Conceptual design of the steel industry in 2050 considering collaboration with local communities

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of design methods for the steel industry that consider the geographical and social characteristics of industrial host communities for realizing a carbon–neutral society by 2050. The steel industry is an energy-intensive and highly CO2-emitting industry because it uses large amounts of coal and coke as blast furnace reducing agents. Using a case study in Japan as an example, we summarized the conceptual design and a base model of the iron and steelmaking process in 2050, considering collaboration with local communities to expand local renewable energy and iron scrap collection and reduce CO2 emissions and associated abatement costs. For the effective design of a lower-emissions steel industry, local characteristics need to be considered. We considered (1) the collaboration of the steel industry with local communities for long-term symbiosis and (2) steel industry and local community modeling based on the conceptual design.

Keywords

• Iron and steelmaking
• Decarbonization
• Carbon neutral
• Circular economy
• Local communities
• Renewable energy