First, he served up a solution to the European cement industry’s carbon problem, now Australian inventor Mark Sceats has told the Tech Zero podcast his patented kiln could also fix the iron ore industry’s most intractable climate challenge.

Dr Sceats, 73, has spent the past year focused on developing a low-carbon, affordable method for removing the oxygen from iron ore in the hope that he can help Australia’s biggest export industry start selling “green iron” rather than iron ore.