Finnish heavy industry technology company, Metso Outotec, is building a hydrogen-based iron pilot plant in Frankfurt, Germany.

Some context:

We usually make iron by blasting hot air over a mixture of coke, limestone, and iron ore inside of a furnace. That hot air, which was initially pre-heated by some other means, combusts the coke, releasing heat (to keep the reaction going) and some carbon monoxide. That carbon monoxide removes the oxygen from the ore, reducing it to CO2, and leaves pig iron behind (the limestone just acts as a flux). That pig iron is then processed further to remove impurities before it's used to make steel or other forms of iron.

So, what's the deal here?

About 95% of the world's iron is made in the way described above—the remaining 5% is made via the direct reduction of iron (known as DRI). Most DRI processes reduce the iron-containing ore with syngas, made via the steam reforming of natural gas, but the reduction can also be done without the carbon monoxide part of syngas. So we're seeing hydrogen-only DRI processes being commercialized as well (which is what this pilot plant is doing).

Zooming out:

In any case, all of these processes operate at high temperatures (although DRI normally operates at 900°C instead of 1500°C), so the way you produce that heat matters. Metso Outotec is using electric heaters and hydrogen only, so it's about as close to zero emissions as we're going to get. Plus, DRI processes make a higher purity iron, known as sponge iron, that doesn't need as much refining downstream (so less energy is needed overall).

Swiss specialty chemicals and catalyst producer, Clariant, has taken a $241 million impairment charge on its cellulosic ethanol plant in Podari, Romania.

A little background:

Pretty much all of the ethanol we use today is made by fermenting glucose. Usually, we get that glucose by breaking down starch (the part of the plant, like corn, that we eat) with enzymes and then fermenting the result. Alternatively, and more sustainably, we could get that glucose by breaking down cellulose (the part of the plant, like wheat straw, that we don't eat) with enzymes and then doing the same thing.

An impairment charge?

Companies record the value of their plants on their balance sheet, and that value typically reflects the present value of all future cash flows they expect to generate from a given plant. Investors think it's an important number to report accurately, because it reflects the price the plant could be sold for, in theory. When a company realizes that the future cash flows are less than they expected, they are meant to reduce the plant value they report, and in this case the value was reduced by $241 million.

Looking forward:

Those future cash flows weren't reduced because customers aren't looking to buy cellulose-based ethanol—it's because despite starting up 6 months ago, Clariant hasn't achieved "commercial viability of the new technology" thanks to yield problems and other operational issues. At the end of the day, it was costs that made DuPont throw in the towel 5 years ago, not demand. We'll have to see if things change in the coming months.