For replacing all the coke for Britain’s 30 megatons of steel consumption would necessitate using nearly half the surface of the UK purely for charcoal production. To do the same thing for global steel production would entail chopping down half of the Amazon. Depressing as this thought experiment might be, it rather underlines why we are still tipping and spraying so much hard, energy-dense coal into blast furnaces like the one here in Port Talbot.
