Regional cooperation, public planning and funding capacity for new technologies will be key for the Latin American steel industry to deliver reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the long term, top executives and experts said in an event on Wednesday November 17.
Steel companies have accepted the need to change their production models, but several challenges are in the way of reducing the industry's carbon footprint.
The main challenge is the difficulty in creating a route to reduce iron ore without emitting carbon dioxide - which would require reinventing the way to create steel.
Different options are being studied, including a transition from coking coal to hydrogen as a steelmaking energy source, but biomass and higher-grade iron ore are also possible, executives said during the annual conference of Latin American steel association Alacero - or Alacero Summit 2021.
New technologies
Carbon capture would be a first alternative with coking coal continuing to be used, but biomass and hydrogen are currently being considered as reducing agents, the head of environment and climate change at the World Steel Association (Worldsteel), ?...sa Ekdahl, said in the conference.
"Although biomass has its own challenges, it can be...