Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - JFE Steel, Japan's No. 2 steelmaker, is thinking about replacing its No. 2 blast furnace at its Kuras...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - JFE Steel, Japan's No. 2 steelmaker, is thinking about replacing its No. 2 blast furnace at its Kurashiki plant in western Japan with a new electric arc furnace (EAF) to cut down on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a company spokesperson said Monday.
Steelmakers all over the world are under pressure to cut their CO2 emissions in order to stop climate change.
A spokesperson for JFE Steel said that the company is looking into the possibility of building an EAF that can cut CO2 emissions to a quarter of what a blast furnace does. This would happen between 2027 and 2030, when the No. 2 unit will need to be fixed up.
Every 20 to 25 years, blast furnaces need to be fixed up.
JFE Steel, which is part of JFE Holdings Inc, has eight blast furnaces in Japan, three of which are in Kurashiki. However, it plans to close one in eastern Japan in March 2024.
"Even if we replace one of the blast furnaces with an EAF, we plan to keep our annual crude steel output at 26 million tonnes," the spokesperson said.
Japanese steelmakers, like Nippon Steel Corp, have been cutting back on production because of a drop in demand caused by Japan's shrinking population and growing competition from China, which is the world's largest steel producer.
The business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun said on Saturday that JFE may have to spend at least a few tens of billions of yen on the new furnace. However, a company spokesperson said that no investment plan has been made yet because the company just decided last week to start thinking about an EAF at Kurashiki.
Wood Mackenzie, a consulting firm, said in May that CO2 emissions from the world's steel industry will drop by 30% by 2050 compared to 2021 as more mills switch to electric furnaces that pollute less.
They think that by 2050, about 48% of the world's crude steel will be made in electric arc furnaces. This is up from 30% in 2021 and almost the same as making steel in a blast furnace.
