European steel firms to study cleaner production

European steel firms to study cleaner production

Planet Ark

March 15, 2004

Amsterdam - A consortium of steel firms led by Corus, Arcelor and TKS unveiled a proposal last week to carry out a 40 million euro research project into technology to cut carbon dioxide emissions in steelmaking.

The European Commission has asked the industry, whose production processes are based 60 percent on coal and cokes, to look into technology that produces less carbon dioxide which is seen as a major contributor to global warming.

Anglo-Dutch steel and aluminium company Corus, Arcelor and TKS said in a statement they had submitted a proposal for the five-year research project, known as ULCOS (Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking), to the EU executive.

Up to 50 percent of the project could be subsidised if the Eureopean Commission agreed to it, the companies said. The consortium includes almost all European steel companies and some 40 industrial organisations, research institutes and universities, they said.

The European Union is pressing ahead with its own emissions trading scheme from 2005, under which many firms will need allowances or credits to emit carbon dioxide, after ratification of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, which envisaged global trading in emissions credits from 2008, failed.