Energy and climate change

Carbon emissions

Carbon dioxide is a natural by-product of the steel-making process. Carbon, in the form of coke and coal, is used as a chemical reductant in the blast furnace to reduce iron oxide to iron. This turns the carbon into carbon dioxide. Of course, we also use energy in our operations which results in further emissions of carbon dioxide. As this is an important greenhouse gas, we take our commitment to reducing our emissions very seriously.

Our high level goal is to reduce our carbon intensity of steelmaking by 20% by 2020, compared to 1997 levels. This means that we have set ourselves a target for carbon intensity of steel-making of 1.9 tonnes (CO₂) per tonne of steel by 2015 and 1.7 tonnes (CO₂) per tonne of steel by 2020. We measure our CO₂ intensity according to the World Steel Association methodology and report for the Tata Steel Group. Changes in configuration since we started monitoring have adversely affected our carbon intensity, but we are still committed to our 2020 target.

In 2010/11, our CO₂ intensity was 2.15 tonnes (CO₂) per tonne of steel. Despite investments in energy efficiency, this is the same as the previous year, due to changes in configuration which have counteracted our efficiency measures. The average carbon dioxide emissions performance of our steel-making sites is in the top 25% of the global steel industry, according to the latest worldsteel benchmarking data.

Energy efficiency

Apart from carbon dioxide emitted from the steel-making process, as with any other industrial operation, we use energy for a variety of needs and this has an associated degree of carbon emissions. Each of our steelmaking sites has established a dedicated energy optimisation resource, and a central team supports the experts at all of our sites worldwide.

In April 2010 we commissioned a £60m energy efficiency scheme at our Port Talbot site in the UK, involving the capture and reuse of gas from the BOS plant. This is shortly to be followed up by a £50m scheme to re-use waste heat on the same site.

A comprehensive energy efficiency programme was introduced at our IJmuiden site in the Netherlands with the assistance of specialist consultants. The intensive programme has already identified €35 million (US$47 million) of energy savings per year (achievable by 2014/15) and work will continue to cover the entire site. We have signed a voluntary agreement with the Dutch government to achieve a year-on-year improvement in energy efficiency of two per cent, including downstream product life cycle benefits, through both our processes and products.

In 2010, we improved our energy efficiency at IJmuiden by four per cent compared to 2008. Meanwhile, in the UK, our absolute energy consumption during 2010/11 was some 46 per cent lower than during 1997

The Future

We are a leading member of ULCOS (Ultra-Low CO₂ Steelmaking) – a pioneering partnership of 48 companies and organisations from 15 European countries that recently completed the first phase of a cooperative research initiative to achieve a step change in CO₂ emissions from steel-making. The ultimate and ambitious aim of the ULCOS project, which began in 2004 and is supported by the European Commission, is to reduce CO₂ emissions per tonne of steel produced by at least 50 per cent by 2050.

In 2010, as a part of the ULCOS project, we built a €20 million HIsarna pilot plant at our IJmuiden steelworks in the Netherlands. HIsarna is a revolutionary cyclone converter-based iron-making process, directly converting iron ore and coal into iron, without any pre-treatment of the ore and coal. The new technology could reduce CO₂ emissions by 20 per cent compared to conventional ironmaking. In combination with carbon capture and storage techniques, CO₂ reductions of up to 70 per cent should be possible.