The steel industry is a basic industry supporting the national economy and an industrial sector with the largest carbon emissions in the manufacturing industry. Its green and low-carbon transformation is of great significance.
This year, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments issued the "Special Action Plan for Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction in the Steel Industry", which regards "increasing the proportion of short-process electric furnace steelmaking" as an important measure to promote the green and low-carbon development of the steel industry, and proposes that "by the end of 2025, the utilization of scrap steel will reach 300 million tons, and the proportion of electric furnace steel production in the total crude steel production will strive to increase to 15%".
What is short-process electric furnace steelmaking? In the steel industry, there are two main smelting processes. One is the "blast furnace-converter" long-process steelmaking with iron ore as the main raw material, commonly known as converter steel, and the other is the short-process electric furnace steelmaking with scrap steel as the main raw material, commonly known as electric furnace steel. Unlike long-process steelmaking, the main raw material for short-process electric furnace steelmaking is scrap steel, and the process omits coking, sintering, blast furnace ironmaking and other relatively high pollution, energy consumption and carbon emissions.
