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ENVIRONMENT

Plan for 50km/h limit and lorry ban on Paris ring road

A 50km/h limit, no lorries and a dedicated carpool lane - that is the vision for Paris' famously traffic-choked ring road.

Plan for 50km/h limit and lorry ban on Paris ring road
The Paris péripherique. Photo: AFP

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has said that she plans to adopt all of the 40 proposals in a new report on the Paris périphérique, the city ring road that is frequently the scene of long traffic jams.

The proposals are in a report written by a cross-party group of politicians and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has now said that she wants to adopt all of them.

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A separate plan has also been put forward to turn the péripherique into a park. Artist's impression: Jigen

Speaking at an event in Porte de Lilas on Tuesday, said told French media: “The idea, in the long run, of transforming this urban highway into a peaceful urban boulevard is an idea we share.”

The frequently gridlocked ring road is often a frustrating driving experience, but its more serious consequence is the high levels of air pollution it produces.

Yesterday a legal case began of a mother and her daughter who are suing the French state over health problems caused by air pollution. The pair had lived in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen, just outside the périphérique.

The speed on the ring road was reduced to 70 km/h in 2014, but now Anne Hidalgo says she is behind a move to lower it further to 50 km/h.

Other key recommendations in the report include a ban on heavy goods vehicles in transit, and a dedicated lane for public transport and carpooling.

There was also a suggestion to plant more vegetation on the walls and central reservations to cut noise and absorb some of the traffic fumes.

The mayor said: “For the 50 km/h limit, of course, we will work quickly with the authorities, since I cannot decide on this alone.

“We will engage in discussions with the police prefecture and the state. I hope they will follow us.”

She added that she hoped to have it in place before 2024, maybe even before 2020, when the next election for Paris mayor will take place.

One of her rivals in the mayoral race, Francois Hollande's former spokesmen Gaspard Gantzer, last week unveiled his own plan for the périphérique, which involves banning cars altogether and turning the route into a series of parks and green spaces.

Traffic would be diverted on to the A86, Paris' outer ringroad, under the €2 billion 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.

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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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