Metals are the literal backbone of society used in buildings, bridges, cars and more. The U.S. processes and uses six main types of metals: iron and steel, aluminum, ferroalloy, lead, magnesium, and zinc.1,2 Global demand for metals is expected to increase significantly over the next several decades, driven by rapid urbanization in nonindustrialized countries and various sectors all over the world begin to adopt clean technology. Metals energy use represented eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.3 Despite promising technological advances, little low-emission metal manufacturing capacity is in commercial operation today.

With nearly 2 billion tons of steel manufactured globally each year and more than 3,500 different types or grades, steel is the most widely-used metal in the world. As overall demand continues to increase, the world’s largest steelmaker and other companies are taking steps to produce more steel with fewer emissions.4 In the United States, the current production of steel represents more than 80 percent of U.S. metals manufacturing emissions.

Metals are global commodities with low-profit margins and high barriers to entry, which discourages innovation. Pragmatic federal clean industrial policy should constructively partner with the industry to strengthen steel manufacturing in the United States, rather than offshoring it. In fact, U.S. steel manufacturing is already one of the cleanest in the world as two-thirds of steel is produced through electric arc furnaces which use recycled steel scrap and electricity.

How to Reform Metals Policy

Click below to navigate around reformation advice

  1. Integrate Carbon Capture
  2. Transform Metals Manufacturing
  3. Encourage A Transparent Supply Chain
  4. Sources

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1. Integrate Carbon Capture

How?

1. Demonstrate carbon capture at scale
Steel manufacturers and technology developers are actively exploring how to implement carbon capture at steel facilities.

2. Create market incentives
The federal government has already opened the door for manufacturing facilities to benefit from capturing carbon through the federal carbon capture tax credit. Continued research and development, in both retrofits and new steel manufacturing processes, can improve the efficiencies and drive down the cost of carbon capture technologies.

 

Background

High quality steel is typically produced with coal (“blast furnaces”) or natural gas (“direct reduced iron”), and supplemented by recycled steel (“electric arc furnaces”). The world average for the share of recycled steel is 30 percent compared to alternative pathways. Blast furnaces require iron ore, limestone, and coal to provide ultra-hot heat. Then oxygen is injected to reduce the carbon content and remove impurities – producing a significant amount of waste gas containing carbon dioxide. Natural gas-derived steel is able to cut blast furnace emissions in half, but does not completely eliminate emissions. This begs the question, how do we keep making high quality steel while reducing or completely removing the associated emissions? Though there is no silver bullet, one of the pieces of the decarbonization puzzle includes carbon capture. Carbon capture retrofits can immediately cut blast furnace and natural gas steel plant emissions by nearly 50 percent.5

A United Arab Emirates commercial steel plant is already using carbon capture in a natural gas-fueled steel plant, capturing 800 thousand tons per year.6 Another project in France aims to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions from a steel plant by nearly 3 million tons of carbon dioxide through carbon capture technologies and low-carbon hydrogen.7 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded plans to design an industrial-scale solution for carbon capture from ArcelorMittal’s blast furnace plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana.8 What’s needed next is demonstration and commercialization of these technologies within the U.S.

 


Fellow Voices

Driving CO2 emissions to zero (and beyond) with carbon capture, use, and storage

McKinsey and Company

Read more at mckinsey.com

IEA’s lower emissions steel plans center on new tech, carbon capture

S&P Global Platts

Read more at spglobal.com

Capturing and utilising waste carbon from steelmaking

ArcelorMittal

Read more at corporate.arcelormittal.com

2. Transform Metals Manufacturing

How?

1. Pilot new technologies
There are still other process improvements and alternative technologies that hold potential. Funding towards further research and demonstration is needed to determine the viability of these technologies.

 

Background

Humans have been making steel for 4,000 years, however, the fundamental production process has stayed relatively the same. More recently, novel solutions have emerged that revolutionize the process. These include technologies like MIT spinoff Boston Metal, which rethinks steel manufacturing completely to only utilize electricity and iron ore.9 LanzaTech’s emission-consuming bacteria can be applied to the current steel manufacturing process to produce ethanol.10

When creating a new product, developers need to approach it with the lens of a complete life cycle assessment. If new technologies remove the need for blast furnaces, but the alternative ends up producing similar or more emissions somewhere else, we may as well stick to the status quo. Research should ensure that new processes do not make incremental improvements at the cost of significant mechanical or technical reconfigurations to the current processes, such as modifying gasses that are utilized during production that increase costs. Similarly, new energy intensive processes that depend on a power grid that has not yet fully decarbonized may be detrimental overall.

As many large corporations begin to ramp up their corporate decarbonization commitments, reconfiguring their supply chains to reduce their carbon footprint and greening their investment portfolios, they will seek out cleaner, low-emission steel options.

Historically steel demand has been on a consistent upward trend. The need for steel is only going to increase as populations continue to grow and nations continue to develop. Each new megawatt of solar requires approximately 35 to 45 tons of steel while each new megawatt of wind requires 120 to 180 tons of steel. Based on projected renewable energy growth, this conservatively translates to 74 million tons of new international steel demand and 163 million tons of carbon emissions if we stick to current, blast furnace-based production options. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in development delays, the World Steel Association estimates an increase. Considering the amount of clean power and clean technology we need to deploy by 2050 to meet private and public decarbonization goals, steel will be the backbone of the U.S., and global, clean technology transition.

3. Encourage A Transparent Supply Chain

How?

1. Including product disclosures
With increased interest from the steel industry to decarbonize, cleaner, low-emission technologies would be able to benefit from disclosures that stimulate market-based procurement of steel. Lifecycle assessments and environmental product declarations are a few of the widely-accepted tools in deducing the embedded emissions of products.

 

Background

Tools like lifecycle assessments allow manufacturers to accurately understand the environmental footprint of their products and stimulate markets for low-emission steel. Additional policy mechanisms that promote disclosures also make it easier for federal and corporate procurement looking to reduce their carbon footprint.

Steel producers across the U.S. are already making strides in publishing decarbonization goals and issuing environmental disclosures through annual sustainability reports. As one of the cleanest steel producers in the world, the U.S. already has an advantage in this arena. With the integration of novel solutions and continued manufacturing through conventional clean steel production routes, such as electric arc furnaces or direct reduction paired with electric arc furnaces, U.S. steel manufacturers would be able to use supply chain disclosures to their advantage.

Global CO2 Intensity of Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) Steel Production in 2016

Source: Hasanbeigi, A. and Springer, C. 2019

As many large corporations begin to ramp up their corporate decarbonization commitments, reconfiguring their supply chains to reduce their carbon footprint and greening their investment portfolios, they will seek out cleaner, low-emission steel options.

Historically steel demand has been on a consistent upward trend.11 The need for steel is only going to increase as populations continue to grow and nations continue to develop. Each new megawatt of solar requires approximately 35 to 45 tons of steel while each new megawatt of wind requires 120 to 180 tons of steel.12 Based on projected renewable energy growth, this conservatively translates to 74 million tons of new international steel demand and 163 million tons of carbon emissions if we stick to current, blast furnace-based production options. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in development delays, the World Steel Association estimates an increase.13 Considering the amount of clean power and clean technology we need to deploy by 2050 to meet private and public decarbonization goals, steel will be the backbone of the U.S., and global, clean technology transition.