How to escape from the Iron Age? We cannot lower carbon emissions if we keep producing steel with fossil fuels.

I think this take is far too cynical. We can absolutely reduce carbon emissions in industry. Zero emissions is a particularly difficult point to reach in a short period of time, but it's not all-or-nothing. Giving up, or implying that it's impossible for us to make progress in this sector, is not correct or useful. It actually encourages a sense of doomism and nihilism which is exactly counter to the attitude we need to carry as activists.

I just shared a press release from the US government about $6 billion in investments into low-carbon industry processes, $1.5 billion of which includes investments into the steel industry specifically. The government anticipates that these investments will result in a 77% reduction in emissions (on average). Direct Reduction of Iron (DRI) can theoretically reduce emissions by 95% relative to coke-based reducing methods.

You can read about the specifics from the Department of Energy's document: Industrial Demonstrations Program Selections for Award Negotiations: Iron and Steel. They're funding five projects, each of which have significant matching funds from other government and industry sources:

• Hydrogen-Fueled Zero Emissions Steel Making
• Hydrogen-Ready Direct Reduced Iron Plant and Electric Melting Furnace Installation
• Induction Melting Upgrade
• Iron Electric Induction Conversion
• Low-Emissions, Cold-Agglomerated Iron Ore Briquette Production

But there is a lot more happening than just this. Government is also funding significant research into cleaner ways to produce process heat, which is useful for various parts of materials production, whether or not coke is involved. People may not be aware of it, but advanced industrial heat pumps can actually reach pretty high temperatures, as much as 300°F or more (and the technology is still advancing). This isn't solving the problem of reaching 1500°F in a traditional blast furnace, but it can significantly reduce emissions from adjacent processes.

The article seems to hold hydrogen in disdain because the production of hydrogen also requires some steel. But you don't need to stop using steel altogether in order to reduce emissions to a reasonable level, and the author is taking a very "loosey-goosey" approach to resource use, not considering lifetime capabilities of various solutions. Additionally, given how much research is ongoing in this field, I feel it is foolish to assume that the current efficiency of hydrogen production is somehow the maximum efficiency. It most likely isn't!

Consequently, hydrogen-based steelmaking requires roughly ten times more wind turbines and solar panels than scrap-based steel production – and thus ten times more steel. On top of this comes the steel for building the pipelines and storage tanks that are part of the hydrogen infrastructure.

Something like a solar panel has a lifespan of 25 years. While it does indeed contain steel, if a solar farm can provide electricity for 25 years worth of hydrogen-based steel production, then the "cost" (in steel) of that energy source is outweighed by the benefit it provides. One unit of steel in a solar panel produces energy which can produce far more steel over its lifespan than was originally used to create the panel. Similarly, just because hydrogen tanks are made of steel does not mean every unit of hydrogen requires a completely new tank; such an assumption as the author makes is foolish and not mathematical.

I agree with the author's takeaway that reducing material use overall is the best thing we can do as far as the physical conservation and renewability of resources goes, but we are not at a dead end otherwise. I am very much not in the camp of "technology solves all problems," but in this case, forays into green industrial processes are a largely unexplored field with an enormous amount of potential. It is better for us to take those investigations seriously rather than settling on an answer of "welp, we're screwed."