Low-carbon green development path and practice of the iron and steel industry

Coping with climate change is a common topic facing the world. The steel industry is an important basic industry of the national economy; however, it is also a resource-intensive and typical high-carbon-emission industry. Low-carbon green is the inevitable choice and the only way for its high-quality development. Under the background that the world has entered a new stage of low-carbon development, this study analyzes the historical trend that the transfer of steel industry centers in the world is accompanied by technological change. In the new stage that China has become a steel center and will continue for a long time, it is faced with the demand for a significant reduction in carbon emissions, intensity, energy consumption, green trade barriers (such as carbon border tax), green procurement pressure, and breakthrough technology research and development challenges. This study outlines the low-carbon development plan and path of the international and domestic steel industry and focuses on the analysis of the exploration and contribution made by China’s steel industry in low-carbon green development in recent years. This study also aims to analyze the transformation of the future steel industry to low-carbon development based on the continuation of the practical achievements of green manufacturing with practical cases and summarize four types of development paths, which provide practical cases for iron and steel enterprises to help achieve the national goal of “carbon peak, carbon neutral” . The first path is to transition from ultralow-emission-centered development to pollution and carbon reduction and promote sintering flue gas circulation and high-proportion pellet smelting, selective circulation purification of sintering flue gas and waste heat utilization, and other technologies. The second path is to reform the energy structure with hydrogen energy as the center in the energy field, research and develop low-cost, large-scale hydrogen production technology, build a network of hydrogen refueling stations, accelerate the construction of green logistics systems, and lead the industry development in the practice of exploring hydrogen metallurgy technology. The third path is to rely on the cycle sustainability of steel materials (starting from the entire industrial chain and upstream and downstream coordination), utilize a full life cycle assessment platform and products, create a low-carbon green industrial ecosystem, and comprehensively promote green manufacturing in combination with upstream and downstream key enterprises. The fourth path is to conduct cooperative research and development of breakthrough technologies (such as carbon capture utilization and storage and other cutting-edge technologies) to strengthen the cooperation between industry, university, and research and integrate global innovation resources. Finally, based on the current low-carbon development trend of the steel industry and the proposed low-carbon development paths, this study analyzes the impact of international situations (such as the EU carbon border regulation mechanism on China’s steel industry), promotes the full life cycle assessment of steel materials, encourages the construction of hydrogen energy development strategies and energy source systems, establishes a green industrial chain, and recommends collaborative carbon reduction.