A bottom-up analysis of China’s iron and steel industrial energy consumption and CO₂ emissions

Highlights: • This paper analyses future steel demand and steel scrap consumption through bottom-up analysis. • Steel scrap consumption is analyzed individually by different sources. • Steel consumption and energy consumption will peak at around 2020 and 2015 respectively. • Energy intensity and CO₂ intensity of steel production will decrease obviously in the future. • Energy efficiency improvement and structural change will play different roles in near- and long-term CO₂ mitigations. - Abstract: China’s steel industry has grown significantly since the mid-1990s, and has been the backbone of Chinese heavy industry. It is also the most energy intensive industrial sector in China, accounting for 16.1% of total energy consumption in 2010. To assess energy consumption and CO₂ emissions from China’s steel industry, a system dynamics model and a bottom-up energy system model-TIMES (The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System) were used to analyze steel demand, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions from China’s iron and steel industry from 2010 to 2050. The model results suggest that steel production in China will rise from 627 Mt in 2010, to a peak of 772 Mt in 2020, and then gradually decrease to 527 Mt in 2050. The share of Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel production will also increase significantly from 9.8% in 2010, to 45.6% in 2050. With the deployment of energy conservation technologies, such as Coke Dry Quenching, exhaust gas and heat recovery equipment, energy intensity and CO₂ intensity of steel production will keep decreasing during the modeling period. In the near future, reductions in energy intensity and CO₂ intensity will rely more on energy efficiency improvements; however, from a long-term perspective, structural change-the increasing share of EAF steel production, will be of great significance