Current situation of energy consumption and measures taken for energy saving in the iron and steel industry in China

A survey of the key issues associated with the development in the Chinese iron and steel industry and current situations of energy consumption are described in this paper. The apparent production of crude steel in China expanded to 418.78 million tonnes in 2006, which was about 34% share of the world steel production. The iron and steel industry in China is still one of the major high energy consumption and high pollution industries, which accounts for the consumption of about 15.2% of the national total energy, and generation of 14% of the national total wastewater and waste gas and 6% of the total solid waste materials. The average energy consumption per unit of steel is about 20% higher than that of other advanced countries due to its low energy utilization efficiency. However, the energy efficiency of the iron and steel industry in China has made significant improvement in the past few years and significant energy savings will be achieved in the future by optimizing end-use energy utilization. Finally, some measures for the industry in terms of the economic policy of China's 11th five-year plan are also presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved