A Fossil-Smart Future: Harder but Solvable

“Some problems aren’t quick to solve — but that doesn’t make them unsolvable.”

After addressing the areas where fossil-fuel use can be reduced quickly, the transition runs into a more difficult middle ground. This is where progress is slower, costs are higher, and solutions depend as much on infrastructure and planning as on technology. Industry sits squarely in this category.

The challenge is straightforward: much of heavy industry depends not just on energy, but on high-temperature heat and chemical processes that fossil fuels have long provided cheaply and reliably. Replacing them is possible, but rarely simple.

Steel production is a clear example. Traditional blast furnaces rely on coal both as a fuel and as a chemical agent. Alternatives exist, including electric arc furnaces and hydrogen-based direct reduction, but they require large volumes of clean electricity, new supply chains, and substantial capital investment. These technologies work, but scaling them will take time and stable policy settings.

Cement presents an even tougher problem. A significant share of its emissions comes not from burning fuel, but from the chemical process that turns limestone into clinker. Reducing these emissions requires a combination of lower-clinker formulations, alternative binders, and, in some cases, carbon capture. None are silver bullets, but incremental improvements across the sector can still deliver meaningful reductions.

Industrial heat more broadly sits across a spectrum. Low- and medium-temperature heat can often be electrified using existing technologies, including industrial heat pumps. High-temperature processes are harder, and in some cases hydrogen may play a role. The key constraint here is not theoretical feasibility, but cost, energy supply, and the pace at which existing plants can realistically be retrofitted or replaced.

What these sectors have in common is that change will not be fast. They require long investment cycles, skilled workforces, and confidence that policies will persist beyond electoral terms. A fossil-smart approach recognises this and avoids pretending that industrial transformation can be rushed without consequence.

These sectors are harder, but they are not immovable. Progress here depends on planning, sequencing, and sustained commitment — not slogans. Reducing fossil-fuel use in industry is achievable, but only if it is treated as a long-term transition rather than a short-term promise.

In the next post:

The sectors where fossil-fuel use won’t change quickly — aviation, shipping, defence and critical chemicals — and why accepting that reality is essential to a credible transition and not a failure of ambition.