India’s Ministry of Steel is working on a standard definition for green steel that would ideally be manufactured using low-carbon energy sources or have low-embedded carbon emissions, government officials said on Monday, November 18.
The officials said that at present green steel has no definition or pre-defined criteria that are universally accepted but is a general term used for the metal that is made from low-carbon energy sources, like renewable energy or electric arc furnaces.
“Right now, there is no taxonomy or etymology. The focus would be to get that definition in place first by the current year-end and then go ahead with framing a national green steel mission, aimed at bolstering production of such metal in the country,” an official said.
It is possible that green steel could be defined in percentage terms based on a steel mill’s emission intensity.
The benchmark emission set by ministry is 2.2 mt of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted per mt of crude steel produced. Based on the emission levels, the ministry could explore grading of green steel, the officials said.