India’s iron and steel industry is capable of emitting less and producing more

India’s iron and steel industry is capable of emitting less and producing more

Context: CSE underlines the need for better planning, new technologies and adequate finance to help the sector make the much-needed shift in today’s climate-stressed world.

More on the News:

• India’s iron and steel sector can produce less emissions and increase its output at the same time, according to a new analysis, by Delhi-based non-profit, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
• The iron and steel sector is a hard-to-abate sector in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; at the same time, it is a critical contributor to the economic development of the country.
• Globally, the sector accounts for some 7 per cent of total GHG emissions; in India, the sector’s share is 5 per cent (as per the latest Biennial Update Report (BUR) submitted to UNFCCC in 2016).
• The iron and steel industry is an emission-intensive The new analysis shows it is possible to bring down carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from our iron and steel sector drastically by 2030, while more than doubling India’s output of steel.
• The analysis also gave a number of recommendations to achieve these twin goals. These included switching over to cleaner fuels, increasing the use of steel scrap, implementing carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) and organising finance for a switchover to new fuels and technologies.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS):

• CCUS technology is designed to capture CO2 emissions from combustion of fossil fuels.
• It can absorb 85-95% of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.
• The process starts with the capture of generated CO2 which undergoes a compression process to form a dense fluid. This eases the transport and storage of the captured CO2.
• The dense fluid is transported via pipelines and then injected into an underground storage facility.
• Captured CO2 can also be used as a raw material in other industrial processes such as bicarbonates.
• CO2 captured using CCU technologies are converted into fuel (methane and methanol), refrigerants and building materials. The captured gas is used directly in fire extinguishers, pharma, food and beverage industries as well as the agricultural sector.

Vehicle scrapping policy