U.S Iron and Steel Sector and Potential Trading With China and India: Analysis with ISEEM Energy Model

Interests in energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions in the United States (U.S.) industry sector have risen with the international obligations towards reducing carbon emissions and introduction of new climate-change legislations and initiatives around the world. It is important to understand the impacts of various technologies and strategies on energy savings and emission reduction potentials. These developments intensified the efforts for an integrated assessment of GHG emission reduction and energy policy options (together with their economic impacts, technology and resource requirements) in the industry sectors in the short, medium and long terms.. Iron and steel industry is one of the highest energy and emission intensive sectors. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) [1], iron and steel sector accounts for about 5% of the total world carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The U.S. is the third largest steelmaking country in the world with a production of 80.5 Million tonnes (Mtonnes) in 2010 [2].

From this point of view, the objective of this study is to analyze the energy and emission reduction potentials of the U.S. iron and steel sector in the long term by giving particular attention to the energy efficiency improvements and potential trading opportunities from China and India. Modeling has been carried out by the Industry Sector Energy Efficiency Modeling (ISEEM) framework [3], which was recently developed in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) under the supervision of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the U.S. Department of Energy.