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ENVIRONMENT

Denmark launches hydrogen-powered taxis in bid to clear emissions

New hydrogen-powered taxis were unveiled in Copenhagen on Tuesday as part of the government’s plan to cut emissions produced by the hired carriages.

Denmark launches hydrogen-powered taxis in bid to clear emissions
Photo: Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix

An element of the government’s climate and air quality programme includes full conversion to zero-emissions taxis in the country’s cities by 2030. Energy specifications for taxis will be gradually updated so that no new vehicles emit CO2 or polluting particles from 2025, the Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing said in a press statement.

Minister for transport Ole Birk Olesen tried out one of the taxis on Tuesday as the new clean energy vehicles were launched in Copenhagen.

“This is not the first time I have taken a taxi, but I think this trip is a first nonetheless – it’s special to take a taxi in the city centre knowing you can do so without polluting,” Olesen said in the press statement.

“The government is very concerned with ensuring that both private and commercial vehicles become more environmentally friendly in coming years, so I am very pleased to see zero-emissions taxis on the road in Copenhagen.” Olesen added.

As part of the climate and air quality programme, the government also successfully passed an update to Denmark’s taxi laws (taxaloven). That provides a guarantee for 300 new taxi licences for electric or hydrogen-powered cars in the phasing-in period of the zero-emissions regulations.

As such, 100 of the 500 annual new taxi licenses in 2019 must be given to zero-emissions cars, increasing to 200 in 2020.

READ ALSO: Danish CO2 emissions expected to increase, despite government plan

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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.

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.

READ ALSO: 

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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