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Aiming for zero
carbon steelmaking
12 NSC
Jun 20
In 2015 the Paris Agreement became a
landmark environmental accord with
aspirations to address climate change
and its negative impacts. The deal aims
to substantially reduce global greenhouse
gas emissions to limit the global temperature
increase in this century to 2°C above preindustrial
levels, while pursuing means to
limit the increase to 1.5°C. The agreement
includes commitments from all major
emitting countries to cut their climatealtering
pollution and to strengthen those
commitments over time.
Following this, in May 2019, the UK
Parliament became the first national
government to declare an environmental
and climate emergency, committing the UK
to be carbon net zero by 2050.
Steelmaking accounts for 7 – 9 % of
global CO2 emissions and with demand for
steel forecast to continue growing for several
decades to come, the carbon challenge is
significant. In the UK, the built environment
contributes around 40% of the UK's total
carbon footprint.
ArcelorMittal published its first Climate
Action Report in May 2019 in which it
outlined a strategic roadmap to significantly
reduced CO2 emissions by 2050 and, in
Europe, to achieve carbon neutrality by this
date, in line with the objectives of the Paris
Agreement.
This report, the first of its kind for a steel
company, includes a suite of breakthrough
technologies, and has enabled ArcelorMittal
to make an intermediate target of 30%
reduction by 2030. The company’s
advancements in reducing the carbon
burden of steelmaking include, in terms of
circular carbon, converting waste wood into
biocoal and reforming waste carbon gases.
Both technologies will reduce the amount
of coal and coke needed in the blast furnace
and lower associated CO2 emissions.
Additionally, ArcelorMittal is building a
demonstration plant to both capture carbon
offgases and convert them into ethanol
which can then be used as biofuel. It is
also developing clean power technologies
for iron ore reduction using hydrogen and
electrolysis, both of which could deliver
significant carbon reductions if powered
with clean electricity. Significantly these
technologies show that steelmaking can be
zero carbon in the future.
ArcelorMittal says addressing the carbon
burden in steelmaking is a long game with
commercialisation not anticipated within 5
years for those most advanced technologies.
However, the climate emergency is here
and now, and the construction industry’s
design supply chain has been quick to react
declaring its own climate emergency with
the formation of constructiondeclares.com.
In the UK, there are over 1000 signatories
to constructiondeclares.com from civil and
structural engineers, building services
engineers, project managers and architects,
all making a commitment to take positive
action in response to climate breakdown
and biodiversity collapse. A result of this is
designers and material specifiers are seeking
ArcelorMittal says it is at the forefront of an initiative to
ensure the steelmaking sector achieves the Paris Agreement’s
environmental aspirations.
Plenty of guidance is available
on how to reduce operational
and embodied carbon in the
built environment. For details of
ArcelorMittal’s webinar on 9th July,
e-mail: steligence@arcelormittal.com
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