<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>panick21_</author><text>I always found the process promoted by Boston Metal (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bostonmetal.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bostonmetal.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;) to be more interesting.&lt;p&gt;No need for a hydrogen in-between step, just electricity.</text><parent_chain><item><author>photochemsyn</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a good steel production flowchart that shows where this process would be used (replace the natural gas-powered direct reduction feed-in to the electric arc furnace with a hydrogen-powered direct-reduction step). Overall, it&amp;#x27;s part of the electric arc process which avoids the need for coke from coal in blast furnaces.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.steel.org&amp;#x2F;steel-technology&amp;#x2F;steel-production&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.steel.org&amp;#x2F;steel-technology&amp;#x2F;steel-production&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, making this fossil-fuel free requires significant hydrogen production from sources like hydropower (or nuclear) powered electrolyis, or my favorite, photoelectrochemical reduction of water, such as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techxplore.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2017-08-decades-technology-nrel-solar-to-hydrogen.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techxplore.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2017-08-decades-technology-nrel-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as the claims about producing a superior product with hydrogen compared to natural gas, that&amp;#x27;s hard to evaluate without more data.  I imagine quality of the incoming ore is a major factor.  If you want a technical paper on it, here&amp;#x27;s something recent from what looks like a China-Germany research collaboration:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sci-hub.se&amp;#x2F;10.1016&amp;#x2F;j.actamat.2021.116933&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sci-hub.se&amp;#x2F;10.1016&amp;#x2F;j.actamat.2021.116933&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(2021) Influence of microstructure and atomic-scale chemistry on the direct
reduction of iron ore with hydrogen at 700°C&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The issue of hydrogen embrittlement of steel doesn&amp;#x27;t apply here, although it is a major issue that doesn&amp;#x27;t bode that well for replacing natural gas with hydrogen anywhere other than in industrial processes where the hydrogen is being consumed almost as fast as it is produced.  Making synthetic natural gas from atmospheric CO2 and water-sourced hydrogen is a (currently expensive) option, however.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>New research shows hydrogen-reduced iron has superior properties</title><url>https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/pressreleases/2022/hybrit-new-research-shows-hydrogen-reduced-iron-has-superior-properties</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>pstuart</author><text>The photoelectrochemical reduction of water looks interesting -- what do you think the achievable efficiency of it might be and is there an existing path to commercialize the technology?&lt;p&gt;Also, would that work in a concentrated solar setup?</text><parent_chain><item><author>photochemsyn</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a good steel production flowchart that shows where this process would be used (replace the natural gas-powered direct reduction feed-in to the electric arc furnace with a hydrogen-powered direct-reduction step). Overall, it&amp;#x27;s part of the electric arc process which avoids the need for coke from coal in blast furnaces.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.steel.org&amp;#x2F;steel-technology&amp;#x2F;steel-production&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.steel.org&amp;#x2F;steel-technology&amp;#x2F;steel-production&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, making this fossil-fuel free requires significant hydrogen production from sources like hydropower (or nuclear) powered electrolyis, or my favorite, photoelectrochemical reduction of water, such as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techxplore.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2017-08-decades-technology-nrel-solar-to-hydrogen.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techxplore.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2017-08-decades-technology-nrel-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as the claims about producing a superior product with hydrogen compared to natural gas, that&amp;#x27;s hard to evaluate without more data.  I imagine quality of the incoming ore is a major factor.  If you want a technical paper on it, here&amp;#x27;s something recent from what looks like a China-Germany research collaboration:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sci-hub.se&amp;#x2F;10.1016&amp;#x2F;j.actamat.2021.116933&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sci-hub.se&amp;#x2F;10.1016&amp;#x2F;j.actamat.2021.116933&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(2021) Influence of microstructure and atomic-scale chemistry on the direct
reduction of iron ore with hydrogen at 700°C&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The issue of hydrogen embrittlement of steel doesn&amp;#x27;t apply here, although it is a major issue that doesn&amp;#x27;t bode that well for replacing natural gas with hydrogen anywhere other than in industrial processes where the hydrogen is being consumed almost as fast as it is produced.  Making synthetic natural gas from atmospheric CO2 and water-sourced hydrogen is a (currently expensive) option, however.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>New research shows hydrogen-reduced iron has superior properties</title><url>https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/pressreleases/2022/hybrit-new-research-shows-hydrogen-reduced-iron-has-superior-properties</url></story>