ArcelorMittal Europe Promises First 'Green Steel' in 2020

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Steel major ArcelorMittal Europe has announced that it will deliver its first batch of 'green steel' this year.

Green steel is the term used for steel produced with significantly less CO2 emissions than traditional steel smelting. This is usually achieved through the use of cleaner power sources such as renewables and hydrogen, carbon capture and electric arc furnaces that use steel scrap or direct reduced iron (DRI) as their main raw material. ArcelorMittal said that hydrogen technologies are "at the heart of its drive to lead the decarbonisation of the steel industry and deliver carbon-neutral steel".

The company expects to deliver 30,000 tonnes of green steel solutions to customers this year, with plans to scale it up to 120,000 tonnes in 2021 and 600,000 tonnes by 2022. If it succeeds it will allow it to reduce its CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 with the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Aditya Mittal, president and chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal Europe, said: "Today we are providing an important update on our progress in achieving our target of reducing CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050, including the vital role that hydrogen has in our strategy. We are focused on being ready for the hydrogen economy and the exciting opportunities this presents for us as European steelmakers. In parallel we continue to roll out our Smart Carbon technology which we are convinced also offers huge potential given the world will need so-called BECCS (bio-energy, carbon capture and storage) technologies to reach net zero by 2050. We are pleased to be able to offer our first green tonnes this year and look forward to being able to provide customers with larger volumes of this steel as our decarbonisation projects are ramped up and rolled out across Europe."

Industrial Info is tracking all of its key CO2 reduction projects in Europe. The company is working on a number of projects to create its 'green steel' future including the planned introduction of an electrolyser at the Bremen steel plant in Germany which will allow for the production and injection of hydrogen into the blast furnace to reduce the volume of coal used. At its Hamburg plant, the company is implementing the first industrial scale production and use of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) made with 100% hydrogen as the reductant, with an annual production goal of 100,000 tonnes of steel. At its Dunkirk steel plant in France it has implemented the IGAR industrial-scale pilot project that captures waste CO2 from the blast furnace and converts it into a synthetic gas that can be reinjected into the blast furnace in place of fossil fuels to reduce iron ore. At the same plant, it is running a pilot carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilot capable of capturing 0.5 metric tonnes of CO2 an hour from operations. There are plans to scale this up into the first industrial scale unit capable of capturing more than 125 metric tonnes of CO2 an hour by 2025. At the ArcelorMittal Ghent steelworks in Belgium the company, with Carbalyst technology supplier LanzaTech, is building a CO2 emissions capture plant for converting the gas from the blast furnace into bioethanol that will be used to produce 80 million litres of recycled carbon ethanol annually.

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