Energy Situation in Steelworks

Abstract

The iron and steel industry, most representative of heavy industry, is the largest energy consuming industry, accounting for about 13% of the nation' s total energy consumption. Approximately 80% of this 13% is consumued by integrated steelworks, which are supplied with energy virtually in the form of coal alone.
New processes such as the smelting reduction process for supplementing iron production by the blast furnace process, the semi-solid process and the near net shape continuous casting process for process elimination and quality improvement are being developed today, and the commercialization of some of them is anticipated in the year 2001.
In the iron and steel industry, restructuring has been rigorously under way for the consolidation of production equipment and facilities as a measure to cope with the present high value of the yen agaist other currencies. The socioeconomic situation both outside and inside Japan will continue to change, but the annual crude steel production and the ratio of converter steel to electric-furnace steel produced can be expected to remain generally the same at the beginning of the 21st century as today. Energy consumption by the iron and steel industry then will be about the same as forecast for the year 2000 in the “Energy Vision of The Iron and Steel Industry for The 21st Century” published in the autumn of 1986 by the Japan Iron & Steel Federation, which is some 8% of the nation' s energy consumption, a decrease of about 4% from the current level.
As the smelting reduction process can be operated in such a way as to supply out of the system large volumes of by-product gas produced from steam coal and low quality coal used in the prosess, the iron and steel industry, if all regulations allow, can become an energy-upply industry and thus play a role pertinent to the coming multiple energies era.