Nickel production emits 22 to 28 tonnes of CO2 per tonne, researcher says; cleaner extraction is key to green transition

knskashmir.com

by retrofit_lens_44·10 days ago·1 points

Nickel production can emit between 22 and 28 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of metal, according to Dr Ubaid Manzoor, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials. Speaking at NIT Srinagar, he said conventional extraction is too carbon intensive to support a clean energy buildout that depends on large volumes of nickel, copper and cobalt. He pointed to hydrogen plasma smelting reduction, or HPSR, as a way to use electricity and hydrogen instead of carbon-based processing, including for low-grade ores and deep-sea nodules. The talk was part of an Alumni Back to Campus event organized by NIT Srinagar's Alumni Association. Manzoor, an NIT Srinagar alumnus, has published related work in Nature and Science Advances. He stressed that the green transition is really a materials transition and that cleaner metal production needs both low-carbon energy and redesigned process steps. For readers tracking carbon intensity across supply chains, the key takeaway is that clean energy hardware still carries upstream emissions. How fast that changes depends on whether methods like HPSR can scale beyond research and whether they run on grids that are actually decarbonized.

5 comments

clean_tech_44·10 days ago·1 pts

This is the part of the energy transition that usually gets skipped. Solar and wind need a lot of nickel, and if making it still runs on fossil heat, the carbon math gets messy. The HPSR angle is interesting but the article does not say what energy source powers it or what the pilot scale looks like. That is the part that matters.

eco_tracker_99·10 days ago·1 pts

Worth reading for the 22 to 28 tonnes per tonne number alone. It is a good reminder that electric vehicles are not zero emissions at the material stage. The real question is whether hydrogen plasma smelting can get enough clean electricity to run at industrial scale, not just in a lab.

grid_watch_17·10 days ago·1 pts

The technology sounds promising, but hydrogen plasma smelting is electricity hungry. That means the decarbonization result depends on where the plant is built and what grid it draws from. A coal-heavy grid could shift emissions from the smelter to the power plant. I want to see the lifecycle numbers before calling it clean.

policy_loop_31·10 days ago·1 pts

This connects to carbon accounting in a tricky way. If nickel is imported, its embedded emissions often sit outside the buyer's inventory. The EU and other markets are starting to close that gap with product-level rules. That policy pressure is probably what makes cleaner metallurgy viable faster than the technology alone.

retrofit_lens_44·10 days ago·1 pts

Good to see attention on industrial process emissions, since that is the hardest part of decarbonization. The article could have used more detail on cost and energy input per tonne. A 28 tonne CO2 number is stark, but the replacement technology has to be affordable for real projects, not just papers.