In a new report sponsored by its Industrial Technologies Program (ITP), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) identified the U.S. steel industry as the world leader in achieving the lowest energy intensity per ton of steel produced as compared to steel industries in other nations. The U.S. ranked as the second-lowest in terms of CO2 emissions per ton of steel produced, behind only South Korea. The report, “Meeting Energy Efficiency and Emissions Reduction Goals in the U.S. Steel Industry: A Need for Breakthrough Production Technologies,” was released in late March by the DOE.
The report also concludes that “the U.S. steel industry has almost fully achieved the energy efficiency and carbon emission reductions that can be obtained using today’s best available technologies. Additional breakthrough steelmaking technologies and processes will be needed to achieve proposed domestic and global policy goals for energy efficiency and carbon emission reductions.”