Kiessling, S.; Gohari Darabkhani, H.; Soliman, A.-H. Greater Energy Independence with Sustainable Steel Production. Sustainability2024, 16, 1174.
Kiessling, S.; Gohari Darabkhani, H.; Soliman, A.-H. Greater Energy Independence with Sustainable Steel Production. Sustainability 2024, 16, 1174.
Kiessling, S.; Gohari Darabkhani, H.; Soliman, A.-H. Greater Energy Independence with Sustainable Steel Production. Sustainability2024, 16, 1174.
Kiessling, S.; Gohari Darabkhani, H.; Soliman, A.-H. Greater Energy Independence with Sustainable Steel Production. Sustainability 2024, 16, 1174.
Abstract
Energy market price volatility and an upward trajectory of prices per unit of electricity have sent all industrial sectors and many economies to the brink of recession. Alongside the urgent need for decarbonisation of all industries, achieving a higher level of energy independence across all sectors seems imperative. A multi-disciplinary approach with a proposed system of CO2 emissions reduction and capture technologies has the potential for short-term emissions reduction to near-zero in absolute terms. The findings of this research showed CO2 emissions reduction of ~30% from 977t of CO2e to 684t in one single blast furnace production cycle, by switching the energy provider generating energy exclusively from renewable sources. Replacing coal with biomass (BECCS), resulted in an additional reduction of ~30%, to CO2e to 479t CO2e. Installing solar PV panels for energy generation on site resulted in a further ~30% reduction, to 335 tonnes CO2e. Finally, the installation of CO2 filters reduced the CO2 emissions to near-zero. Simultaneously, energy-saving and process improvement measures implementation (up to 60% efficiency increase), excess heat recovery (<30% of energy savings), and retrofitting renewable energy technology resulted in an energy independence of 88%. Short-term engineering solutions, partly subsidised in the UK, are readily available.
Keywords
Energy Independence; Sustainable Steel; Net-Zero
Subject
Engineering, Energy and Fuel Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
