The United States steel industry has reduced its energy intensity per net ton of steel shipped by approximately 31 percent comparing 2008 to 1990, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Friday.
However, according to AISI, this figure has fallen slightly from 33 percent in 2007 due to a large drop off in production starting in the fourth quarter of 2008 as a result of the economic downturn. "With processes as tightly controlled as those in steel mills, production, disruptions and repeated startup and shutdowns significantly impact energy performance," explained Thomas J. Gibson, AISI president and CEO.
"This steel industry's overall improvement in energy efficiency demonstrates its longstanding commitment to sustainability. This commitment has brought our processes almost to the limit of energy-efficiency and the sensitivity to production intensity further underscores this point. In the long-term, we are working on developing breakthrough steelmaking processes that emit little or no CO2."
AISI said that, on average, 1.19 net tons of carbon dioxide was emitted in 2008 for every net ton of steel produced in the United States.