Tag: green steel

This year, for example, Mercedes Benz announced plans to “launch green steel in various vehicle models on the market as early as 2025”¹ in cooperation with a start-up. The aim is to save as much CO2 emissions as possible already during the production of the cars and their individual components instead of compensating them later on.

Volvo Cars presented its collaboration with a Swedish steelmaker to jointly develop fossil-free, high quality steel for use in the automotive industry².

In 2020, 78 million vehicles were manufactured

And looking at the high amount of steel used for car production, this might have a huge impact on the progress of green steel development:

2020 marks a crisis year in automotive manufacturing. Due to the pandemic, only 78 million vehicles were produced, a drop in production of 16 % compared to the previous year³.
On average, 900 kg of steel⁴ is used per vehicle, summing up to an amount of 70,2 million tonnes of steel for the automotive industry in 2020 alone. Assuming around 1.83 t of CO2 emissions per tonne of steel produced, the production of steel for automotive manufacturing alone causes 128.46 million t of CO2, not including logistics routes and assembly at the OEMs plants.

Therefore, the movement towards green – or at least greener – steel seems as a well-considered step that will sooner or later find imitators. Steel manufacturers supplying to the automotive industry should keep that in mind while having a closer look at their processes and also checking their reportings. 
There are smart solutions to support a smoother running and more efficient production with a reduction of yield losses, for example at casting and hot rolling operations, adding up to a better performance.  By integrating corresponding IIoT applications, production reporting can also be supported.

Ecological Footprint

Did you know, May 5th is Germany´s Overshoot Day? That means from January 1st until May 5th, German residents have -per person- used as much from nature as the planet is able to renew per person in the entire year. The dates are calculated by the Footprint Data Foundation, York University and Global Footprint Network.

A postponement of the date of Overshoot Day is possible: if we redesign our infrastructures, make processes significantly more resource-efficient, decarbonize energy systems, and bind CO2.

Decarbonizing the economy

The best possible chance to address climate change is to decarbonize the economy. This would also vastly improve the balance between our Ecological Footprint and the planet’s renewable resources.

More than 60 million tons CO2 equivalent are emitted by the German steel industry alone each year. The main amount of this results from the production of coke and the production of hot metal in the blast furnace.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from steel production, several large industry decarbonization projects have emerged all over Europe. So, Green Steel is the current topic No 1.

Due to varying systems, the concrete emission contingent of ancillary facilities is uncertain. Unquestionable is that they produce large volume of CO2, as well.
That is where our solutions step in to support a smoother running and more efficient production with a reduction of yield losses in the smelting, casting and hot rolling operations.

That´s mecorads contribution to a cleaner future.