Phasing out the blast furnace to meet global climate targets

2021/10/01 by Valentin Vogl, Olle Olsson, Björn Nykvist · 1 voice · 2 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Blast furnace #Business #Climate change mitigation #Economics #Engineering #Environmental Impact and Sustainability #Environmental economics #Environmental science #Extraction and Separation Processes #Greenhouse gas #Industrial production #International trade #Investment (military) #Iron and Steelmaking Processes #Natural resource economics #Politics #Production (economics) #Safeguard

paper · doi:10.1016/j.joule.2021.09.007

openalex publication_date 2021/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/18

Abstract

Iron and steel production is responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier literature finds that the long economic life of steel production equipment impedes decarbonization in line with climate targets. Here, we estimate the cumulative emissions from existing primary steel production equipment if operated as historically observed, based on furnace-level data of historical operating patterns. We find that the emissions commitment of current primary steel equipment is significantly smaller (21 Gt CO 2 eq) than previously suggested (52–65 Gt CO 2 eq). Consequently, we argue that future emissions from steel are driven not by long-lived capital but by the deployment pace of novel technologies and renewable energy provision, and a reduction of steel and energy demand. Without rapid progress in these aspects, the operation of current steel production equipment is likely to consume significant amounts of the remaining carbon budget. We recommend monitoring of emission-intensive asset aging and regulation of their operation.

Citations

• Carbon Lock-In: Types, Causes, and Policy Implications
• Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C
• Discourses of climate delay
• Efficiency stagnation in global steel production urges joint supply- and demand-side mitigation efforts

Cited by

• Factors and actions for the sustainability of the residential sector. The nexus of energy, materials, space, and time use
• Technologies and gaps in deep decarbonization of hard-to-abate industrial sectors

Discussions

• Not the first time I see this figure but still amazed at the crazy increase of steel capacity in China from 2000 on (committing emissions for decades) Source: Vogl et al 2021 doi.org/10.1016/j.jo... [bsky, 0 points, 2 comments]

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