Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati. This week steel stealth
Speaker 1: and flattening the carbon curve. This summer, I spent three
Speaker 1: weeks traveling around the US visiting climate startups. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you the story of one of them,
Speaker 1: a secretive company called Electra that operates out of a
Speaker 1: suburban office park in Colorado. Electra is taking on a massive,
Speaker 1: often unrecognized problem, decarbonizing steel, an industry worth nearly one
Speaker 1: trillion dollars that accounts for seven percent of global greenhouse
Speaker 1: gas emissions. The vast majority of those emissions come from
Speaker 1: the first step in the process of making steel, converting
Speaker 1: iron ore to iron. What a pitch to him is like,
Speaker 1: I had four ideas. Actually, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: the first idea I was explaining to him was around
Speaker 1: iron steel of electrification at low temperature. And he said,
Speaker 1: let me stop you right there, I'm already sold. That's
Speaker 1: Sundeep Nichhaven, co founder of Electra, describing a conversation with
Speaker 1: his first investor, who was sold on the radical simplicity
Speaker 1: of Whatsonde was proposing zero carbon steel using iron produced
Speaker 1: at low temperature. Since that initial pitch Electra has gone
Speaker 1: on to raise eighty five million dollars. What attracts people
Speaker 1: to Electra is the fact that not only can zero
Speaker 1: carbon steels solve a climate problem, but that it also
Speaker 1: has the potential to make a lot of money. That's
Speaker 1: one reason why Electra has been in stealth mode for
Speaker 1: the last two years. It did not want any of
Speaker 1: its ideas stolen. Now the company is finally talking because
Speaker 1: its idea has gone from a PowerPoint presentation to working
Speaker 1: at lab scale. What's the innovation. Coal plays a big
Speaker 1: part of making steel today. It is used to melt
Speaker 1: iron ore in a furnace and also to extract unwanted
Speaker 1: oxygen atoms. Coal provides both the fuel for heat and
Speaker 1: the carbon for extracting oxygen in the process, forming huge
Speaker 1: amounts of carbon dioxide. Electros technology gets rid of both
Speaker 1: the furnace and the coal. Instead, it uses only renewable
Speaker 1: electricity and completes the reaction of making iron from iron
Speaker 1: ore at temperatures cooler than sixty degrees celsius, no molten metal,
Speaker 1: no carbon emissions, and nothing hotter than your coffee. Crazy
Speaker 1: huh I talked to some leap about how he came
Speaker 1: up with this idea, built a team in the middle
Speaker 1: of the pandemic and what the steel town of the
Speaker 1: future will look for Sunny, Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: such please, we're here now. You're trying to solve a
Speaker 1: problem that most people don't think about, but it is
Speaker 1: a massive problem for the climate, and that is how
Speaker 1: to make steel without having emissions. Let's start with stating
Speaker 1: out the problem though. Why is it that steel is
Speaker 1: such a big problem for climate change? Sure, steel is
Speaker 1: the backbone of modern society. Steel is one of the
Speaker 1: hardest to abate sectors, and we produce about one point
Speaker 1: nine billion tons of steel each year. Why is there
Speaker 1: a CEO two problem at all? There is no COO
Speaker 1: two coming in this process. As far as most people
Speaker 1: would understand, the process, steel is actually ninety eight percent ron.
Speaker 1: The way the steel is made today is through a
Speaker 1: pyrometallergy process that uses coal energy. We first melt the
Speaker 1: iron or at about sixteen hundred degrees celsius using coal
Speaker 1: as a source of energy, and that carbon is also
Speaker 1: used to then refine or reduce or transform iron ore
Speaker 1: into pure iron. And that's because iron ore is mostly
Speaker 1: iron and oxygen combined. Whereas what you want for steelmaking,
Speaker 1: it's pure iron or iron mixed with some small other elements.
Speaker 1: That's correct. So from a problem streatment perspective, what this
Speaker 1: translates to is ninety percent of steels emission come from
Speaker 1: refining the iron ore into iron to mix steel. Now,
Speaker 1: it's intuitive that if you use coal to remove the
Speaker 1: oxygen from iron ore, and that coal then ends up
Speaker 1: into CO two emissions, we don't want to use coal.
