better properties than competing products.
These two paragraphs talk about the prospects for Elcyon.
Nucor Steel Brandenburg is the first steel plant in the world to pursue certification under LEED v4 from the U.S. Green Building Council, the highest standard for sustainable building design, construction, and operation. The new mill is located in the middle of the largest steel plate-consuming region in the country and will be able to produce 97% of plate products consumed domestically, with a potential output of 1.2 million tons of steel annually.
Elcyon and the Brandenburg mill both draw upon Nucor’s 50 years of industry leadership in sustainable steel production. From last year’s launch of Econiq™, the world’s first net-zero steel available at scale, to recently becoming the first major industrial company to join the United Nations 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Global Compact, Nucor has consistently worked to meet the needs of its customers and other stakeholders while protecting the well-being of our planet.
Nucor have certainly done their market research and appear to be very scientifically green.
In the About Nucor section of the press release, this is the last sentence.
Nucor is North America’s largest recycler.
This is some statement to make, if it weren’t true! Wikipedia says this about the company.
Nucor operates 23 scrap-based steel production mills. In 2019, the company produced and sold approximately 18.6 million tons of steel and recycled 17.8 million tons of scrap.
The home page of the Nucor web site also makes this claim.
North America’s Most Sustainable Steel And Steel Products Company
Perhaps, the UK government needs to ask Nucor to build one or more of their scrap-based steel production mills in the country to produce all the steel plate we will need for our growing offshore wind industry.
We certainly have the GW to power the arc furnaces.
Conclusion
Nucor is a big beast to watch!
UK Funds Hydrogen-Enabled Decarbonisation Of Steel, Cement, Ceramics Production
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Ryse Hydrogen.
This is the first paragraph.
The latest round of grants under the UK government’s Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator Programme shows the breadth of decarbonisation opportunities that hydrogen provides and the depth of innovative talent in our country.
Industries targeted by the projects that received funding include steelmaking, asphalt, cement, waste, paint, and ceramics manufacturing.
The article is good background to how hydrogen will change industry.
Is There A Virtuous Circle In The Installation Of Wind Farms?
Because we are developing so much offshore wind turbine capacity, this will result in two things.
- A big demand for steel for the foundations and floats for wind turbines.
- A large amount of electricity at a good price.
In my view the UK would be the ideal country to develop an integrated steel and wind turbine foundation/float capability.
There will also be a strong demand for deep water ports and sea lochs to assemble the floating turbines.
Our geography helps in this one. We also have Milford Haven, which is just around the corner from Port Talbot. Scunthorpe is on the River Trent, so could we assemble floats and foundations and take them by barge for assembly or installation.
We probably need an integrated capability in Scotland.
Conclusion
It looks to me, that there is a virtuous circle.
- The more offshore wind turbine capacity we install, the more affordable electricity we will have.
- This will in turn allow us to make more steel.
- If this steel was produced in an integrated factory producing foundations and floats for wind farms, this would complete the circle.
- It would also be inefficient to make the foundations thousands of miles away and tow them to UK waters.
Any improvements in costs and methods, would make the system more efficient and we would have more wind turbines installed.
It looks to be a good idea.
A Massive Task For Ukraine?
After the Russians are thrown out of Ukraine, it will be a massive task to rebuild Ukraine.
But one of Ukraine’s traditional industries can also be used to transform the world.
The Transformation Of Energy Production To Floating Offshore Wind
I believe that over the next few years, we will see an enormous transformation of zero-carbon energy to floating offshore wind.
- The floating offshore wind industry is planning to use the next-generation of larger wind turbines of up to 20 MW.
- These turbines are too large and intrusive to install onshore.
- Floating wind turbines generally have a higher capacity factor of over 50 %, than onshore turbines.
- Each wind turbine will be mounted on a substantial semi-submersible float, which is built out of large-diameter steel tubes
- The wind turbines are of the same design, as those installed onshore.
- There are several designs for the floats and they are usually based on designs that have worked in the oil and gas industry.
The world will need millions of floating turbines and an equivalent number of floats to fully decarbonise.
Could The Ukrainians Build The Floats?
Consider.
- The Russians have destroyed Mariupol, whilst the Ukrainians have defended the city in the steelworks.
- Mariupol used to have a large shipbuilding industry.
- Ukraine is in the world’s top ten of iron ore producers.
- There is a lot of scrap steel available in the Ukraine, that the Russians have left behind.
- The Ukrainians probably have a lot of workers, who have the skills to build the floats.
I’m sure something could be arranged for the benefit of everybody.
HS2 Reveals Dramatic Carbon Saving With Ambitious Modular Design For Thame Valley Viaduct
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release on High Speed Two.
This is the first paragraph.
HS2 today revealed the final designs for the Thame Valley Viaduct and the pioneering pre-fabricated construction methods that will see the 880m long structure slotted together like a giant Lego set, cutting its carbon footprint by an estimated 66%.
This is one of the pictures released in this photoset.
This second picture shows a closer view of a pillar and the catenary.
