Advertisement
Macroscope | Is green hydrogen China’s answer to steel mill carbon emissions?
- Major steelmakers are adopting green hydrogen, setting up expensive experiments and pilot facilities
- However, to scale up its production and use, government support will be crucial
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Last year was China’s second-hottest year on average, according to the country’s annual climate bulletin released earlier this month. Average temperatures last spring, summer and autumn were the highest since records began.
Advertisement
Releasing the report, National Climate Centre deputy director Jia Xiaolong stressed the importance of remaining alert to “low-probability, high-impact” climate events – such as the 2013 heatwave that pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in at least 40 Chinese cities and counties.
There is no plausible path to mitigating climate change without China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, reducing its carbon footprint. And among China’s major economic drivers, few play a more critical role in the country’s decarbonisation efforts than its steel sector.
Steelmaking contributes around 17 per cent of China’s annual emissions, second only to power generation. Baowu Steel Group alone – the world’s largest steel producer – put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than Pakistan in 2020.
There are three main options for China’s steelmakers to clean up their businesses. First, they could replace traditional, coal-based blast furnaces with electric arc furnaces (EAFs), which use high-quality steel scrap and can run on renewable electricity, making it a more environmentally friendly undertaking.
Advertisement
The challenge for steelmakers, however, is that the more prevalent this method of production becomes, the higher the demand for high-quality scrap, which is only available in certain regions to begin with, driving up the cost of steel production.
Advertisement