Speaker 1: There are being solutions that have been put forward where
Speaker 1: people use hydrogen stead because hydrogen can also do the
Speaker 1: same job and convert the hydrogen and oxygen mixture into water,
Speaker 1: which does not contribute to climate change. So if we
Speaker 1: have that solution, why try something else? First of all,
Speaker 1: I mean steel is a two billion ton market one dollars,
Speaker 1: So I think what leads multiple solutions to come to
Speaker 1: a resolution or transformation or how are we going to
Speaker 1: do that? Having said that, a hydrogen As we know,
Speaker 1: one of the challenges with hydrogen is it's availability and cost.
Speaker 1: So to get to zero green premium steel, you need
Speaker 1: hydrogen add a dollar a quilo when itself. When you
Speaker 1: say zero green premium, you're basically saying at the same
Speaker 1: cost as steel that can be made using coal correct
Speaker 1: without any carbon subsidy. You need dollar akuilo hydrogen to
Speaker 1: do that. But even more important, the issue of transforming
Speaker 1: our global steel production to an hydrogen based process comes
Speaker 1: down to the availability of ores that are needed to
Speaker 1: make hydrogen based steel green steel. And the reason that
Speaker 1: becomes a problem is that hydrogen risk process needs the
Speaker 1: highest grade of iron content available in the ores to
Speaker 1: make that happen, and the world is running out of
Speaker 1: high grade ores that are available for steelmaking. At the
Speaker 1: same time, it's not that the world doesn't have iron ore.
Speaker 1: I mean, our planet is made of iron and there's
Speaker 1: plenty of iron ore. It's that it has certain grades
Speaker 1: of ore that cannot be economically processed, which is that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of impurities, a lot of impurities,
Speaker 1: and impurities are like phosphorous, impurities are hy silica, high alumina.
Speaker 1: For example. There is eight billion tons of reserves of
Speaker 1: high fast containing ores in just one country like Australia,
Speaker 1: but that is worldwide. You will find these kinds of ores. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're not using hydrogen to make your carbon free steel.
Speaker 1: What is your solution that has got investors giving you
Speaker 1: eighty million dollars to solve it. What we have is
Speaker 1: what's starting with a clean sheet design a process to
Speaker 1: electrify iron making using widely available lower grade ores and
Speaker 1: radically shifting the operating temperature of the process from sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred degrees to sixty degrees celsius and thereby displacing the
Speaker 1: carbon intensive coal energy with renewable energy to make pure iron.
Speaker 1: And your process has no fire attached to it, all green.
Speaker 1: It is low temperature. In fact, you could touch it,
Speaker 1: and I mean it is as benign from a temperature
Speaker 1: perspective you can get. Yeah, your coffee is brewed at
Speaker 1: higher temperature. Coffee is brewed at eye temperature. Absolutely. So
Speaker 1: you go from the process as it exists today, where
Speaker 1: you take iron or burn coal heated to sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: degree celsius create iron, and in the process even steel.
Speaker 1: It's a one place process. Iron or comes into a plant,
Speaker 1: it goes through a series of steps and outcomes steel.
Speaker 1: You're splitting that process into two steps. You're making only
Speaker 1: iron first and then somebody else will make the steal.
Speaker 1: But because iron making is ninety percent of emissions, that's
Speaker 1: the step you want to attack with your solution. That's correct,
Speaker 1: That's where the problem is. Where it is how do
Speaker 1: we get to pure iron without having emissions? Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're not using hydrogen. You're not going to heat this
Speaker 1: to sixteen hundred degrees celsius, but keep it at sixty
Speaker 1: two celsius. You're going to use electricity. Whereas that electricity
Speaker 1: coming from because most electricity generation even today has carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide emissions attached to it. Yeah. What we bring you
Speaker 1: forth is our ability to use intermittent renewable electricity, which
Speaker 1: is of course now increasably available at Kale. So this
Speaker 1: is solar and wind. Correct needs a solar and wind.