It does appear in these two views that the catenary and the gantries that support it are more elegant than those that tend to be used on most electrification schemes at the present time.
These paragraphs describe how the design saved carbon emissions.
Applying lessons from recent high speed rail projects in Spain, the design team cut the amount of embedded carbon by simplifying the structure of the viaduct so that every major element can be made off site.
In a major step forward for viaduct design in the UK, the team opted for two wide ‘box girder’ beams per span instead of eight smaller beams – to simplify and speed up assembly.
The production of steel and concrete is a major contributor to carbon emissions, with the new lighter-weight structure expected to save 19,000 tonnes of embedded carbon in comparison to the previous design. That’s the same amount of carbon emitted by one person taking a flight from London to Edinburgh and back 70,000 times.
It would appear that saving weight and using less steel and concrete can save a lot of carbon emissions.
I once got a bonus at ICI because I saved ten metres on the height of a chemical plant. My boss said, I’d saved nearly a million. by using a mathematical model on an analogue computer to show that a vessel in the plant wasn’t needed and this eliminated a complete floor of the plant.
How much concrete and steel has been saved by High Speed Two on this viaduct, by making it more basset than Afghan hound?
Ever since I watched the building of Crossrail’s Custom House station, I have been in favour of off-site construction.
I wrote about it in An Express Station and am pleased to see it being used on High Speed Two.
New HS2 Pilot Project Swaps Steel For Retired Wind Turbine Blades To Reinforce Concrete
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from High Speed Two.
These are the first three paragraphs.
Worn-out wind turbine blades destined for the incinerator will instead be used to create carbon-friendly reinforced concrete on Britain’s new high speed rail network, HS2 Ltd has said today (12.03.21).
The innovative project will swap steel rebar, traditionally used to reinforce concrete, with sections of glass fibre reinforced polymer turbine blades that have reached the end of their operational lives generating low carbon electricity.
By 2023, around 15,000 turbine blades will have been decommissioned across the UK and EU. Until now, expired blades have either been ground down to be used as building materials or sent to energy-from-waste incinerators.
Replacing reinforcing steel with sections of retired wind turbine blades is claimed to cut up to 90 % of the carbon generated by steel reinforcement.
It would appear to me, that this is a worthwhile process.
- In 2018, 295,000 metric tons of steel reinforcing bars were produced in the UK.
- Retired blades don’t end up in landfill or incinerators.
- Could we export them as eco-friendly reinforcing bars, to countries with smaller wind industries.
As we have more wind farms, than most other countries, we will probably have more blades to recycle, so perhaps we should research other secondary uses for these blades.
How To Build A Liverpool-Style Optical Bench
When I worked at ICI in Runcorn, one of the guys had developed a very accurate instrument for measuring trace chemicals in a dirty process stream. I remember one of these instruments was used to measure water in parts per million in methyl methaculate, which is the misnomer or base chemical for Perspex.
All the optical components needed to be mounted on a firm base, so a metre length of nine-inch C-section steel beam was chosen. The surface was then machined flat to a high accuracy.
In the end they found that instead of using new beams, old ones decades-old from the depths of a scrap yard gave better accuracy as the steel had all crystallised out. Machined and spray-painted no-one knew their history.
But they were superb instruments and ICI even sold them abroad.
BECCS Beats Hydrogen For Decarbonizing Steel In Europe: ArcelorMittal
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on S & P Global Platts.
This is the first paragraph.
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) offers a more cost-effective, readily available solution for decarbonizing the steel industry in Europe than clean hydrogen, steel producer ArcelorMittal’s head of strategy David Clarke said May 17.
So what do they mean by bioenergy?
To make iron from iron ore, you need a reducing agent like carbon or hydrogen.
Iron ore is rich in oxides of iron.
The carbon is usually some form of coal, which produces large amounts of carbon dioxide with the oxygen from the iron oxides.
Hydrogen produces lots of water with the oxygen.
David Clarke of ArcelorMittal explains the process in the article.
“We know biomass worked as a replacement for coal,” he said. “We’ve been using it in our operations in Brazil and other places for many, many years. We have a project in Belgium that we’ll be starting up next year using waste wood, using that to make bio-coal,” with a project to take the emissions from the bio-coal to produce bioethanol.
Is this a case of Back-To-The-Future? If I remember my history, didn’t Iron Age men use charcoal to smelt iron and other metal ores?
If those scientists from Velocys can make Sustainable Aviation Fuel and biodiesel from household waste and used disposable nappies, can they apply their magic to make bio-coal?
I see great cost advantages with this process, as surely it would enable existing blast furnaces to be used, provided they were fitted with carbon capture and storage.
Orsted In Gigawatt-Scale Offshore Wind To Green Hydrogen Plan With Steel Giant ArcelorMittal
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Recharge.
The title says a lot and at the heart of the plan is a 1 GW electrolyser.
Now that is enormous.
Will it be made in Rotherham by ITM Power?
The article is a must read.
The Anonymous Widower 