Old twigs crunch beneath his boots as Claes Nordmark, mayor of Boden, steps out into a vast clear-cut area. He comes to a stop at a slope and motions toward an electrical substation nearby.

“Listen to that,” he says. “The atmosphere in Boden is crackling, just like that switchgear.”

If all goes to plan, in July start-up H2 Green Steel (H2GS) will start building the world’s first “fossil-free” steelworks in this Swedish town of 17,000, just below the Arctic Circle. It’s a multibillion-dollar project that would make a multimillion-ton impact on the climate, cutting over 90 percent of a regular steel factory’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The electricity may not be audible all over northern Sweden, but the buzz is tangible. A boom of renewable-powered industries has given rise to what has been dubbed a “green revolution.” A massive revamp is underway to decarbonize the state-run mines. Besides steel mills, the region hosts Europe’s first battery mega factory, called Northvolt Ett, along with fossil-free fertilizer […]