As companies race to build Australia's first green steel mills, questions remain whether costs, technology and logistics will stop the industry's loudest advocates fulfilling their promises.
The race to Australian green steel production is hotly contested, with at least five aspiring projects across Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland targeting production by 2030.
Their race matters because conventional steelmaking is a heavy emitter, accounting for 8 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
Dominic Meagher, an economist and research fellow from ANU's Crawford School, puts it plainly:
"You can't stabilise the climate without dealing with the greenhouse gas emissions from steel," he said.
"The basic situation is that it is very important to get this done, but it takes a long time and we don't have that much time."
Green steel is produced in various ways, each promising significantly lower emissions than traditional steelmaking.
The chosen method of several leading local projects is to melt scrap metal in an electric arc furnace powered by renewables, an approach proponents say could reduce the carbon footprint by up to 90 per cent.
That recycled steel is known as secondary steel.
Australia has traditionally focused on primary steel, using iron ore that is melted in a coal-fired blast furnace.
Further processing turns that iron into a steel billet, or bar.
