India’s plans to ramp up coal-powered steelmaking capacity could impede the country’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, US-based research group Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said in a report on Tuesday, December 10.
“India’s ongoing investments in new coal-based steelmaking, coupled with a young fleet of emissions-intensive blast furnaces will jeopardise the country’s net zero by 2070 target and risk saddling the country with upwards of $187 billion in stranded assets,” GEM said in the report.
The additional blast furnace capacity could result in another 680 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions from India’s steel sector, it said.
India, the world’s second-biggest producer of crude steel, aims to reach a capacity of 300 million mt by 2030, up from the current 180 million mt.
India has the world’s largest pipeline of steelmaking capacity under development - projects that have been announced or are in the construction phase - totalling around 258 million mt per year, GEM said.
Steel producers in the world’s fastest-growing major economy generate 2.55 mt of carbon dioxide per mt of crude steel produced, 38 percent higher than the global average of 1.85 mt, it said. Currently, 85 percent of the energy used in the steel sector comes from coal, GEM said.
Steelmaking from coal-based blast furnaces accounts for 69 percent of steel capacity under various stages of development, compared with 13 percent from electric arc furnaces, it added.