Smelting Steel Without Fossil Fuels: Solar Power Shatters the 1,000°C Barrier for Industrial Heating

https://scitechdaily.com/ ^ | MAY 17, 2024 | CELL PRESS

[Jonty30]

Swiss researchers have developed a solar energy method using synthetic quartz to achieve temperatures above 1,000°C for industrial processes, potentially replacing fossil fuels in the production of materials like steel and cement.

Instead of burning fossil fuels to reach the temperatures needed to smelt steel and cook cement, scientists in Switzerland want to use heat from the sun. The proof-of-concept study uses synthetic quartz to trap solar energy at temperatures over 1,000°C (1,832°F), demonstrating the method’s potential role in providing clean energy for carbon-intensive industries. A paper on the research was published on May 15 in the journal Device.

The Need for Decarbonization

“To tackle climate change, we need to decarbonize energy in general,” says corresponding author Emiliano Casati of ETH Zurich, Switzerland. “People tend to only think about electricity as energy, but in fact, about half of the energy is used in the form of heat.”

Glass, steel, cement, and ceramics are at the very heart of modern civilization, essential for building everything from car engines to skyscrapers. However, manufacturing these materials demands temperatures over 1,000°C and relies heavily on burning fossil fuels for heat. These industries account for about 25% of global energy consumption. Researchers have explored a clean-energy alternative using solar receivers, which concentrate and build heat with thousands of sun-tracking mirrors. However, this technology has difficulties transferring solar energy efficiently above 1,000°C.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Aaaand, WE are carbon-based creatures***

Decades ago, 1980 or so, someone asked Carl Sagan(COSMOS) why carbon and not silicone?

Basically he simply said we are carbon based creatures and that was the way it was.

[Tell It Right]

Basically he simply said we are carbon based creatures and that was the way it was.

There are times when I read the Bible that I'm amazed at it being ahead of its time. One of the passages that makes me think that is Genesis 2's description of God creating Adam from the dust of the earth (perhaps why we're carbon based). Note that this was centuries before the ancient Greeks declared that everything was made of 4 elements (earth, air, fire, or water) and Democritis' early atomic theory. Which was centuries before our modern atomic theory and the periodic table.

[Vaduz]

And how many how many solar mirrors are productive in the winter.

[Vaduz]

Yes buzzards do a fly over only once popping sound noted.

[Krosan]

I got caught in my imagination. I thought it was a lense made of quartz and it focuses sun rays on a piece of steel ore and it goes to 1000C.

I really would like that the Africans would find new ways to make money without traveling to money.

[Rlsau1]

All life on Earth is carbon based. The most efficient way for energy transition is letting the market determine what’s best. Throwing trillions of $$$ of other peoples’ money into a black hole is not progress, it’s theft..

[guest7]

"This is pretty big, I think."

Actually, it's very small. Have they produced any "steel ingots"? Or have they just achieved a temperature?

"Swiss researchers have developed a solar energy method using synthetic quartz to achieve temperatures above 1,000°C for industrial processes potentially replacing fossil fuels in the production of materials like steel and cement."

"Potentially" I'm still waiting for the "Hydrogen Powered Cars" that were hyped in the 70's.

See. We could be "carbon nuetral" right now, if we only had hydrogen powered cars in the 70's. Or, we could have blown up the civilized world by now. You've seen EV's go up in flames. Will Hydrogen powered vehicles be more spectacular?

[ifinnegan]

Yep.

[Glad2bnuts]

So called fossil fuel is the #2 most prevalent fluid on planet Earth. Its supply may be unlimited. Why not use it to power industry, and push the CO 2 levels in the atmosphere back to historical norms. Like 1,000ppm?

[Jonty30]

Why not enrich the world by using it for the highest value products than lower value products?

[Omnivore-Dan]

Sounds like you have a good solar setup, with solar powering the house during the day, and also charging batteries for use at night or blackouts. Many setups are not that sophisticated, and do not have batteries charging, and also may not work when the grid is down due to the grid restrictions somehow. I know of neighbors who have this kind of setup. Only works during the day, and when the grid is working. I don’t get it, won’t work for us, we need something like you have. Here, in N.J. with ridiculous ordinances, you have to have a seperate shed for the batteries, and it has to be some distance from the house. Initially expensive even if you have the property.

[maddog55]

I’ve got a nice whole home generator and 400 gallons of LP. It’ll run for ~8 days or so on what I use it for if I ran it full time.

