16/12/2021 - Environment | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 3 years

KEY POINTS

· The steel industry contributes to roughly 9 per cent of the country’s total GHG emissions, which has to be mitigated substantially to achieve this target.

· The steel sector’s consumption of coal, emissions footprint and import dependency is set to increase manifold as the government plans to double India’s steel manufacturing capacity to 300 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by 2030.

· Green hydrogen, obtained from the splitting of water using solar and wind power, offers a cleaner alternative for producing steel. This can also help reduce the sector’s dependence on imports.

· green hydrogen can replace part of the existing fuel in coal and gas-based iron-making processes.

· Green hydrogen can potentially offset 15-20 per cent of energy consumption in blast furnaces

· The existing coal-based routes (blast furnace and rotary kiln) for iron production do not allow a complete transition to hydrogen.

· A recent study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) estimates that green hydrogen-based steel is 50-70 per cent more expensive than coal-based technologies.

· While the iron and steel manufacturing sectors are greenhouse gas emissions heavyweights, they can rely on the lightest element to phase down the use of coal and help us reach the net-zero goals.