Massive Iron Ore Discovery and Global Warming

A massive recent discovery of high-grade iron ore in my state of Western Australia exposes the lies of the Climate Cult. The new iron ore deposits with over 60% purity have been valued at $6 trillion, positioning Australia as a dominant player in the global iron ore market.

The deposit lies in the Pilbara region, a vast, arid expanse in Western Australia long celebrated as one of the world’s richest mineral provinces, and contains approximately 55 billion metric tons of iron ore. The massive trillion-dollar find marks a significant moment for the global mining industry.

Now consider that, with the fact that China’s coal imports from Australia have seen a recovery. In 2023, China imported 52.47 million metric tons of Australian coal, up from 2.86 million tons in 2022, but still below the 77.51 million tons imported in 2020, the last full year before a ban was imposed.

Analysts predict that China’s demand for Australian coking coal will fall to between 20 and 22 megatons, down from close to 30 megatons in 2019. Additionally, China’s thermal coal imports could fall by at least 26% by 2025, which could further impact Australia’s coal exports.

That means Australia’s export of coking coal, which is used to make iron from iron ore, will still be around 20 million tons per year. Thermal coal exports to China will fall to 39 million tons per year.

Thermal coal is used to run coal-fired power stations, which in 2024, China was building at a rate of two new plants per year, a 10-year high.

The discovery of the massive iron ore deposit was hailed as a huge economic success for the future of Australia. But how does that line up with the need to extract the iron metal from the iron oxides in the ore?

The primary iron oxides found in iron ore are Hematite (Fe₂O₃) and Magnetite (Fe₃O₄), which are the most common forms. Hematite, in particular, is the main source of iron for the steel industry. There are also other iron oxides, such as Wüstite (FeO), which may also be present in some ores.

Here’s the problem!

All these Climate Cult aligned companies and governments, which Australia is no exception, do not seem to understand thermodynamics.

Metallic iron is bound in the iron ore in different forms of oxides. Pure iron easily rusts, which means it reacts with oxygen, forming an oxide. That is the favoured thermodynamic reaction.

To extract iron from an iron oxide, you need to reverse the oxidation reaction. The reverse reaction is called a reduction reaction, which is not thermodynamically favoured. To drive a reduction reaction “up the thermodynamic hill,” you need lots of energy. But where does that energy come from?

The answer is coking coal. You mix the coking coal with the iron ore in a blast furnace (BF) and apply a lot of heat energy. That essentially drives the oxygen out of the iron oxides, and you get raw pig iron as a result.

Coal is perfect for this because it supplies the needed carbon (C) to drive the chemical reaction with Hematite (Fe₂O₃) and Magnetite (Fe₃O₄), resulting in metallic iron (Fe) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Some of the coal burns, producing heat to drive the reduction reaction and also releases copious quantities of CO₂.

Roughly half a ton of coking coal is needed to make 1 ton of steel as the end product. Limestone is also used as a flux in the iron-making process, which means more CO₂ is emitted.

However, before you make steel, you need to extract the iron from the iron ore. That is done in the blast furnace. The next step is to make steel in a basic oxygen furnace (BOF). You pump oxygen into the superheated liquid iron, which reacts with carbon, producing more CO₂.

That whole process results in the emission of 2 tons of CO2 per ton of steel. Therefore, from the 20 million tons of coking coal that Australia sends to China each year, they produce 40 million tons of CO₂.

Additionally, burning 1 ton of coal produces about 2 tons of carbon dioxide. All coal-fired power plants produce CO₂ at that rate. From the 39 million tons of thermal coal Australia sends to China each year, they produce 78 million tons of CO₂.

How is this a great discovery if it means that to make the steel, you need to emit 2 tons of CO2 per ton of steel? In the Climate Cult worldview, this makes no sense. Of course, carbon dioxide emissions from human activity or otherwise have next to zero effect on global temperatures. So even if humans halted all steel making and all power generation, it would have very little effect on Earth’s average temperature.

However, I want to point out the obvious hypocrisy of the Climate Cult. All they do is export the iron ore and coal to China, which produces enormous amounts of steel and emits enormous amounts of carbon dioxide with Australian raw materials.

Climate change, global warming, is the pretext to deindustrialise the planet and turn it into a technocracy controlled by mega-rich oligarchs and central banksters. So why would they export all these millions of tons of coal and iron ore?

The announcement of this $6 trillion iron ore discovery in the Pilbara of Western Australia shines a spotlight on the lie. The oligarchs want their cake and to eat it too. They want the trillions of dollars, but how can they sell the lie of man-made global warming when they sell millions of tons of iron ore and coal to China to make steel and electricity?