Norwegian startup Blastr Green Steel plans to build a green steel plant with integrated hydrogen production in Inkoo, Finland. Blastr has signed a letter of intent with Nordic energy company Fortum, which grants Blastr exclusive rights to use an existing industrial site located in Joddbøl, Inkoo, Finland, 55 km west of Helsinki.
Fortum has developed the area Joddbøle after the dismantling of its Inkoo coal-fired power plant there in 2017–2020. (The controlled explosion of the last pipe at the plant occurred on March 24, 2020.) The area has excellent conditions for industrial activity: a deep water harbor and an excellent power transmission network.
The investment of 4 billion euros is expected to create up to 1,200 direct workers locations during operation. Production is scheduled to start by the end of 2026. The Blastr project, a green steel plant together with an integrated hydrogen plant, will be one of the largest industrial investments in Finland.
Green steel will be an important raw material for the development of renewable energy infrastructure such as wind turbines, as well as in segments such as construction, automotive and consumer goods. In Europe alone, demand for decarburized steel is expected to reach 50 million tonnes by 2030, nearly a third of current European steel demand.
The steel industry generates about eight percent of global CO₂ emissions due to the abundance of the fossil fuel used to produce steel by traditional methods. Currently, one tonne of produced steel creates about 1.9 tons of CO₂. Blastr will replace coke and coal with hydrogen in the chemical reduction step, and will also reduce CO₂ emissions throughout the value chain to achieve a 95% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to the traditional manufacturing process.
The smelter is planned to be to produce 2.5 million tons of high-quality hot-rolled and cold-rolled new steel per year.
