ArcelorMittal Europe has announced details of how it plans to become carbon neutral by 2050 in its first climate action report. Building on the company’s work that has demonstrated that the steelmaking process can become carbon neutral, the report publishes details of the ground-breaking work underway to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030 before reaching net zero in 2050.
The company is pioneering two breakthrough carbon-neutral routes for steelmaking: Smart Carbon, and an innovative DRI-based route.
Smart Carbon is a carbon-neutral steelmaking route that leverages all clean energies – circular carbon, clean electricity and carbon capture and storage (CCS) – within the high temperature-controlled reduction environment of ironmaking. In its first phase, Smart Carbon will primarily use circular carbon.
Reaching carbon-neutral steelmaking via DRI involves moving from using predominantly natural gas, to hydrogen as the key reductant in ironmaking. As this hydrogen becomes ‘green’, the steelmaking process comes close to carbon neutrality.
While both the Smart Carbon route and the DRI-based route have the potential to deliver carbon -neutral steel by 2050, the important difference between the two routes is that Smart Carbon can deliver results sooner, through its use of complementary technologies which enable incremental progress. Uniquely, Smart Carbon has the potential not only to provide carbon-neutral steel, but also carbon-neutral cement, and the building blocks to make recycled carbon materials to replace polyethylene-based plastics. Smart Carbon can also contribute to CO2 removal, through the increased use of circular carbon, using sustainable biomass and waste, combined with scaling up CCS.
Press Release Courtesy of ArcelorMittal.