Steel is the backbone of the modern economy, essential for building skyscrapers, wind turbines, planes, trains and automobiles.
It’s also incredibly dirty, responsible for about 7 percent of global carbon emissions.
Experts have long regarded the steel industry as a hard-to-abate sector — a corner of the economy where phasing out planet-warming emissions is particularly tough.
Most steel plants emit carbon twice: They heat up coal to create coke, and then burn the coke in massive blast furnaces to melt iron ore.Over the past 12 months, however, the outlook for the industry has changed significantly.
Electric arc furnaces, which use scrap metal and electric current instead of iron ore and coke, are on the rise around the world.
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