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Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Steel is a lot more tricky as generally fossil fuels are burnt directly inside the blast furnace. There are a few alternative "green steel" processing routes that avoid this but iirc none of them are hugely competitive at the moment.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    There's some sort of electrolytic process similar to aluminium available, but yes the reaction that turns iron ore into iron is:

    Iron oxide + carbon monoxide + heat ->

    A redox reaction where oxygen atoms are transferred from iron oxide to carbon monoxide ->

    Iron + CO2.

    Heat and CO is conveniently provided by burning coal/coke in a blast furnace in the presence of a lot of oxygen.

    You can pretty much just chuck layers of coke and iron ore in the top of your blast furnace, pump high pressure oxygen into the centre, and get molten iron straight out the bottom.

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