Assessment of Bioenergy as a CO2 Emission Reduction Strategy for European Iron and Steelmaking

Within the EU, primary steelmaking via Blast Furnace-Basic Oxygen Furnace (BF-BOF) route takes place across 30 integrated steel plants. Such process is highly energy and emission intensive, which classifies these plants as one of the largest single-point CO2 emitters and puts them under high pressure for significant decarbonisation. A potential strategy for instant emission reduction is partial-substitution of coal-based fuels, used in the process, by bio-based fuels. The aim of this project is to assess whether the use of limited biomass resources for this purpose is a strategic decision for the European iron and steel industry and identify barriers hindering such fuel switching. Using sophisticated techno-economic models, this work identifies the potential CO2 emission savings, compares opportunities for biomass deployment across the individual plants and defines the required carbon price to enhance its economic viability. The results show bioenergy can reduce up to 40 % of on-site CO2 emissions in total, where any further reduction is limited by the technical viability rather than biomass availability. However, bioenergy emission reduction potential could be further enhanced by its deployment with CCS (as bio-CCS). As the bio-CCS technology depends on biomass as well as CCS aspects, plants which present prominent opportunities for biomass integration are not necessarily the plants that stand out for the bio-CCS deployment and vice versa. In general, plants in France present an outstanding opportunities for biomass, followed by plants in Sweden and Finland. Overall, bioenergy use in European iron and steel plants could help to meet the industry’s CO2 emission targets set for the near future, but other technologies or its deployment with CCS would be necessary to meet the strict targets set for 2050