By Michael Booth | Colorado Sun
A Boulder company with a patented method to take most of the carbon emissions out of the energy-intensive iron and steelmaking process will use $8 million from the inaugural state industrial tax credit to build a manufacturing plant in Jefferson County, officials said Tuesday.
The patented process produces “clean” industrial iron at the temperature of a cup of coffee, rather than the 1,200-degree Fahrenheit furnaces traditionally used in iron and steelmaking, according to Electrasteel Inc, known as Electra. Currently employing more than 130 people, Electra uses an electrochemical process and hopes to cut 30% or more of the carbon emissions from traditional production.
“We founded Electra here in Colorado to decarbonize a carbon-heavy industrial process, and we’re honored to be the inaugural recipient” of the state industrial tax credit, said co-founder and CEO Sandeep Nijhawan.
The new Jeffco plant, planned for opening in 2026, will still be a demonstration-scale facility, but will steeply ramp up production from the Boulder research pilot facility that produces about 100 metric tons of clean iron plates each year. The company announced recently that it completed a capital fundraising round for $186 million to help build the new plant.