Supporting defossilization of the metallurgy sector with bio-coal and green hydrogen: A CO2 emissions assessment

Metallurgy is recognized worldwide as a strategic sector and steel can be used in many areas, from construction, packaging and transportation to the development of renewable energy plants. It is therefore expected that the demand for steel will continue to grow globally. However, the steel sector is the second largest consumer of industrial energy and heavily dependent on the use of fossil fuels. Therefore, much attention is placed on understanding what improvements are possible to reduce the GHG emissions, although the situation in the steel sector is very heterogeneous due to the complexity of the industrial process and the different configurations. Recently, the production of green hydrogen has gained increasing attention as a clean energy vector which could replace fossil fuels in steel plants, and the process of biomethane pyrolysis is gaining momentum for the simultaneous production of green hydrogen and biogenic coal, without causing additional fossil CO2 emissions. Based on European projections for biomethane availability until 2030 and 2050, the findings of this analysis confirm the potential contribution of biomethane to support the defossilization of the EU steel sector, ensuring annual climate emission savings from 77.4 to 285.2 MtCO2, depending on the scenario considered, if the methane pyrolysis route is implemented. This paper assesses the environmental benefits of replacing fossil coal and natural gas with renewable alternatives, while also discussing the economic viability enabled by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) mechanism.