Nucor Corporation, a North American manufacturer of steel and steel products, has made an equity investment in Electra, a Colorado-based start-up developing a process to produce carbon-free iron that can be used to make steel. Electra uses renewable energy to refine low-grade iron ores into high-purity iron through electrochemical and hydrometallurgical processes.

This material will be used in the steelmaking process to offset other high-quality metallics that come with higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Just as Nucor changed the face of the steel industry 53 years ago with our first electric arc furnace, successfully developing and scaling up a zero-carbon iron product is the type of transformative technology that could change the steel industry as we know it.

—Leon Topalian, Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nucor Corporation

The process developed by Electra produces Low-Temperature Iron (LTI) from commercial and low-grade ores using zero-carbon intermittent electricity. The company electrochemically refines iron ore into pure iron at 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) using renewable electricity.

With zero gangue (commercially valueless material occurring with desired ore minerals), zero embedded carbon emissions, and competitive with prime-grade scrap and ore-based metallic iron produced by fossil fuels, Electra’s iron is an ideal feedstock for electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. Existing electric arc furnaces account for 70% of steel production in the US.

Electra’s process results in zero carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, approximately 70% of the steel produced globally is made with blast furnace technology, an extractive process fed by iron ore, coal, and limestone that emits about two tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel produced.

Using primarily recycled scrap as raw material, Nucor is already one of the cleanest steelmakers in the world. The circular nature of remelting recycled scrap in electric arc furnaces, combined with steel’s ability to be infinitely recycled, means that Nucor’s steelmaking facilities generate roughly one-third of the carbon dioxide of extractive steelmaking plants.