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How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?

economist.com

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Re: How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?

#81

Post by shubb »

hilios wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, China's per capita emissions were, in 2018, ahead of Israel, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Denmark, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Portugal, Turkey, France, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Latvia, Romania...the list they're behind may be shorter [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

I think those numbers lump the emissions from goods produced in china and exported to other countries in with the emissions from domestic consumption. So they are inflated by China's vast exports. Yet even if you use consumption based emissions, China was around Spain's numbers in 2016 and by now probably has overtaken quite a few of the European countries.

China built a huge amount of infrastructure ranging from huge concrete cities to freeways and dams.

This infrastructure uses a lot of steel and concrete. It is not just an input for export goods - they are places for people to live.

Given that infrastructure building has set commodity prices for a decade, it wild be surprising if it wasn't the main part of thier emissions.

We can't begrudge Chinese, Indian and African people a modern way of life. Building that stuff emissions carbon. Its a difficult problem.

In a way trying to call a Chinese freeway an input emission for westbound exports is a moral cop-out.

Re: How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?

#82

Post by _hypx »

credit_guy wrote: post #79
throwaway5959 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a long enough time horizon wouldn’t it make sense for most steel to be recycled? I think we already get a lot of our aluminum from recycling.

But most steel is already being recycled, at least in the US, according to the US Geological Surveys [1] > Recycling rates, which fluctuate annually, were estimated to be 98% for structural steel from construction, 88% for appliances, 71% for rebar and reinforcement steel, and 70% for steel packaging. The recycling rates for appliance, can, and construction steel are expected to increase in the United States and in e…

That's not true globally. Only 40% of global steel supply is from recycled steel.

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/minin...

Re: How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?

#83

Post by credit_guy »

_hypx wrote: post #82
credit_guy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most steel is already being recycled, at least in the US, according to the US Geological Surveys [1] > Recycling rates, which fluctuate annually, were estimated to be 98% for structural steel from construction, 88% for appliances, 71% for rebar and reinforcement steel, and 70% for steel packaging. The recycling rates for appliance, can, and construction steel are expected to increase in the United States and in e…

That's not true globally. Only 40% of global steel supply is from recycled steel. https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/minin...

The following 2 statements can (and are) true simultaneously: 1. most steel is recycled 2. most produced steel comes from iron ore, and not from scrap steel.

Re: How fast can European steelmakers decarbonise?

#85

Post by hinkley »

quirk wrote: post #4

Just please don't decarbonize my swords. I need them for work.

This is either a joke or you don't know how your tools are made. I'm hoping it's the former.

The carbon in the steel serves two purposes. One, it alters the structure of the final steel. Too much, or too little and the metal doesn't behave right, so it's not fit for purpose. Two, it's a sacrificial reducer that keeps any stray oxygen from eating the metal during the heat and cool cycles (most of us call hot oxidation 'burning').

You're still going to need a little carbon to get the steel right and maybe to help catch a few stray oxygen atoms, but if you can heat the metal with something other than coal/charcoal, and you can provide another reducing agent, then you don't have to bathe the entire process in carbon. You'd just need enough to get the crystalline structure right, and perhaps a margin of error. And that sort of fraction could come from renewable resources.

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