Can Ontario’s resource-extraction and industrial economy transition to the clean economy?

This Matters

This Matters is pleased to publish episodes of the Toronto Star's podcast, "Road Trip: Electric Avenues," every Saturday. The next episode will be available next week here, or already in the Road Trip feed. This week, we are proud to share episode four:

Steel is one of the biggest emitters of carbon in the world. Currently, steelmaking is responsible for seven to nine percent of total global emissions. That’s about 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon — or four times more than all the emissions produced in Canada. And because most steel is made by melting down iron using coal, it’s very hard to decarbonize. In Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma Steel is transitioning its 100 year old coke oven and blast furnaces to electric arc furnace technology. It’s a change that will cut its carbon emissions by 70 per cent. Since Ontario’s electricity grid is so clean, Algoma Steel will become some of the cleanest steel on the planet. It’s already being used in EVs and will soon make its way into electrical towers and infrastructure used to build the clean economy.

Toronto Star photographer Steve Russell and climate change reporter Marco Chown Oved went on a road trip through northern Ontario in the dead of winter. It was cold, blizzarding and icy. They travelled 2,300 km during the coldest week of the year. And they did it in an electric vehicle (EV).