Speaker 1: If hydro is available, we'll use hydro as well. But
Speaker 1: what is the cheapest form of zero carbon electricity is
Speaker 1: intermittent solar and wind today. Period. Let's talk about how
Speaker 1: you arrived at this solution in the first place, because
Speaker 1: you weren't making steel before this. Your previous companies had
Speaker 1: to do with hydrogen production and energy storage, So why
Speaker 1: go down the route of making steel? Yeah. So my
Speaker 1: background is in electrochemical conversion systems. So one of those
Speaker 1: batteries storage companies that I had was developing an iron
Speaker 1: based battery storage. It was actually specifically nickel iron. So
Speaker 1: that's Edison's chemistry under de year sold highly robust chemistry,
Speaker 1: but iron is the means in which you're storing the energy.
Speaker 1: So I know a few things, not half, but a
Speaker 1: few things about iron, I would say, And my career
Speaker 1: of other doing energy storage or hydrogen, we're all tied
Speaker 1: towards decarbonization as a professional goal, and that being the
Speaker 1: north star of my career. And Electra is really continuation
Speaker 1: of the journey in terms of picking one of the
Speaker 1: hardest to abate sectors and then if there is a
Speaker 1: solution to be had, then making a big impact with it.
Speaker 1: And so you come to this point where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a big problem. I need to solve this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I started thinking about this at the peak of
Speaker 1: the pandemic in March twenty twenty. So you remember, how
Speaker 1: can we flatten the curve? Remember flattening the curve? We
Speaker 1: feel like, if we can get America to all pitch
Speaker 1: in for the next fifteen days, we can flatten the curve,
Speaker 1: which is a term that you've been hearing a lot,
Speaker 1: not overwhelm our healthcare systems. And I was basically Okay,
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm not a biologist. I can really impact
Speaker 1: the thing. What can I do to flatten the global
Speaker 1: temperature that has been rising and is expected to go
Speaker 1: to two degrees cells? And that's where I said, well,
Speaker 1: let's pick the problem like steel, which can have a
Speaker 1: huge impact. I remember in Match twenty twenty, I was
Speaker 1: just worried that we may not be able to find
Speaker 1: a vaccine. You know, I am a climate journalist. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about climate change, but I wasn't thinking about
Speaker 1: starting a company that would transolve a climate problem rather
Speaker 1: than a vaccine problem. While you know, pandemic was not
Speaker 1: the place I would wish to have again ever, but
Speaker 1: I was through a transition of my previous companies. There
Speaker 1: was not a whole lot. You can go on a
Speaker 1: vacation or set on a beach and do a whole
Speaker 1: lot of things. So there was plenty of time to
Speaker 1: sort of think and sort of refine my thinking of
Speaker 1: what can be done here. And I don't have a
Speaker 1: background in steelmaking, but as an entrepreneur, I'm a very
Speaker 1: fast learner. And so you thought about it, You thought
Speaker 1: about the problem, and you made a PowerPoint presentation. That's correct.
Speaker 1: There were seven slides in it, and it was actually
Speaker 1: a five minute conversation with our lead investor, which is
Speaker 1: Bill Gates founded Breakthrough and Energy Ventures in particular Dave
Speaker 1: Danians in there. And what I pitched to him is
Speaker 1: like I had four ideas. Actually, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: steel was one of them, and I said, I need
Speaker 1: thirty minutes to walk you through some of these ideas
Speaker 1: I have. First idea I was explaining to him was
Speaker 1: around iron and steel of electrification at low temperature. And
Speaker 1: he said, let me stop you right there, and he said,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go any further than that. I'm
Speaker 1: already sold. If you could do this thing, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to do. I don't want to hear the
Speaker 1: next three ideas. And that was a journey we started
Speaker 1: on in March thirteen, twenty twenty, the day before California
Speaker 1: shut down, right, okay, And that was my first and
Speaker 1: only investor meeting, phase to phase I ever had for
Speaker 1: the next two years. Okay. And so how big a
Speaker 1: check did he get? Our first check at the seed
Speaker 1: was two point two five million, not just from Breakthrough
Speaker 1: but number of investors, and my pitch to all of
Speaker 1: them was look, I don't know if this can be done.
