Electric arc furnaces running on clean electricity (using scrap steel)

Industry is the backbone of modern civilization, but it's also one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals, and plastics doesn't just burn fossil fuels for energy — these processes often require fossil fuels as raw ingredients or release CO2 as an unavoidable part of the chemistry itself.

This creates a massive challenge. We can't simply swap in renewable electricity and call it solved. Heavy industry needs fundamentally different approaches: new chemistries, new materials, new ways of thinking about how we make things. The scale is enormous — industry accounts for about a quarter of global emissions — but so is the opportunity to transform how we build our world.

Steel and cement are the foundation of modern infrastructure, but making them creates unavoidable CO2 emissions. Steel production requires removing oxygen from iron ore, traditionally done with coal that releases carbon dioxide. Cement production involves heating limestone, which chemically breaks down and releases CO2 directly from the rock itself.

These aren't just energy problems you can solve with solar panels. The chemistry itself needs to change. This matters enormously because steel and cement together account for about 10% of global CO2 emissions, and demand for both materials is growing rapidly as developing countries build cities and infrastructure.

Electric arc furnaces melt down scrap steel using powerful electric arcs, avoiding the need for iron ore and coal entirely. When powered by clean electricity, this creates steel with much lower emissions. The challenge is that there isn't enough scrap steel to meet global demand, so this works best in regions with lots of existing steel infrastructure and as part of a broader circular economy approach.