Mobilizing buyers to bring net-zero steel to market before 2030 demonstrates that demand signals from steel buyers to steel manufacturers can unlock investment decisions and bring forward the breakthrough technologies necessary for bringing net-zero primary steel to market.
The report was developed in close collaboration with industry leaders by the Energy Transitions Commission and Material Economics on behalf of the Mission Possible Partnership’s Net-Zero Steel Initiative and with the support of Breakthrough Energy. It provides guidance for critical stakeholders in major steel consuming sectors on how to actively participate in the commercialization of low-CO2 primary steel production technologies and seize the associated commercial opportunity in being leaders in supply chain decarbonization.
Decarbonizing steel is essential to reach net-zero climate targets by 2030 and beyond. The steel industry globally accounted for 2.6 Gt of direct CO2 emissions in 2019, representing about one-quarter of industrial CO2 emissions and 7% of total energy sector emissions (including process emissions). From wind turbines to electric vehicles, steel will be an integral enabler of the energy transition, although it is also a major part of the embodied carbon in many industrial products.
As the need to deliver deep emissions reductions becomes an increasing priority for steel producers and steel users, finding solutions to reduce their CO2 emissions in the short term and prepare for deeper cuts in the 2030s and 2040s is vital. Producing steel from iron-ore via low-CO2 (and eventually carbon-free) processes will be essential to reach voluntary and regulatory climate targets by 2030 and beyond. The challenge for the whole industry is to commercialize those technologies in the next decade and rapidly bring their cost down.
To read the full report, click here.
Courtesy of Energy Transitions Commission.