How renewable energy is making it possible to decarbonize heavy industry

An article in The Economist, “First electric cars. Next, electric factories?” explores the viability of replacing fossil fuels with emission-free electricity in manufacturing processes that require high temperatures.

Decarbonizing heavy industry and, ahead of it, air transportation, will be the most difficult, but the challenge must be tackled if we are to meet our carbon-reduction goals.

Temperatures of up to two or three hundred degrees can be obtained by industrial heat pumps, but processes such as metallurgy require thousands of degrees, using electric ovens that, until recently, were uneconomical due to the cost of electricity.

However, the availability of increasingly cheaper renewable energy now makes electrification much more viable. Chemical giants such as BASF, one of whose plants in Germany alone last year consumed 4% of the country’s gas imports, now recognize that decarbonization can only be achieved through electrification. Other solutions, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) make no sense, and are actually used by industry as a pretext not to reduce emissions.

Spain’s Roca, SABIC in Saudi Arabia, Europe’s Linde, as well as Rio Tinto, Fortescue and BHP in Australia, are building huge electric furnaces capable of obtaining the…