In 2020, Sandeep Nijhawan co-founded Colorado-based Electra. Its mission: to decarbonize iron- and steelmaking. Iron production is a hot, energy-intensive process. Today, the steel industry is responsible for about 7% of all global carbon emissions (90% of which come from making iron).
But through a novel electrochemical process, powered by renewable energy, Electra is trying to change that. In March, it launched a pilot plant to produce iron at the temperature of a cup of coffee. And in April, the company was awarded over $2.8 million from the U.S. Energy Department to support this effort, which brings with it the promise of making steel with 80% less emissions at half the cost of traditional methods. Nijhawan, for his part, contends that a global price on carbon is needed to push companies to adopt tech like Electra’s and accelerate industrial decarbonization.
What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government (other than your own), needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?
We need a global price on carbon to accelerate industrial decarbonization. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in Europe established a way to put a price on emissions in carbon intensive goods production and is already incentivizing technological innovation and driving global investments. We need to ensure that all countries are creating these market incentives to encourage adoption of the cleanest industrial materials available.
What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year, and why?
We live in a consumption-driven society that is significantly straining our planet’s resources. My personal goal next year is to consume less, produce less waste, and recycle more. Reducing consumption and waste generation can minimize the need to produce new goods that require energy-intensive manufacturing processes. Recycling more can further decrease the demand for primary raw materials, lowering our greenhouse gas emissions and moving us toward a more sustainable lifestyle.
If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next U.N. climate conference, what would you say?
I would urge global leaders to focus on developing comprehensive policies for the hardest-to-abate sectors. We should focus not only on decarbonizing these sectors, but also on improving the sustainability and circularity of carbon-intensive materials to ensure that we are not simply trading off one problem for another. In tackling these hard-to-abate sectors like steel and cement, we also have an opportunity to revitalize communities by creating jobs to manufacture new green materials. We can lead a just and equitable transition to a cleaner economy by addressing the biggest global climate challenges and creating positive local economic impacts.
