Tokyo, July 30 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Iron and Steel Federation and six major steelmakers will jointly develop innovative technologies for cutting carbon dioxide emissions in the steel production process, the industry group said Wednesday.
Reductions are targeted at about 30 pct of the current level of the greenhouse gas emitted by the steel industry, which accounts for more than 40 pct of domestic industry’s total emissions.
A significant improvement in cutting CO2 emissions appears difficult only by improving existing technologies, project leader Hiroshi Shima, vice president of Nippon Steel Corp. , told a press conference.
The project team will thus try to develop technologies to separate and store CO2 contained in blast furnace gases and to enable the use of hydrogen instead of carbon for iron ore reduction.
For the development of the CO2 separation technology, the team will cooperate with European steelmakers by sharing information.
During the first phase of the initiative through March 2013, the estimated project costs of some 10 billion yen will be financed by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, a government-affiliated body known as NEDO.
The new technologies are expected to be in use by 2050 at the latest.END
(c) 2008 Jiji Press English News Service. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
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