Panelists at the Alacero 2021 conference discussed on Wednesday the challenges the Latin America steel industry is facing. Åsa Ekdahl, head of environment and climate change at worldsteel, said in a panel that steel companies could create partnerships with the local governments to aid sustainability projects.
Aditya Mittal, CEO at ArcelorMittal, said the decarbonization of the steel industry is an on-going and critical journey. “Climate is the biggest challenge this generation faces. It’s quite logical for the steel industry to focus on decarbonizing it. At the end of the day, all of us have to save the planet. Steel is a wonderful product, and we have to save it too. And decarbonizing it is the solution,” he said.
When asked about which technology routes would be the winners to make the steel industry cleaner, Mittal named three: smart carbon, innovative DRI processes and electrolysis, also known as electrolytic iron ore reduction.
“I think we are all in the beginning of this journey. Smart carbon is one of them, which is taking CO2 and converting it into bioethanol,” he said. Then, the industry could also develop innovative DRI products, he said.
“We announced projects in Spain, Belgium, to establish (innovative) DRI (processes). Electrolysis would be the third technology (route). This would be another way of making steel and decarbonizing the industry,” he said.