Anyone snooping around where I live will be shot. Can’t see the neighbors, I’m a half mile off a off the nearest seldom traveled road on the side of a mountain, surrounded by 87,000 acres of USFS. Plenty of wildlife as needed, couple cold water springs if needed but my well has enough pressure to run naturally. 16 miles to the nearest town with a population under 700.

Most people would never walk up a mountain to get to someone.. they’d walk down hill though because most people are lazy as hell. Those would try I’d hear the shots from my neighbors first.

I’m good. Electricity is nice, don’t want to be without it but not a requirement.

[Tell It Right]

Alabama, and I believe all states, require your solar to automatically shut off power to your home whenever the grid goes down. The idea is to not harm linemen working on downed lines by putting power onto the lines. Understandable.

The exception to that is if your inverter(s) have the "zero report" or "zero output" feature like mine do. It's main selling point is to allow you to not automatically put power onto the grid and, therefore, have to pay high "solar fees" if your area doesn't do net metering. Those inverters also have the feature to not put power onto the grid when the grid is down. Thus, you're allowed to power your home's electrical panels without powering the grid. Thus, you're allowed to keep your home powered even when the grid is down. I had my inverters set to never put power onto the grid until I had them a while and could study a year's worth of telemetry. My power utility makes solar users pay a fee for the privilege of selling power to the grid. I made a C# program to study the telemetry and determine if the extra fees would be more than the little bit of money I'd make from selling power. Until I signed a contract half a year ago and started selling power to the grid, my utility didn't know or care if I had solar because I wasn't putting power onto the grid. As far as the utility was concerned I was a normal power consumer like everybody else only I needed a lot less power.

The more traditional solar inverters have only one cable going to your electrical panel without a separate cable going to the grid. Thus, whatever solar power you have coming in gets converted to AC and put onto your panels with the excess flowing onto the grid behind the panels, whether you want it to or not. Those are the inverters that have to automatically shut off when it detects that grid power is down. Thus a certified solar installer has to install an automatic shutoff for when the grid is down (similar to the grid down detection in a transfer switch for a backup generator). But not so with my inverters. Inverters like mine have a separate cable going to the grid, and one cable going to the electrical panels (and one cable going to the batteries, as well as the DC cables coming in from the solar panels). Thus, my inverters are more like a traffic cop able to decide which circuits get power. If the grid is down the inverters won't put power onto the cable going to the grid, but they'll keep putting power to my electrical panels. Just like if the batteries are charged the inverters won't put power onto the cable going to the batteries. (That's not exactly true. After my batteries are fully charged the inverters still put a little excess solar power to the batteries to keep them "trickle charged".) My inverter model is rated as being safe when the grid is down (just like an automated transfer switch for a generator has to be rated safe for not putting power from the generator onto a downed grid). Thus, the utility lets me keep the lights on in my house even when the grid is down.

There's a LOT of homework to do before deciding to go solar. Then lots more to do to optimize it for your specific needs based on your specific solar radiation. Especially if you care about the feasibility and things like which portions of your system do you add a lot to to take advantage of the economies of scale, but not so much that you waste money fighting the law of diminishing returns.

For me, it was worth spending extra money for an inverter that not only has the zero report feature, but also records data in 5-minute candles on how much power is coming in on each inverter string, how much power is going to or coming from the battery stack, how much power is going to each leg in the electrical panels, and how much power has to be pulled from the grid when I didn't have enough power. For the first year I had a smaller solar system so I could study the telemetry during all seasons as a kind of trying it out before getting the larger system I wanted in the end. When I did the planned upgrade, the data analysis told me which portions to upgrade the most and which to upgrade only a little to get a good ROI for most situations I face through the year.

[Omnivore-Dan]

A lot to learn like you said, and first I need to find out what kind of local and state ordinances we have, fees from power co., etc. In Jersey, I have to believe there’s more than most other states. I had to provide blueprints to build a shed, and it had to pass an inspection.

[DennisR]

That is not the way most people understand “fossil fuel.” They think petroleum came from decomposed plants and animals.

[DennisR]

That works! Except if you are an insane liberal in which case that is a curse word. 🙄

[Dogbert41]

“Should we go back to the days when our primary sources of heat were wood that we chopped ourselves?”

When everything goes to sh*t, fences are the first things to disappear.

[minnesota_bound]

Then the sun set and the metal solidified in the vat.

[Jonty30]

No. At that point, you’d you’d use conventional fuel to keep it going.