WHYALLA, Australia — For more than a century, Australia has fed the world’s hunger for iron ore. Vast swaths of the rusty red Outback have been dug up and delivered overseas to make the steel that helped transform other nations: first the United States, then Japan and most recently China, which buys more than 80 percent of Australia’s iron ore.
Australia, the land of iron ore exports, faces a green reckoning
As Chinese demand drops and the world cleans up its steel industry, Australia faces a race to switch from exporting ore to manufacturing green iron.
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