Sweden’s green revolution in response to climate change
Old twigs crumble under his boots when Claes Nordmark, mayor of Boden, steps out into a wide clearing. He stops on a slope and makes movements towards a nearby power station.
“Listen to it,” he says. “The atmosphere in Boden is crackling, just like that switchgear.”
If everything goes as planned, start-up H2 Green Steel (H2GS) will in July start building the world’s first “fossil-free” steelworks in this Swedish city with 17,000 inhabitants, just below the Arctic Circle. It is a multi-billion dollar project that would affect the climate by several million tonnes and reduce over 90 percent of an ordinary steel plant’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The electricity may not be audible throughout northern Sweden, but the drone is noticeable. A boom of industries powered by renewable energy has given rise to what has been called a “green revolution”. A massive rebuild is underway to release carbon dioxide from the state-run mines. In addition to steelworks, the region hosts Europe’s first mega-battery factory, Northvolt One, along with fossil-free fertilizers and aviation biofuel factories. Over the next two decades, an estimated $ 100 billion to $ 150 billion will be invested and up to 100,000 jobs created in this sparsely populated and often overlooked region.
All in all, this is the center of Sweden’s 2045 net-zero carbon dioxide promise and the country’s ambitions to become a pioneer in the pursuit of a fossil-free economy. However, questions loom over the impact on the electricity supply, the environment and the way of life for the Sami, the country’s indigenous people. Will Sweden be able to do it – and at what cost?
– It feels fantastic and a bit unreal, says Nordmark and thinks about the wealth change for his municipality. For the past eight years, Boden has worked to attract energy-intensive companies that use the surplus power from their nine hydropower plants. This piece of land next to the switchgear was purchased for the express purpose. In addition to the steel plant, there are plans to utilize the residual heat and oxygen from the industrial process to build greenhouses, fish farms and an outdoor pool.
“Imagine, when I was growing up, I used to ski through these forests. Soon I might take a midwinter bath,” he says.
While green steel is still a dream in Boden, 200 km southwest of the old steelworks in the city of Luleå, plans are underway for Hybrit – a different company run by a private steel company together with state energy and mining companies Vattenfall and LKAB. The surrounding area is darkened by ash from the old blast furnace, where iron ore was reduced to pure, molten iron with the help of huge amounts of coking coal. Going forward, the goal is for iron to be produced with hydrogen from wind power, melted and refined with even more clean energy.
– That hydrogen can be used for iron ore reduction is old knowledge, says Martin Pei, technical manager at SSAB, the steel company that is a partner in the business. “What’s new is testing it on a commercial scale.”
Last touch at the pilot depot for hydrogen at Hybrit, a government investment in Luleå, Sweden, to produce fossil-free steel. The blast furnace in Luleå has been replaced with technology that uses hydrogen produced with renewable electricity. Hybrid pilot plant in Luleå.
The course is carefully drawn. Hybrit started its operations in 2015 and does not plan to become commercial until 2026, but they are already delivering samples of their first products. During the UN environmental meeting Stockholm + 50 in early June, Volvo handed over to a customer its first vehicle – a frame-controlled dumper – made of Hybrit’s fossil-free steel.
– At first, people were very skeptical, says Mikael Nordlander, director at Vattenfall. “Now the customer interest is exploding. Manufacturers are already making their cars electric, fossil-free materials are the next big thing. “
Finding greener ways to produce steel is becoming increasingly important, which the industry stands for 7 to 9 percent of global CO2 emissions. Companies in several countries test the same method as is tested in Sweden. In the US, Boston Metals is testing a process called molten oxide electrolysis, and uses an electric current to both reduce and melt the iron ore. Regardless of the procedure, the resulting product is 20 to 30 percent more expensive than ordinary steel, Hybrit estimates. But this amounts to a small part of the total cost of a car or household appliance, which makes it an attractive sale to increasingly climate-conscious consumers.
More crucial is that green steel will be the only way forward in the US and the EU, following an agreement reached by the two in October that aims to have a standard in place by 2024. According to the plan, both parties would eventually impose tariffs, and possibly ban high-carbon imported steel.
Northvolt One, Europe’s first battery mega factory in Skellefteå, Sweden. Sanna Backström, communications assistant at Northvolt, inside the factory.
A lithium-ion battery cell manufactured at Northvolt’s factory.
For Sweden, it is also an investment in the country’s economic future. The government’s $ 40 billion investment in Hybrit may seem prohibitively large, but it has already stimulated a wave of new developments. In addition to the new jobs, a substantial increase in tax revenues has been used for new cultural centers, sports facilities and improved infrastructure. An Arctic region plagued by depopulation is now attracting top talent from Tesla, Google and Blue Origin.
