IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v298y2021ics0306261921006334.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decarbonizing China’s iron and steel industry from the supply and demand sides for carbon neutrality

Author

Listed:
  • Ren, Ming
  • Lu, Pantao
  • Liu, Xiaorui
  • Hossain, M.S.
  • Fang, Yanru
  • Hanaoka, Tatsuya
  • O'Gallachoir, Brian
  • Glynn, James
  • Dai, Hancheng

Abstract

Iron and steel production in China contributes to 14% of China’s total energy-related CO2 emissions. Decarbonizing the iron and steel sector will therefore play an important role in achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. This study explored possible low-carbon transition pathways for China’s iron and steel industry to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. An integrated approach was developed that combined a computable general equilibrium model and a bottom-up technology-selection module. The results indicated that although energy-saving technologies can reduce CO2 emissions in the short term, in the long term, adopting breakthrough technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen-based direct reduction (DR)), increasing the share of scrap-based electric arc furnace (EAF) steel production, and decarbonizing upstream energy-supply sectors will be crucial for climate change mitigation. Hydrogen-based DR could be an effective option for CO2 emission reduction in scenarios where CCS is not available, with its share increasing to 23%–25% by 2050. System-wide cross-sector decarbonization can help achieve climate targets at lower costs through flexible technology combinations and avoid carbon leakage into upstream energy-supply sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ren, Ming & Lu, Pantao & Liu, Xiaorui & Hossain, M.S. & Fang, Yanru & Hanaoka, Tatsuya & O'Gallachoir, Brian & Glynn, James & Dai, Hancheng, 2021. "Decarbonizing China’s iron and steel industry from the supply and demand sides for carbon neutrality," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:298:y:2021:i:c:s0306261921006334
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921006334
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117209?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel L. Sanchez & James H. Nelson & Josiah Johnston & Ana Mileva & Daniel M. Kammen, 2015. "Biomass enables the transition to a carbon-negative power system across western North America," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 230-234, March.
    2. Wang, Yihan & Wen, Zongguo & Yao, Jianguo & Doh Dinga, Christian, 2020. "Multi-objective optimization of synergic energy conservation and CO2 emission reduction in China's iron and steel industry under uncertainty," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Xue, Shuai & Lewandowski, Iris & Wang, Xiaoyu & Yi, Zili, 2016. "Assessment of the production potentials of Miscanthus on marginal land in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 932-943.
    4. Zhihui Li & Xiangzheng Deng & Xi Chu & Gui Jin & Wei Qi, 2019. "An Outlook on the Biomass Energy Development Out to 2100 in China," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 1359-1377, December.
    5. Dai, Hancheng & Xie, Yang & Liu, Jingyu & Masui, Toshihiko, 2018. "Aligning renewable energy targets with carbon emissions trading to achieve China's INDCs: A general equilibrium assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 4121-4131.
    6. An, Runying & Yu, Biying & Li, Ru & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2018. "Potential of energy savings and CO2 emission reduction in China’s iron and steel industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 862-880.
    7. Li, Ying & Lukszo, Zofia & Weijnen, Margot, 2015. "The implications of CO2 price for China’s power sector decarbonization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 53-64.
    8. Zhang, Runsen & Fujimori, Shinichiro & Dai, Hancheng & Hanaoka, Tatsuya, 2018. "Contribution of the transport sector to climate change mitigation: Insights from a global passenger transport model coupled with a computable general equilibrium model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 76-88.
    9. Carlo Mari, 2018. "CO 2 Price Volatility Effects on Optimal Power System Portfolios," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, July.
    10. Wübbeke, Jost & Heroth, Timo, 2014. "Challenges and political solutions for steel recycling in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-7.
    11. Zhu Liu & Dabo Guan & Wei Wei & Steven J. Davis & Philippe Ciais & Jin Bai & Shushi Peng & Qiang Zhang & Klaus Hubacek & Gregg Marland & Robert J. Andres & Douglas Crawford-Brown & Jintai Lin & Hongya, 2015. "Reduced carbon emission estimates from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in China," Nature, Nature, vol. 524(7565), pages 335-338, August.
    12. Griffin, Paul W. & Hammond, Geoffrey P., 2019. "Industrial energy use and carbon emissions reduction in the iron and steel sector: A UK perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C), pages 109-125.
    13. Dai, Hancheng & Silva Herran, Diego & Fujimori, Shinichiro & Masui, Toshihiko, 2016. "Key factors affecting long-term penetration of global onshore wind energy integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 19-30.
    14. Pardo, Nicolás & Moya, José Antonio, 2013. "Prospective scenarios on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in the European Iron & Steel industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 113-128.
    15. Wang, Yihan & Chen, Chen & Tao, Yuan & Wen, Zongguo & Chen, Bin & Zhang, Hong, 2019. "A many-objective optimization of industrial environmental management using NSGA-III: A case of China’s iron and steel industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 46-56.
