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LYNX

WATCH: First Eurasion Lynx born in Spanish Pyrenees for more than a century

Officially extinct in the region for more than a century, a Eurasion Lynx has been born in the Catalan Pyrenees.

Published: 8 August 2019 12:21 CEST
WATCH: First Eurasion Lynx born in Spanish Pyrenees for more than a century
The male lynx cub is the first of its species to be born in the Spanish pyrenees in more than a century. Photo: Fundación Catalunya La Pedrera

The male cub arrived “unexpectedly” on May 28, taking rangers at the Fundación Catalunya La Pedrera completely by surprise, the trust said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

The newest arrival was born to a pair of Eurasion lynx that have been at the conservation centre for 11 years, having been transferred from a zoo in Galicia in 2008 after being bred in captivity.

La Pedrera released a video of the cub exploring its habitat under the watchful eye of its mother.

Although the Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus) has been brought back from the brink of extinction thanks to a breeding programme in the south of Spain, the larger Eurasion Lynx (Lynx Lynx) had died out in the wilds of Spain a hundred years ago after being hunted to extinction.

Europe’s third largest predator after beers and wolves, Eurasian lynx were once prevalent across much of Western Europe.

The animals have been reintroduced into wild pockets of the Alps and now have populations thriving in Switzerland, France and Germany as well as Italy and across central and northern Europe.

There is even talk of reintroducing them in Scotland.

READ MORE: How Spain brought the Iberian Lynx back from the brink of extinction

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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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