“People want to be a part of our journey not only because we are a cool start-up”, says H2GS CEO Henrik Henriksson, “but because we do well.”
However, it depends on who you are talking to. These investments flow to Norrland primarily for the abundance of renewable electricity, from hydropower and wind. But the new factories are quickly turning the surplus into a shortage, where Hybrit alone will consume more than a third of Sweden’s electricity production.
New power production must be developed and the risks appear a few miles outside Arvidsjaur, where the forest is buzzing with the sound of Sami bouncing through deep snow on scooters. When the spruces become thin, the machines skidd out on a sloppy lake and here the reindeer they have dragged are finally exposed, a dense, brown mass of almost 3,000. This is the journey – the penultimate stage in the Sami village Ostra Kikkejaure’s annual move of its flock from winter to summer pastures – becomes more of a joy ride for the 20 or so snowmobile drivers. Several of them carry children in their laps. Four-year-old Leia even drives her own pink-lacquered mini scooter, a gift from her grandfather, the village’s chairman Johan Lundgren.
“As a reindeer herder, you do everything you can to carry on your passion,” he says while the herd takes a break at the edge of the forest. Only about 2,500 people, or one tenth of Sweden’s Sami, are dependent on the reindeer industry – an industry with special protection according to national law – but the reindeer also have a central cultural role for the whole society. Melting butter on a portable gas stove, Lundgren explains how changes in the climate and the environment make it increasingly difficult to keep this lifestyle alive.
“But the biggest change for us in the last 200 years, even bigger than the introduction of the snowmobile, is the wind farm,” he says.
The wind farm in question is not just any wind farm, but Markbygden, a project three times the size of Washington, DC Construction of the project began in 2008, and it will be the largest wind farm in Europe when its 700 or so turbines are completed in 2025. Somehow, the countryside created the green revolution, as it broke ground for foreign investment in renewable energy in the region. Since the launch, the number of wind turbines in the country has almost quadrupled, many of them have been built in Norrland.
Reindeer grazing over a lake outside Arvidsjaur. Reindeer herders from Ostra Kikkejaure work in a forest outside Arvidsjaur. A reindeer herder drinks coffee before work.
The wind farm meant a big change for Ostra Kikkejaure. As it covered a large part of the village’s winter pastures, the ramparts had to start moving their reindeer further away during the cold season, by truck, to a place where natural grazing was not possible and had to be replaced with fodder. The wind company bears most of the costs, but there are still concerns about this solution.
– When you feed your herd, you have to keep it tighter together, which increases the risk of diseases, says Lundgren, the village chairman. “It’s not that we can not see the importance of the green deal, but its impact on us is disproportionate, and this is just the beginning. If you continue to take a little bit here and a little bit there, there is in the end nothing left of our culture. ”
Moving a fossil fuel economy to one that is powered by renewable energy sources requires a lot of land. If all steel production in the world were to be operated on wind power-produced hydrogen according to Swedish standards, the turbines must cover an area at least as large as Italy. Just to supply the two new steelworks in Norrland, six more projects of Markbygden’s size must be built. This is a very unlikely scenario. For many years, wind power has been the only realistic form of new power production in Sweden, especially since a referendum in 1980 set a moratorium on nuclear power. However, sky-high electricity prices and a growing perception that wind turbines endanger landscapes and a once stable electricity system have led to strong resistance. The lobby organization Swedish Wind Energy says that last year 78 percent of all plans for new wind farms were stopped, much due to local protests.
– It has been a hallelujah phase for wind power, says Jan Blomgren, professor of applied nuclear physics. “But now there is a budding feeling among politicians from both sides of the aisle that we have painted ourselves into a corner.”
At the same time, the “green” industries are rushing on. H2GS has already sold half of the estimated production during the first five years to Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Electrolux and Miele and has signed an agreement with the Norwegian electricity producer Statkraft to cover a significant part of the company’s energy needs.
“We need a change from an administrative mindset to a brave one,” says CEO Henrikkson, a gust of wind that rearranges his hair as he walks near the H2GS office in Stockholm. Nowadays, says Henriksson, large projects often stop because politicians and bureaucrats are afraid to make mistakes.
“Instead, you should be rewarded for challenging the system. Nobody wants wind turbines in their backyard, but there may be compromises to be found, ”he says.
“It’s one thing to set goals, but to reach them you have to dare to sacrifice something.”