I have to admit, the last place I thought I鈥檇 hear major announcements for carbon-neutral goals is in the iron ore mining industry. But Australia鈥檚 Fortescue Metals Group has set an aggressive target.
The world鈥檚 fourth-largest iron ore miner had already put a carbon neutral target in place for 2040, but they have brought this forward to a much more aggressive 2030.
It looks like the primary solution for this industry is hydrogen, and has reported why.
鈥淕reen hydrogen is a zero-carbon fuel made by using renewable power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is increasingly promoted as a way to decarbonise emissions-intensive heavy industry and long haul transport.鈥�
Fortescue has a project to produce enough green hydrogen to replace 1 billion liters of diesel fuel each year. This is mainly going to help switch heavy machinery and vehicles to clean energy sources.
It gets a bit more complicated when it comes to metallurgical furnaces, but one of the company鈥檚 chairman, Andrew Forrest, believes there won鈥檛 be any coal-fired furnaces left in the next few decades.