The UK steel industry is heading towards a greener, carbon-neutral future, with industry bodies, businesses and universities coming together for a seven-year research programme looking at making the industry cleaner.
The programme, dubbed SUSTAIN, will be led by Swansea University in partnership with the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield, as well as over 20 companies and organisations from within the UK steel industry.
The programme has been touted as a way to give several boosts to an industry that has struggled in recent years. It has been touted as a way to increase jobs in the industry to 35,000, double the value of steelmaking in the UK and increase productivity by 15%.
Photo: Kateryna Babaieva/Pexels
SUSTAIN has two main focuses; zero waste and a goal of making the iron and steelmaking industry carbon-neutral by 2040, and innovation, with the aim of collecting industry data and using it to develop new metallurgical processes.
A press release from Swansea University said that this marks the first time that UK steel producers and manufacturing sector representatives have joined together for a coordinated approach.
“Steel is at the heart of UK manufacturing sectors such as the car industry, construction, packaging and defence,” said the release.
“It is an indispensable component of the UK’s future national infrastructure such as transport, communications and energy, and for high-tech 21st century industries, from energy-positive buildings to wind turbines and electric vehicles.”
The steelmaking industry accounted for 0.1% of the UK steelmaking industry in 2016 with a physical output of 8 million tonnes and an economic contribution of £1.6 billion. By contrast, China produced 808 million tonnes of steel in the same year.
Despite its small global footprint, the UK is the EU's fifth-largest steel producer, accounting for 5% of the bloc's steel output.
Steel is produced using iron ore imports from countries like Brazil and Australia.
Senior Research Analyst at Wood Mackenzie Alex Griffith highlighted the disparity in global response to dealing with the steel industry's carbon footprint.
“Responses differ and a coordinated clean-up seems unlikely,” he said.
“In China, air, soil and water pollution dominate the agenda. Production cuts, sintering restrictions and dust capturing equipment installation have resulted in some success in clearing up the Beijing skies.”
“In the EU, CO2 is at the forefront of concerns. The price of emissions permits is rising as the number of permits falls — meaning CO2 is eroding margins. Technologies to reduce CO2 emissions exist in principle but scalability means a transition to these technologies is not imminent. Even if scale could be achieved, adjusting would be costly and steelmakers fear competition from regions with laxer CO2 emission standards. Steelmakers across the EU have looked to public money for help.”
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