Speaker 1: I've thought through the problem and ask the experts. I
Speaker 1: think there's a feasibility path. But all I need is
Speaker 1: less than ten people, maybe a year, year and a
Speaker 1: half to run this thing to ground, to prove to
Speaker 1: myself first can this be done? Because if this cannot
Speaker 1: be done, I have idea number two, three, and four
Speaker 1: to work on and they're also big problems to solve.
Speaker 1: And we had the money in the bank by end
Speaker 1: of June. Essentially it took us three and a half
Speaker 1: months to close that round. And then what did you
Speaker 1: do next? Because you needed more people, you needed some science.
Speaker 1: The success of any thing, at the end of the
Speaker 1: day comes to the team, right, So we need people
Speaker 1: who can essentially think through a problem, picked on a
Speaker 1: problem like this, find the fatalities and solve them in
Speaker 1: the right sequence. Because you don't have time or the
Speaker 1: money to boil the ocean, so you have to really
Speaker 1: think through what needs to happen, what has to be
Speaker 1: met to move forward. Okay, that there is a path
Speaker 1: forward here. Of course, we started in a garage. No,
Speaker 1: it really was a garage. I mean that's a Silicon
Speaker 1: valley stereotype. It is not a stereotype. It is the
Speaker 1: real answer because it's one of our employees that later
Speaker 1: joined as employee. He was started as a consultant, and
Speaker 1: of course some of these folks started without getting paid
Speaker 1: because we didn't have money to pay them. And the
Speaker 1: idea was if he could raise the money, you know,
Speaker 1: you will have an opportunity to think about you want
Speaker 1: to join full timent on because it's a very high
Speaker 1: risk project. Some of them had full time jobs and
Speaker 1: this is pandemic, you know. I remember people are losing jobs,
Speaker 1: a lot of instability in the economy, and people were
Speaker 1: hunkering down in terms of keeping their head about the water. Right.
Speaker 1: So it was one of the employees that we have
Speaker 1: today his garage and he's also has a machine shop
Speaker 1: there that he makes parts with on its free time.
Speaker 1: He makes drones actually at a hobby. So it was
Speaker 1: very convenient garage where we can build parts and we
Speaker 1: can start making our test equipment and sells. Of course,
Speaker 1: we cannot do certain things in the garage from safety perspective,
Speaker 1: so we had to wait to get to a real
Speaker 1: laboratory where we can run experiments. So beyond the PowerPoint
Speaker 1: did you really have a plan for how you would
Speaker 1: solve the problem? Look, I did have a starting point, right,
Speaker 1: So it was in this case almost ignorance was a bliss.
Speaker 1: What you don't know, you don't know. But what you're
Speaker 1: promising to the investor is luck. We will run this
Speaker 1: thing to ground. We will figure out every possible plan
Speaker 1: of attack. And I knew exactly when I started who
Speaker 1: the best person would be that could do it. That
Speaker 1: person was Quak Pham, who we met on our tour
Speaker 1: of the company. Do I need to introduce myself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're name for me, I'm quick Fam. I'm a
Speaker 1: chief technology officer and co founder of electrac So welcome.
Speaker 1: Quak was at another company that I actually had a
Speaker 1: non solicit I actually could not go to Quak and
Speaker 1: bring him and say, Quak com please join me. That
Speaker 1: would be violation of my contract. It was actually around
Speaker 1: early August that Quak called me, but not me calling him.
Speaker 1: Quak called him like, Okay, I'm done. I want to
Speaker 1: do something different, and I said, well, timing is perfect,
Speaker 1: and here's what I am thinking. What Sunnips thinking was
Speaker 1: maybe they could make iron the way other metals are made,
Speaker 1: like zinc, aluminum, and copper. They're all made using electricity.
Speaker 1: But when you come to iron, this becomes really a
Speaker 1: mess because iron does not behave like the other metals. Remember,
Speaker 1: iron ore is made of iron and oxygen. To get
Speaker 1: the pure iron that you need to make the steel,
Speaker 1: you have to separate iron from oxygen. That can be
Speaker 1: accomplished with electricity, which is the promise Sunday made two investors.
