The end of the blast furnace era?

Abstract

This paper explores the underlying drivers of steel production to predict the fate of the blast furnace as a steelmaking route. Steel production is driven by demand for stocks of steel products and increases in steel stocks are driven by population growth and economic development. However, per-capita steel stocks are expected to saturate with economic development leading to the long-term saturation of steel demand. Combined with an increase in the availability of end-of-life scrap, this suggests that the electric arc furnace route will be increasingly dominant. Furthermore, with an increasingly resource and carbon constrained world, material efficiency strategies will be required to provide the same services with less liquid steel. These factors may usher in the end of the blast furnace era within the next 50 years. This paper is based on research undertaken as part of the WellMet2050 project, and was delivered at the Cleveland Institution of Engineers debate in December 2014.