CISA proposes ways to advance low-carbon steelmaking in China

Tan Chengxu, chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) and head of Ansteel Iron & Steel Group, listed out a raft of means to promote the "green" and low-carbon development of China's steel industry at the Global Low-carbon Metallurgy Innovation Forum 2023 and the 12th China International Steel Congress convened in Shanghai on Sunday.

Addressing the conference inundated with industry leaders and experts from around the world, Tan emphasized that "we need to anchor the '2C' goals, actively explore and lead the technological revolution and industrial transformation of the world's steel industry towards green development. Innovation should be the core driving force to promote the steel industry's transition to a new green and low-carbon development." China's "2C" goals for its steel industry, namely, are to reach the carbon emission peak by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, Mysteel Global notes.

Tan proposed five specific ways to promote low-carbon steelmaking in China. The first one is technology innovation. China has deployed great efforts to promote cutting-edge low-carbon common technologies in its steel industry, represented by hydrogen metallurgy, and large-scale technological upgrades on the path to nearly zero carbon emission, he introduced.

Secondly, "the trend and direction for China's steel industry to attain low-carbon and green development is to use scrap steel as a substitute for iron ore and develop short-process (electric-arc-furnace) steelmaking," he pointed out.

As China's steel industry has long been dominated by the blast furnace-converter process, the key focus for the industry to cut carbon emissions in the short term remains on this long process of steelmaking. But with scrap steel resources increasing, green energy growing, and electric furnace technologies advancing, the electric furnace or short steelmaking process will play its significant role in the course of achieving carbon neutrality, Tan quoted a CISA's report.

The third way he proposed is to upgrade the industrial sector with digital and smart technologies. "Practice has proven that in the future, it is necessary to advance the deep integration of new-generation information and communication technologies such as industrial Internet, cloud computing, 5G, machine vision, and artificial intelligence with the green and low-carbon development of the steel industry…in order to continuously nurture new productivity and accumulate new momentum for industrial development," Tan said.

Fourthly, the construction of the environmental product declaration (EPD) platform for the steel industry should be enhanced, according to Tan. In May 2022, CISA launched the EPD platform for the country's steel industry, which is the first EPD platform for industrial products in China. As of this July, 36 EPD reports have been published on the platform, and over 30 steelmakers have either officially submitted or are in the process of submitting reports. The EPD reports have been downloaded more than 20,000 times.

The last way is to speed up establishing low-carbon emission standards for the steel industry. In accordance with the requirements outlined in the green industrial development program for the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), CISA has initiated the development of low-emission steel standards, Tan said, adding that "it is accelerating the standardization of carbon emission accounting and quota allocation as well as enhancing standards for key fields including integrated energy and water saving resource utilization."

"We are confident in the prospects for China's steel industry to achieve green transformation and high-quality development. The country's steel industry is willing to work together with its global counterparts to engage in international low-carbon capacity building, and to collectively promote the global steel industry's new development and sustained prosperity in the realm of green and low-carbon operations," Tan concluded.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com
Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.