Tayfun Kocabaş, the director of operational excellence at Erdemir, at the SteelOrbis Italy Forum 2024, held in Milan on October 8 talked about Erdemir’s net zero carbon roadmap, envisaging a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2040 and finally reaching net zero emissions by 2050. He pointed out that this long road map is related to technological developments and their application in the industry.
The Erdemir representative explained that the main source of the carbon, which is about 84 percent, comes from coal and the rest consists of different carbon content materials such as natural gas, electricity and those other materials used during production. Mr. Kocabaş said that Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions should be prioritized. Another big investment is the solar power plants to be built in southeastern Turkey, which is the biggest investment announced in Turkey in this area. These investments will affect Erdemir’s Scope 2 emissions, he noted. Other energy efficiency projects that are currently ongoing are the turbo generators, coke dry quenching systems and also the steam boilers, which will provide some improvements in the company’s energy efficiency and account for about a three percent carbon reduction.
Despite the green efforts in the industry, Kocabaş said some of the blast furnaces in the industry should remain in operation because they have an economic life, while some blast furnaces are still in the early stages of their lifecycle. He went on to say that they have been following the technologies of carbon capture and storage as well and with the emerging technologies in those areas the emissions that cannot be avoided during the process are expected to be captured and stored in a way without harming nature.