By Peter Roberts
Just as the domestic electricity grid is making quick progress towards decarbonisation, so too are industrial processes such as steelmaking.
Australia’s two primary steelmakers have taken different courses in moving towards lower carbon iron and steels.
The GFG Alliance at Whyalla is moving from reliance on blast furnace technology towards a combination of direct reduced iron produced using green hydrogen and an electric arc furnace.
BlueScope Steel at the Port Kembla steelworks is more cautious, and is currently relining the mothballed Blast Furnace No 6, condemning it to traditional – and polluting – steelmaking for longer.
Now the wisdom of BlueScope’s caution has been questioned in Global Energy Monitor’s (GEM) annual report on the industry launched yesterday.
The report authors warned that BlueScope could be left behind in the global race towards low emissions steel.
The report shows 93 percent of new steelmaking capacity announced from March 2023 to March 2024 follows the lower emissions electric arc furnace production route.
EAF steelmaking now accounts for 49 percent of all capacity in development in GEM’s Global Steel Plant Tracker, up from 43 percent in 2022-23 and 33 percent in 2021-2022.
Still BlueScope is in good company – of all projects that have actually begun construction, nearly 46 percent are set to use coal-based basic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology.
However looking to the world’s largest steelmaker – China – the country did not permit a single coal-based steelmaking project in the first half of 2024.
The Program Director for Heavy Industry at Global Energy Monitor Caitlin Swalec said: “Never before has this much lower-emissions steelmaking been in the pipeline.
“At the same time, the buildout of coal-based capacity is concerning. What the industry needs now is to make these clean development plans a reality, while backing away from coal-based developments.”
However the sting is in the tail for BlueScope
“This report is a warning for Australia’s biggest steel maker Bluescope that as demand for low emissions steel grows, Australia may find itself importing clean steel from other countries because Bluescope has committed itself to upgrading it’s blast furnace and locking in coal based dirty steel making for decades to come.
“For a country so blessed in renewable energy potential as well as iron ore, it would be an absurd situation for Australia to be importing clean steel instead of exporting it.”
Further reading:
Whyalla steelworks continues transition away from coal
BlueScope moves slowly to decarbonise Port Kembla
Picture: BlueScope