Japan to save energy in steelmaking for low carbon

Japan's steel industry will continue to enhance efficiency and reduce energy consumption in steelmaking, and to develop revolutionary and low-cost technology in ironmaking for a low-carbon society, Koji Saito, senior fellow of Nippon Steel Research Institute Corporation shared at AusIMM's Iron Ore Conference 2021 on November 8, a hybrid event with the physical venue in Perth, Western Australia.

Japan's iron and steel industry has long before started exploring energy saving and CO2 emission reduction with heavy investments since oil crisis in 1973, and in the past decades, the country also initiated the CO2 Ultimate Reduction System for Cool Earth 50 (COURSE50) project in 2008 with the focus on significantly reducing CO2 emission from steelworks, according to Saito.

By 2017, the country achieved a 10% CO2 reduction via hydrogen-rich operations in steelmaking through related technological research, and it is progressing towards commercializing the first unit by 2030 and adopting these technologies in all its domestic furnaces for steelmaking by 2050, he shared.

COURSE50 is also just the first step to the future, as Japan Iron and Steel Federation has been calling for developing super innovative technologies to realize zero-carbon steel, according to Saito.

Besides blast furnace, many other facilities including stoves, coke ovens and sintering plants are all sources of CO2 emission in steel mills, and the recovery of waste heat will also contribute greatly to energy saving in steel mills, which Japan has developed a few technological measures to do so, according Saito, emphasizing that innovative technology is necessary from a long-term perspective.

He admitted, though, that, "Japan has the world's smallest room for energy saving when manufacturing steel. In other words, it (steelmaking in Japan) is so extremely energy efficient that it is almost impossible to save any more energy."

Nippon Steel, Japan's top steel mill, announced early this year to cut its CO2 emission by 30% or 70 million tonnes/year by 2030 from 2013, and to reach zero-carbon by 2050. In 2019, the company's CO2 emission was around 91 million tonnes/year, Saito shared.

Japanese steel industry is contributing to the worldwide CO2 emission reduction by sharing related energy-saving technologies to other countries, as such measures will help to reduce global carbon emission from steelmaking by over 60 million tonnes/year, or over 30% of the total CO2 emission from steel manufacturing in Japan, according to Saito.

Written by Sean Xie, xiepy@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.