Climate-neutral production: steel stoves lack green hydrogen

Steel production should become climate-friendly – and the solution is hydrogen. At the manufacturer Georgsmarienhütte, however, one wonders where the gas is actually supposed to come from.

Jean-Frédéric Castagnet currently has one of the most difficult jobs in the steel industry: his job is to make the Georgsmarienhütte steelworks fit for a green future. The magic word is hydrogen. The climate-neutral gas could, for example, replace the natural gas that is still burned in the rolling mill today. A stove that uses as much energy as 12,000 single-family houses.

The switch to hydrogen means: The steelworks in the district of Osnabrück either needs a pipeline for hydrogen – or enormous amounts of green electricity to produce hydrogen itself. “That is the big problem in our eyes,” explains Castagnet, technical director at the steel company. “The infrastructure doesn’t exist.”

“There is great uncertainty in the industry”

Like all other industrial companies, the steelworks in Georgsmarienhütte must also get rid of climate-damaging CO2. Lower Saxony’s goal is to make all products climate-neutral by 2039. Compared to Thyssenkrupp or Salzgitter AG, Georgsmarienhütte has an advantage: because scrap and not coke and iron ore are melted down here, the CO2 balance is significantly more favorable than that of the competition. Nevertheless, the steel boiler is under pressure: The steel must turn green.

CEO Alexander Becker is faced with a mystery. “We would like to use hydrogen,” says Becker, “but there is no such thing.” And there is by far not enough green electricity available to produce hydrogen at all, says Becker. The steel manager accuses the federal government of inaction. There is neither a strategy nor politicians are “brave enough to finally start”. This is frustrating for the steel industry, says Becker. “At the moment we are damaging the business location because we want something but cannot offer a solution. The uncertainty in the industry is incredibly high.”

From champagne to table water?

For the economy, the topic of hydrogen is currently still light and shadow: hydrogen has the advantage of being climate-neutral. The disadvantage, however, is that the gas has to be generated first. And for this you need extremely large amounts of electricity – if possible from wind, sun or water. That is why green hydrogen has long had the reputation of being the “champagne of the energy transition”.

Professor Richard Hanke-Rauschenbach from the University of Hanover does not like to hear this description. Hydrogen is currently expensive and energy-intensive, says the energy expert. But that will change in the future because large quantities will be produced. “That is why hydrogen will have to become more of a table water in the future.” According to Hanke-Rauschenbach, the restructuring of the economy in the direction of hydrogen will probably take one to two decades. For the economy it will be “a very rocky road”, he believes – but there is no “alternative”.

This is exactly what you see in Georgsmarienhütte: In order to reduce CO2 emissions to almost zero, the company depends on green hydrogen. The steelworkers from Lower Saxony assume that a large part of the hydrogen will have to be imported. Even for this, ships, ports and lines are still missing. The technical director Castagnet remains optimistic: “As a steelworker we always have some challenges,” says Castagnet. “If we as engineers don’t solve them, we’ll go under.”