John Brett: Reflection 03

March/April 2019 Vol. 12, No. 2 No. 12, Vol. 2019 March/April ArcelorMittal USA 1 Company 1 Community1 Company 1 Magazine 03 John Brett: Reflection and assessment 04 05 06 08 Driving value OEMs adore the door ring Investing in the future Bringing dead cars back to life ArcelorMittal is innovating Collaboration with Honda Meeting the demands Some new models are old unique steel solutions enhances safety of automotive favorites Mary Beth Holdford Jolice Pojeta Kelly Nissan Shira Cohen 2 1 Company 1 Community 1 Magazine 1 | ArcelorMittal USA | March/April 2019 > Global News Steel and the circular economy: building a better life for all In the first of a two-part series, Carl de Mare, head of technology strategy at ArcelorMittal, explains steel’s role in creating a low-carbon, circular economy that works for everyone. Meeting this epic challenge, he argues, is twofold: to support a sustainable improvement in living standards for everyone in the world by ‘banking’ a steel inventory we can draw from in perpetuity, while collaborating across industries to decarbonize the global economy. In a world increasingly divided make all sorts of products, from objective must be to ensure that to reduce CO2 emissions in this by adding carbon, traditionally note – we are not burning by protectionism and populism, paperclips to smartphones, which everyone alive can enjoy the kind the region. Although this looks in the form of coal. This combina- any carbon, only using it for a it was no accident the United improve our standard of living. of lifestyle we have in the West. attractive from a local point of tion at high temperature causes a chemical reaction and even Nations chose the following In fact, finding a product with The question then is, in developed view, from a global perspective, it chemical reaction that is a bit like then, our processes are so finely theme for its annual general which uses no steel at all is quite economies, how much steel is in is illogical. Any scrap not exported cutting in on a couple at a dance. balanced that we are within assembly in 2018: global a challenge! our houses, our transportation to developing countries will need The carbon gets between the 5 percent of the theoretical leadership and shared responsibili- Steel is also infinitely and methods, our factories? to be compensated by more oxygen molecules and the iron minimum for that reaction to ties for peaceful, equitable and easily recyclable, using electricity, The answer is, rather a lot. primary steel production in those ore, pairing itself up with oxygen take place. Instead, the green- sustainable societies. The theme which makes it a very environmen- In fact, when we consider an regions. Environmental regulations molecules to form CO and CO2, house gas emissions are created reflected the increasing impor- tally friendly product too. It is also entire country’s infrastructure, in there may well be less stringent leaving the iron on its own. In when the oxygen molecules leave tance of the UN’s Sustainable a greenhouse gas friendly material the developed world it averages than those in Europe, potentially the same moment, the chemical the iron ore for the carbon. Development Goals (SDGs), which on a lifecycle basis – despite the out at about 10 metric tons of increasing global CO2 emissions reaction also produces several Theoretically, there are other are the blueprint to achieving attention our CO2 emissions get. In steel per capita. Meanwhile, the rather than curbing them. by-products. These are: heat ways to make this reaction happen a better and more sustainable fact, according to WorldAutoSteel, world average is about four and Steel demand growth (used to melt the added steel without using carbon, such as future for all by 2030. They primary steel manufacture emits a half metric tons per person. forecasts expect global steel scrap), gases which we predomi- using electricity or hydrogen and address the global challenges seven to 20 times less emissions Why so low? Because much of production to increase from nantly capture and transfer we are exploring how we might we face, including those related per kilogram of material than the world’s population lives in 1.4 billion metric tons a year in to power plants for energy make such steelmaking methods to poverty, inequality, climate, equivalent automotive parts the developing world, where 2010 to 2.5 - 2.7 billion metric generation, and slag, consisting viable on a commercial scale. environmental degradation, made of aluminum, magnesium the kind of infrastructure we tons in 2070. Those forecasts mostly of limestone (CaO) and The challenge we face with these prosperity, and peace and justice. and carbon fiber. might take for granted is rare. also expect it will take until the silica (SiO2), which makes an ideal routes is that they are less energy To