Global iron and steel plant CO2 emissions and carbon-neutrality pathways

Tianyang Lei, Daoping Wang, Xiang Yu, Shijun Ma, Weichen Zhao, Can Cui, Jing Meng, Shu Tao and Dabo Guan ()
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Tianyang Lei: Tsinghua University
Daoping Wang: King’s College London
Xiang Yu: University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Shijun Ma: University College London
Weichen Zhao: University College London
Can Cui: Tsinghua University
Jing Meng: University College London
Shu Tao: Peking University
Dabo Guan: Tsinghua University

Nature, 2023, vol. 622, issue 7983, 514-520

Abstract: Abstract The highly energy-intensive iron and steel industry contributed about 25% (ref. 1) of global industrial CO2 emissions in 2019 and is therefore critical for climate-change mitigation. Despite discussions of decarbonization potentials at national and global levels2–6, plant-specific mitigation potentials and technologically driven pathways remain unclear, which cumulatively determines the progress of net-zero transition of the global iron and steel sector. Here we develop a CO2 emissions inventory of 4,883 individual iron and steel plants along with their technical characteristics, including processing routes and operating details (status, age, operation-years etc.). We identify and match appropriate emission-removal or zero-emission technologies to specific possessing routes, or what we define thereafter as a techno-specific decarbonization road map for every plant. We find that 57% of global plants have 8–24 operational years, which is the retrofitting window for low-carbon technologies. Low-carbon retrofitting following the operational characteristics of plants is key for limiting warming to 2 °C, whereas advanced retrofitting may help limit warming to 1.5 °C. If each plant were retrofitted 5 years earlier than the planned retrofitting schedule, this could lead to cumulative global emissions reductions of 69.6 (±52%) gigatonnes (Gt) CO2 from 2020 to 2050, almost double that of global CO2 emissions in 2021. Our results provide a detailed picture of CO2 emission patterns associated with production processing of iron and steel plants, illustrating the decarbonization pathway to the net-zero-emissions target with the efforts from each plant.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06486-7

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