News Highlights:
- Promotion of Green Steel: The Ministry of Steel is dedicated to achieving its Net-Zero goal by 2070.
- The government is promoting green steel as the solution to decarbonising the steel industry.
Green Steel
- About
- Green Steel is the manufacturing of steel using renewable or low-carbon energy sources such as hydrogen, coal gasification, or electricity instead of the traditional carbon-intensive manufacturing route of coal-fired plants.
- Low-carbon hydrogen (blue hydrogen and green hydrogen) can help reduce the steel industry’s carbon footprint.
- Green steel Making:
- To get a “green” version of direct reduction steelmaking, hydrogen is used as fuel, rather than natural gas Rather than CO2; this method emits water vapour.
- The green steel method instead uses hydrogen to reduce the iron pellets into sponge iron, metallic iron that can then be processed to form steel.
- This process is also done at high temperatures but below the melting point of iron (800 – 1,200 °C), saving energy costs.
- Significance:
- The increased production of green steel will help transform the steel sector’s current identity as a “hard-to-abate” carbon-emitting sector to a “reduced carbon-emitting-green steel-producing industry”.
- The steel industry contributes to 7 per cent of the carbon emissions globally, and the Indian steel industry accounts for 12 per cent of these emissions.
- The production of green steel minimises the usage of the popular coking coal, a major contributor to GHG emissions.
Government Initiatives to decarbonisation in the steel industry:
- Steel Scrap Recycling Policy, 2019:
- Steel Scrap Recycling Policy 2019 enhances the availability of domestically generated scrap to reduce coal consumption in steel making.
- National Green Hydrogen Mission:
- Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has announced National Green Hydrogen Mission for green hydrogen production and usage.
- The steel sector has also been made a stakeholder in the Mission.
- Motor Vehicles Scrapping Rules:
- Motor Vehicles (Registration and Functions of Vehicles Scrapping Facility) Rules September 2021 shall increase the availability of scrap in the steel sector
- National Solar Mission:
- National Solar Mission launched by MNRE in January 2010 promotes the use of solar energy. Also, it helps reduce the emission of the steel industry.
- NMEEEs PAT scheme:
- Under National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency(NMEEE), Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme incentivise the steel industry to reduce energy consumption.
- Best Available Technologies (BAT):
- The steel sector has adopted the Best Available Technologies (BAT) available globally in the modernisation & expansion projects.
- (NEDO) Model Project:
- Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) Model Projects for Energy Efficiency Improvement have been implemented in steel plants.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: PIB