achieve these goals, the This is not, of course, to Developing nations have, on last quarter of the century before CO2 -free cement substitute. efficient and would require vast world will need to create an trivialize the scale of our industry average, about two metric tons steel made from scrap tips the By adopting a circular amounts of renewable electricity. economy that works for everyone or its carbon challenge. I am the of steel in use per person. balance in its favor, by volume. economy approach and reusing These alternative processes are – and for the environment, too. first to admit reducing steelmak- So, to hit the target of 10 Given all this, although these by-products ourselves or also more difficult to scale up, As Ban Ki-moon (U.N. Secretary- ing’s CO2 emissions is a very big, metric tons of steel per capita steel is a perfect material for the selling them, we are helping to which further compromises their General when the SDGs were very important task. In 2017, needed to support high-quality circular economy, we are a long decarbonize other sectors. For economics. Unless the world can adopted in 2015) observed, 1.7 billion metric tons of steel lifestyles for all, we calculate it way from having enough of it in example, for every 100 million find a way to produce renewable “We don’t have plan B because were produced globally. This will take until well into the next the bank to live off. This means we metric tons of steel we produce, energy in a great enough there is no planet B!” contributed 7 percent to global century before we have enough will need to invest in building up we also produce enough slag to abundance to make carbon-free This is where a philosophy CO2 emissions that year. steel in use at any one time, a a large enough deposit of primary make 30 million metric tons of steelmaking a viable business called the circular economy So, steel certainly has a global inventory of sorts, which is steel to enable a recycling/reuse cement, eradicating the CO2 model, our ambition to make comes in. It advocates business role to play if the world is to large enough to harvest to meet strategy longer term. In the that would otherwise have been carbon-free steel could remain models that are economically and limit global warming to the two demand for new steel products meantime, our focus needs emitted had the cement been out of reach. In the meantime, environmentally sustainable and degrees Celsius above pre-indus- in perpetuity. Until we do, we will to be on reducing the carbon produced using conventional we are working hard to reduce focuses on designing products trial levels, as set out in the Paris not be able to make a definitive footprint of primary steelmaking. production methods. In effect, steelmaking’s carbon footprint by and systems to extend product Agreement. As the world’s largest switch from primary steelmaking Before I describe how we’re this means that 15 percent of using carbon in a smarter way. life and increase recycling. steel manufacturer, ArcelorMittal to recycling. going about this, I should explain CO2 emissions accounted for in In part two of this series, I’ll Steel is endlessly recyclable wants to ensure it takes the We should also remember the steelmaking process. primary steelmaking are actually explain the smart carbon strategy and, as such, recycling it yields correct steps to safeguard the two other important factors that Our objective in steelmaking helping to avoid emissions in the we’re developing to reduce our important energy savings. Steel future and is committed to leading impact on the total steel inventory is to turn iron ore (FeO: iron + cement industry, by producing carbon footprint, while also will be the backbone of the future the way in ensuring the steel needed. The first of these is that oxygen) into iron (Fe). That is, CO2-free cement. creating value for our economy, circular economy. For this reason, industry finds solutions to the world’s population continues to to remove the oxygen (O). We do It is very important to our society, and our planet. we at ArcelorMittal believe steel address its carbon challenge. grow. The second is the fact that is one of the most, if not the Given my earlier point about steel is only ready to be recycled most, sustainable materials used steel’s recyclability, the obvious once a product has reached the on the planet. answer to reducing steelmaking’s end of its intended use. To be clear, when I talk about CO2 emissions – from roughly In Europe, the average sustainability, I mean not only the two metric tons of CO2 per ton lifetime of steel-containing environmental impact of steel, of primary steel, to around half a products is 40 years, at which but also its economic and social metric ton per ton of steel made point 90 percent of that steel contributions.

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