    16. Zhang, Shaohui & Worrell, Ernst & Crijns-Graus, Wina & Wagner, Fabian & Cofala, Janusz, 2014. "Co-benefits of energy efficiency improvement and air pollution abatement in the Chinese iron and steel industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 333-345.
    17. Chen, Wenying & Yin, Xiang & Ma, Ding, 2014. "A bottom-up analysis of China’s iron and steel industrial energy consumption and CO2 emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1174-1183.
    18. Quader, M. Abdul & Ahmed, Shamsuddin & Ghazilla, Raja Ariffin Raja & Ahmed, Shameem & Dahari, Mahidzal, 2015. "A comprehensive review on energy efficient CO2 breakthrough technologies for sustainable green iron and steel manufacturing," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 594-614.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Yibo & Li, Juan & Sun, Mei & Guo, Yanzi & Cheng, Faxin & Gao, Cuixia, 2024. "Analysis of carbon neutrality technology path selection in the steel industry under policy incentives," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    2. Wang, Xiaoyang & Yu, Biying & An, Runying & Sun, Feihu & Xu, Shuo, 2022. "An integrated analysis of China’s iron and steel industry towards carbon neutrality," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    3. Skoczkowski, Tadeusz & Verdolini, Elena & Bielecki, Sławomir & Kochański, Max & Korczak, Katarzyna & Węglarz, Arkadiusz, 2020. "Technology innovation system analysis of decarbonisation options in the EU steel industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Sinha, Rakesh Kumar & Chaturvedi, Nitin Dutt, 2019. "A review on carbon emission reduction in industries and planning emission limits," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Xu, Bin & Lin, Boqiang, 2016. "Regional differences in the CO2 emissions of China's iron and steel industry: Regional heterogeneity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 422-434.
    6. Haoyue Tang & Ping Jiang & Jia He & Weichun Ma, 2020. "Synergies of Cutting Air Pollutants and CO 2 Emissions by the End-of-Pipe Treatment Facilities in a Typical Chinese Integrated Steel Plant," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-23, June.
    7. Wang, Yihan & Chen, Chen & Tao, Yuan & Wen, Zongguo & Chen, Bin & Zhang, Hong, 2019. "A many-objective optimization of industrial environmental management using NSGA-III: A case of China’s iron and steel industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 46-56.
    8. Liu, Yang & Zhang, Congrui & Xu, Xiaochuan & Ge, Yongxiang & Ren, Gaofeng, 2022. "Assessment of energy conservation potential and cost in open-pit metal mines: Bottom-up approach integrated energy conservation supply curve and ultimate pit limit," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Doh Dinga, Christian & Wen, Zongguo, 2021. "Many-objective optimization of energy conservation and emission reduction in China’s cement industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    10. Xu, Bin & Lin, Boqiang, 2016. "Assessing CO2 emissions in China’s iron and steel industry: A dynamic vector autoregression model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 375-386.
    11. He, Kun & Wang, Li, 2017. "A review of energy use and energy-efficient technologies for the iron and steel industry," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1022-1039.
    12. Hongtao Ren & Wenji Zhou & Marek Makowski & Shaohui Zhang & Yadong Yu & Tieju Ma, 2023. "A multi-criteria decision support model for adopting energy efficiency technologies in the iron and steel industry," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(2), pages 1111-1132, June.
    13. Yang, Honghua & Ma, Linwei & Li, Zheng, 2023. "Tracing China's steel use from steel flows in the production system to steel footprints in the consumption system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    14. An, Runying & Yu, Biying & Li, Ru & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2018. "Potential of energy savings and CO2 emission reduction in China’s iron and steel industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 862-880.
    15. Song, Weiming & Zhou, Jianan & Li, Yujie & Yang, Jian & Cheng, Rijin, 2021. "New technology for producing high-quality combustible gas by high-temperature reaction of dust-removal coke powder in mixed atmosphere," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    16. Shao, Tianming & Pan, Xunzhang & Li, Xiang & Zhou, Sheng & Zhang, Shu & Chen, Wenying, 2022. "China's industrial decarbonization in the context of carbon neutrality: A sub-sectoral analysis based on integrated modelling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    17. Wang, Peng & Li, Wen & Kara, Sami, 2017. "Cradle-to-cradle modeling of the future steel flow in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 117(PA), pages 45-57.
    18. Ma, Ding & Chen, Wenying & Yin, Xiang & Wang, Lining, 2016. "Quantifying the co-benefits of decarbonisation in China’s steel sector: An integrated assessment approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1225-1237.
    19. Zhang, Hanxin & Sun, Wenqiang & Li, Weidong & Ma, Guangyu, 2022. "A carbon flow tracing and carbon accounting method for exploring CO2 emissions of the iron and steel industry: An integrated material–energy–carbon hub," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    20. Stefan Nabernegg & Birgit Bednar-Friedl & Fabian Wagner & Thomas Schinko & Janusz Cofala & Yadira Mori Clement, 2017. "The Deployment of Low Carbon Technologies in Energy Intensive Industries: A Macroeconomic Analysis for Europe, China and India," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-26, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:298:y:2021:i:c:s0306261921006334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.