Speaker 1: But you cannot pass electricity through solid iron ore. You
Speaker 1: need to dissolve iron ore in a liquid, first, an acid.
Speaker 1: In this case. Figuring out how to dissolve iron ore
Speaker 1: in acid was Quak's first job the moment we get
Speaker 1: the lab space. The very first experiment that I rank
Speaker 1: in the lab was to verify can we even dissolve
Speaker 1: I know and not too much. To my surprise, we
Speaker 1: could not, And so I remember going to Sunday's office
Speaker 1: and I told him, Hey, I have a bad news
Speaker 1: for you. Need to sit down. We cannot dissolve iron
Speaker 1: or so, which means that forget about what we plan
Speaker 1: to do, because that's the very first step. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in a story. So I joke with him that
Speaker 1: could have been my shortest thought up life ever, but
Speaker 1: upting the fact that it doesn't dissolve, accepting that I
Speaker 1: may have a short job opportunity. Here, let's see if
Speaker 1: I can tone a situation around. And he did turn
Speaker 1: the situation around. In a few months, Electra had the
Speaker 1: whole process from iron ore to iron made with only
Speaker 1: electricity working on a lab bench. Now Electro does not
Speaker 1: want to share the secret sauce of how they made
Speaker 1: it happen, but I spoke to experts who reviewed parts
Speaker 1: of the technology and confirmed it is feasible. And the
Speaker 1: proof is in the pudding. When electricity is used for
Speaker 1: this process, the iron oxide is broken into oxygen, which
Speaker 1: is released as a gas, and iron which is plated
Speaker 1: onto an electrode. I got to see those plates. Yeah
Speaker 1: please with the silvery gray metal on them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think I have a helpier and in this form
Speaker 1: of first small ones the size of business cards, and
Speaker 1: then large ones the size of office paper. I even
Speaker 1: held them in my hands and surprise, surprise, it's heavy.
Speaker 1: They were heavy. Before it can be commercial, those plates
Speaker 1: will have to be much larger, something like three feet
Speaker 1: by three feet. After the break, I talked to us
Speaker 1: and Leap about how all this goes from the lap
Speaker 1: bench to a factory in a town near you. And
Speaker 1: each of those steps that you had to solve those
Speaker 1: were known science. It's just that the combination of those
Speaker 1: known science steps done in the specific way that you
Speaker 1: have done, is what is the core innovation of electra.
Speaker 1: That's correct. We are not inventing new science. We are
Speaker 1: not inventing new catalysts, we are not inventing new on
Speaker 1: optanium material. Every aspect of science, all the material systems
Speaker 1: that we are needed to make this innovation happen is
Speaker 1: readily available. Parts of it are used in different processes,
Speaker 1: and our real innovation is bringing this all together to
Speaker 1: solve the problem. Iron and steel especially is a very
Speaker 1: cheap commodity. Yes, it has a climate problem, and it's
Speaker 1: a cheap commodity because we have to use it at
Speaker 1: such a scale. So you had to use every step
Speaker 1: to be such a cheap, easy to do step that
Speaker 1: you could replicate the cost of steel as you can
Speaker 1: buy it from the market today. That is absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, what I will also add
Speaker 1: less not forget our heads only money for a year,
Speaker 1: so time pressure do or die in a startup is real.
Speaker 1: You don't have ten years to develop the science to
Speaker 1: create a new catalyst, to create a new material. It
Speaker 1: had to be solved or we move on from a
Speaker 1: fatality perspective. That was very important. You have to be
Speaker 1: in that pressure cooker to be on with you rather
Speaker 1: than having in finite time available and resources available to
Speaker 1: see what can be done in a different way. So
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one you found a way to try and
Speaker 1: make these different steps work. What have you been doing
Speaker 1: for the last eighteen months. Yeah, So in early twenty
Speaker 1: two Q one or twenty twenty one, we had on
Speaker 1: a bench top the entire process now going all the
Speaker 1: way from or into pure Iland already on place, using
Speaker 1: that process and showing that it can be economically done
Speaker 1: at a price point that the world needs. We then
Speaker 1: went and raised additional capital and we raise twenty eight
Speaker 1: million by June of twenty twenty one, and we brought
Speaker 1: in other investors co investors into our syndicate. So now
Speaker 1: we have total raise eighty two million dollars. Since talking
Speaker 1: to sleep in August, the number has gone up to
Speaker 1: eighty five million dollars. And one of your investors is
Speaker 1: a mining company called BHP. Why is BHP interested in this?
