Portrait of Swedish steel-maker SSAB’s CTO Martin Pei looking at steel production at a steel mill in Luleå, inside Sweden’s polar region. Pei, 60, is driving SSAB’s transformation to fossil-free steel-making with his initiative, HYBRIT green steel. With HYBRIT technology, SSAB aims to be the first steel company in the world to use hydrogen technology to bring fossil-free steel to the market already in 2026 and largely eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from their own operations in around 2030. In 2016, SSAB, LKAB (Europe’s largest iron ore producer) and Vattenfall (one of Europe’s largest energy companies) joined forces to create HYBRIT – an initiative that endeavors to revolutionize steelmaking. Using HYBRIT technology, SSAB aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steelmaking, with fossil-free electricity and hydrogen. The result will be the world’s first fossil-free steelmaking technology, with virtually no carbon footprint.
