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Milan is the new Holland: The Italian city is getting a massive tulip field

Just outside the northern city of Milan, a very colourful tourist attraction is taking shape. The city is set to get Italy's very first tulip field this month - and visitors can take the flowers home to keep.

Published: 3 March 2017 13:11 CET
Updated: 3 March 2017 15:34 CET
Milan is the new Holland: The Italian city is getting a massive tulip field
Tulip fields, coming soon to Milan. Photo: Tulipani-Italiani

The enormous field, which has the aim of becoming “the happiest place in Milan”, will showcase 250,000 tulips of 183 different varieties across an area of one hectare.

It will be located at Cornaredo, 11 km northwest of Lombardy's capital, and visitors should head there in late March or April to see the flowers in bloom.

Visitors are invited to pick as many flowers as they want from the garden, and the price of entry (for adults only) is two tulips, at €1.50 apiece.

At the edges of the field there will be elaborate floral displays.

The field, Tulipani Italiani, is the first U-pick or 'pick-your-own' flower farm in Italy. It's the brainchild of Edwin Koeman and Nitsuje Wolanios, from the Netherlands.

“It will be a place to take pictures, to relax, to collect tulips and enjoy the beauty and nature,” they promise.

The pair at work.

 

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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