Speaker 1: To be honest, bringing strategic investors very early in the
Speaker 1: startup is not what a typical venture capital community will
Speaker 1: advise you to do. That and I overrule that largely
Speaker 1: knowing or having a gut reaction that ores are going
Speaker 1: to be a big part of the story. So the
Speaker 1: goal of that strategic partnership was to explore what can
Speaker 1: be done from the ore side, and how expansive is
Speaker 1: our process in dealing with impurities, and what kind of
Speaker 1: ores can be used to make green steel. So, if
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you right, your solutions are you use as
Speaker 1: much energy or less energy than the conventional process. That
Speaker 1: energy is electricity that can be intermittent and renewable, so
Speaker 1: it has no carbon attached to it. And you can
Speaker 1: use lower grade iron ore, which is cheaper to get.
Speaker 1: So if you combine that and you scale it up,
Speaker 1: you'll have presented a carbon free, cheaper way to make iron.
Speaker 1: But then you have to make steel, right, that's correct,
Speaker 1: and then the next step is just really mixing it
Speaker 1: in the right order. And the next step is to
Speaker 1: take the iron and again smelt it or melt it
Speaker 1: and then adding other constituents to it to give steel
Speaker 1: its strength. But melting something is a very small amount
Speaker 1: of energy that is needed to make steel. It's very
Speaker 1: counterintuitive to most people. I would think, when you look
Speaker 1: at a hot piece of metal that's been melted, you go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that would have taken a lot of energy.
Speaker 1: But when you look at iron ore and then you
Speaker 1: look at iron metal, you don't think energy. That's correct
Speaker 1: because what we are not seeing is that the energy
Speaker 1: is predominantly used to split oxygen that is bonded to iron,
Speaker 1: and that's where the bulk of the energy goes to
Speaker 1: get the oxygen out. Now, if you use carbon, it
Speaker 1: makes COO two. If you use electrons, you do not
Speaker 1: produce any COO two, and you can get to pure iron,
Speaker 1: which is again the goal of all of these processes
Speaker 1: is before you can get to steal, when will you
Speaker 1: have your first factory making this carbon free iron and
Speaker 1: hopefully steal after that. We are working on building a pilot,
Speaker 1: and we should have this pilot working in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: This will be an industrial scale pilot. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that I need to clarify is that it
Speaker 1: will have iron plates that are being produced a low
Speaker 1: temperature process, which are meter square type of area, and
Speaker 1: the goal of that pilot is to stress test the
Speaker 1: design of the commercial plant we're actually doing at this point.
