Jean-Pierre Birat

Educated at Ecole des Mines de Paris & UC Berkeley. Joined IRSID, now ArcelorMittal Research in 1991. Worked as solidification researcher, then took charge of research on steelmaking, environment, through-process modeling, socio-economic forecasting, climate change mitigation (ULCOS), etc. Author of 380 papers and communications. Recipient of many awards, like the Bessemer Gold Medal. Honorary Professor at USTB. Member of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, etc.

Presentation

Session: Resource-Efficient Process Industries

Resource Issues in the Steel Industry

Issues related to raw material resources in the steel sector are not related to scarcity, criticity or strategic accessibility, as iron ore and coal are abundant, but to prices, which express a lag between demand and supply.  European miners have been opening up new mines in Scandinavia, while Steel Producers are integrating vertically to feed their blast furnaces from their own mines, thus breaking the oligopoly of Major Miners.  Some alloying elements on the other hand may have become scarce and expensive, probably on a conjunctural basis.  The other major issues on resources are related to dematerialization ("do more with less") and to the need for more industrial organization of mining secondary raw material, either scrap or resources from waste.

Workshop: Cleaner Coal and Steel for a Sustainable Europe

Low-CO2 steelmaking

The Steel sector has been engaged, since 2004, in a large program to reduce the specific CO2 emission of steel production in integrated steel mills.  Supported by all the major steel companies in the EU and headed by ArcelorMittal, this ULCOS program has identified about 20 breakthrough process routes which achieve significant emissions cuts and four "ULCOS solutions", which bring this reduction to the level of 50% or more, compared to a present steel mill with high operating ratios;  The ULCOS-BF (for Blast Furance) is presently being scaled up on a commercial-size Blast Furnace and has applied as a candidate for an NER-300 full-chain CCS project, while HIsarna, an original carbon-lean smelting reduction process, is being tested on a large scale pilot of 8t/hr. A direct reduction solution and two electrolysis solutions complement this technology offer to cover all the spectrum of available reducing agents. Deployment of these solutions, subject to continuing technical success and to a constructive evolution of CO2 international policies, could take place form the 2020s.

 Resource Issues in the Steel Industry

 Cleaner Coal and Steel for a Sustainable Europe