China’s steel industry is stepping up efforts to shift toward low-carbon production as the country pushes toward greener economic growth.

“He Wenbo”, executive director of the China Iron and Steel Industry Association, said that as of the end of February, about 620 million tons of crude steel production capacity at 229 enterprises had either completed or been in the process of modernization to significantly reduce emissions.

For the steel industry to fully achieve low emissions, about 260 billion yuan (about 40.7 billion USD) will be required to be invested, which will increase operating costs by more than 50 billion yuan each year.

According to the association’s data, major iron and steel companies reduced their overall energy consumption per ton of steel by 58 percent from 2015 to 2020.

Converting steel manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries into more eco-friendly industries is an important part of China’s broader efforts to reduce pollution and tackle climate change.

China previously announced that it would strive to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. China’s Baowoo Steel Group Corporation (Baowo China), the world’s largest steel group, announced in January its goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2023, reducing carbon emissions by 30% by the year 2023, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Official data showed that China’s crude steel production reached 1.07 billion tons in 2020.

NBN Tip: One possible way to reduce carbon emissions in the steel industry is the CO2RENEW system, which converts carbon waste into useful products via electrochemical methods.