Speaker 1: So we need a place where we can stress test
Speaker 1: all the design in terms of what works, what doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and how do we scale that up to a full
Speaker 1: commercial scale. So what you're describing is very different from
Speaker 1: how people think of steel because the steel industry as
Speaker 1: it exists has created entire towns that are steel towns
Speaker 1: where the only job maker is a steel factory, and
Speaker 1: it takes up a huge amount of land, and that
Speaker 1: land is required for making coal. To pick up coke,
Speaker 1: which is carbon, you require iron ore that has to
Speaker 1: be cleaned up and put into this big furnace at
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred degrees celsius. Then once you get iron out
Speaker 1: of it, then you have to do something else to
Speaker 1: make steel. All of that is a huge amount of investment.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that you can now make iron in
Speaker 1: a very small plant now? I would say in terms
Speaker 1: of it's more distributed, that it is modular in the
Speaker 1: sense that you don't need to create an integrated plant
Speaker 1: that has all of these feedstocks coming in in a
Speaker 1: plant and then steel goes out. So what this allows
Speaker 1: you to do is do this in a distributed way,
Speaker 1: just the way he of steelmaking is done. Yeah, can
Speaker 1: you explain what EAF is. Yeah, So EF is electric
Speaker 1: arc furnace. It is the electricity powered arc furnace that
Speaker 1: is used to melt scrap or r pure ron and
Speaker 1: make into steel. Thirty percent of steel is made using
Speaker 1: EF steelmaking. It's a wild process as well. We'll see
Speaker 1: sparks flying everywhere. It's giant and it's very noisy. And
Speaker 1: once the process is done, you see this like molten
Speaker 1: metal being poured down from that unit. It's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a wild, wild thing. It happens everywhere. It's it's
Speaker 1: just that not many people get to see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the way steel is made. I mean
Speaker 1: an alternative. You also may have seen molten iron getting
Speaker 1: poured out of blast furnaces, and that's the image we
Speaker 1: have grown up looking at ron. It's hot, almost the
Speaker 1: image of fire. And of course all of that is
Speaker 1: coming from carbon intensity and CO two that goes along
Speaker 1: with it. So in terms of job creation, this is
Speaker 1: actually still a lot of job creation because this is
Speaker 1: manufacturing jobs. That plant aren't making plant I'm talking about
Speaker 1: it's going to have fifty years life, so it is
Speaker 1: going to create a town around it where you will
Speaker 1: have renewal electricity coming to their green jobs. From that side,
Speaker 1: you are an or being supplied, so that is not
Speaker 1: going away, and we are using green energy and ores
Speaker 1: to produce pure rn for next fifty years at that plant.
Speaker 1: And the Inflation Reduction Act or the biggest climate bill
Speaker 1: that the US has passed, will that help you in
Speaker 1: any way? Oh? Absolutely, I would say that is the
Speaker 1: most excising things I have seen in the climate tech
Speaker 1: space in fifteen years of history I've had. There is
Speaker 1: seven billion of investment that I have been set aside
Speaker 1: to help decarbonize hard to abate industry like ours. So
Speaker 1: steel is included, cement is included, and I'm planning to
Speaker 1: go to DC to start having conversations with policymakers that
Speaker 1: there is another way to get to green steel that
Speaker 1: doesn't involve all the known things we have had, which
Speaker 1: is hydrogen, which is part of big tax credit that
Speaker 1: is already in the Inflation Reduction Act, or carbon capture
Speaker 1: or sequestration. That's also part of what's in the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act and the solutions like ours that from first
Speaker 1: principle do not produce the CEO two emissions that you're
Speaker 1: trying to abate through all of the tax credit that
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act is offering. So conversation I want to
Speaker 1: have with the policymakers is on that front is how
Speaker 1: can we be part of that equation to also accelerate
Speaker 1: and promote technologies like ours to get to scale faster.
Speaker 1: That was a great conversation. Thanks for the tour and
Speaker 1: good luck with scaling up. Thank you. It's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to host you at side and have this conversation. The
Speaker 1: fact that the US Climate Bill as it exists today
Speaker 1: does not even account for the idea that you can
Speaker 1: make steal without emissions from the get go shows how
Speaker 1: fast technology is moving and coming out of stealth is
Speaker 1: just the very beginning. Scaling up is hard, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing how electromatures and how the steel
Speaker 1: industry responds. If Electra can pull this off, it will
Speaker 1: be a huge deal. Thanks for listening to Zero. If
Speaker 1: you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. Tell
Speaker 1: a friend or tele former colleague who's under a non
Speaker 1: solicit If you've got a suggestion for a guest or topic,
Speaker 1: or something you just want us to look into, get
Speaker 1: in touch at zero pod at lumber dot net. Zero's
Speaker 1: senior producer is Christine Driscoll and producer is Oscar boyd
Speaker 1: Our theme song is composed by Wonderney. Many people help
Speaker 1: make this show a success, and each week I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about one of them. This week special thanks to
Speaker 1: Aaron Rutkoff, who is the executive editor of Green. Although
Speaker 1: his cultural references land one out of three times, his
Speaker 1: editorial suggestions are always on the point. I'm Akshadrati back
Speaker 1: next week.