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ENVIRONMENT

Alarm after river in Pyrenees turns fluorescent green

Authorities sought to reassure people living on the banks of Valira River after its waters turned a vivid green on Thursday.

Alarm after river in Pyrenees turns fluorescent green
Residents in Seu d’Urgell were alarmed to see the river had turned green. Photo: RadioSeu / Twitter

The emerald green tint was not an early celebration of St Patrick’s Day – as is seen in Chicago each March 

The river began to turn green at its source in Andorra before spreading further downstream to the Valira valley in Catalonia.

Albert Batalla, the mayor of Seu d’Urgell, a town on the banks of the Valira issued a statement assuring residents that the dye was “entirely harmless, non-toxic and biodegradable” and had been used as part of an investigation at the Arinsal water bottling plant.

The plant was last year traced to be the source of a gastroenteritis bug that affected thousands of people across Catalonia who drank contaminated water from office water coolers.

Andorra’s Ministry of Health confirmed that the harmless dye had been used to help identify the source of possible contamination and would have no environmental impact.

But it makes for some dramatic photos:

 

 

 

DON'T MISS: Why are rivers in France turning fluorescent green?

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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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