{"id":33641,"date":"2022-12-23T07:40:49","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T02:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33641"},"modified":"2025-04-20T00:14:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T18:44:42","slug":"steel-industry-in-india-and-push-for-green-steel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/steel-industry-in-india-and-push-for-green-steel\/","title":{"rendered":"Steel Industry in India and push for Green Steel"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>India\u2019s iron and steel sector<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Factors responsible for the location, distribution of steel industries in India<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About Green Steel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the Union Minister of Steel told Rajya Sabha that the government was considering mandating the use of \u201c<strong>green steel<\/strong>\u201d in government projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About India\u2019s iron and steel sector:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Overview:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India has now become the <strong>second largest crude steel producer<\/strong> in the world (after China).<\/li>\n<li>In the last 8 years, India has doubled its capacity to <strong>~120 million tonnes<\/strong> of production and it is projected to grow five times in the next two decades.<\/li>\n<li>Per capita finished steel consumption in 2020 was 228 kg for the world and 691 kg for China and the same for<strong> India was 70 kg in 2020-21.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Policy support:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Government has released the <strong>National Steel Policy 2017<\/strong>, which has laid down the broad roadmap for encouraging long term growth for the Indian steel industry, both on demand and supply sides, by 2030-31.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/2yglifotL55mHiYE6glNifvMWfr3V-L8JIKYwqlYEV72HNBqsDcclIAPwl2hT8JMr0yWGxwbAplB7jU-4X9JoQRHLz3FJEabzXmO_m6FY9Cp9Ew_u3E7E2B9gHVaWR6Z0qg7MF-OjG-wS2j2FahCRA\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Steel Industry in India<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the factors responsible for the location, distribution of steel industries in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Raw materials:<\/strong> For example, the abundance of iron ore in the <strong>Chota Nagpur region<\/strong> has resulted in a concentration of the iron and steel industry.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nearness to market is important:<\/strong> For instance, the Visakhapatnam steel plant, which is located near the shore, offers great import-export capabilities.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability of cheap labour:<\/strong> The majority of the plants in the Chota Nagpur region benefit from an abundance of cheap labor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability of water:<\/strong> For example, Bokaro steel plant on the bank of river Damodar provides water for cooling.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nearness to Industrial Town<\/strong>: Mini steel plants that utilise scrap metals as input require waste metal recycling and are hence generally located near industrial areas.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Government incentives: <\/strong>Like subsidies, tax rebates and capital, influences the location of industries. For example, Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh was set up to remove the backwardness of the region.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability of power and transport infrastructure.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/sRuoeB0fDrOXgIvcoYnoXJMQRrl7cvk2VsLSG00Jx4Mk5waNxaRU5Q1t-tZL3jw9GHSgskOWRRh86EAIUIv457FqbXRIupvtaurF65ve5nZ3sL5xzV2xVKm6mRRISMlAQJ6O-b0Os_xUfQ-xNdfClQ\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Location of Steel Industries<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is green steel?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About: <\/strong>Essentially, green steel is the manufacturing of steel <strong>without the use of fossil fuels. <\/strong>This could help reduce the steel industry\u2019s <strong>carbon footprint,<\/strong> helping countries to achieve their <strong>net-zero emissions targets.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Ways of production of green steel : <\/strong>By using &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Green hydrogen<\/strong>, which emits only water after burning and if it is produced via electrolysis using just water and renewable electricity, then it is completely free of CO\u2082 emissions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Electric arc furnaces<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Challenges:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>All steel can\u2019t be green:<\/strong> According to a report by the NGO Global Energy Monitor, the shift from traditional blast furnaces (coal-based) to electric arc furnaces is \u201cstagnant\u201d and significantly behind decarbonization targets.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Availability of green hydrogen<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The cost of green steel: <\/strong>The clean hydrogen production at scale will require billions of dollars of investment in renewable power generation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Speeding up the shift towards electric arc furnace steelmaking.<\/li>\n<li>Scaling up the technology to produce green or blue hydrogen.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Emissions from the sector:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The steel sector is extremely energy and resource intensive and is <strong>highly polluting. For example, <\/strong>India\u2019s current average emission intensity is 2.55 tonne CO2, per tonne of crude steel, compared to about 1.95 tonne of global average.<\/li>\n<li>The emissions from the steel industry have been <strong>brought down by 15% between 2005 and 2022 <\/strong>and Centre targets an additional 10% reduction in emissions by 2030. Energy consumption per tonne of steel produced has also come down as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Efforts by the Indian government:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The government has put into place a short-term plan, as well as medium and long-term targets to deal with the issue.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The short-term<\/strong> plan looks at reduction of carbon emissions through energy and resource efficiency in renewable energy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The medium-term<\/strong> plan (2030-47) looks at Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage as well as usage of possibly green hydrogen.<\/li>\n<li>And, <strong>the long-term plan<\/strong> (2047-70) looks at a complete move over from ore-based and coal-based to much more technological innovations to come down to net zero.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are the objectives of National Steel Policy?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The policy envisages to domestically meet the entire demand of steel. The policy projects crude steel capacity of 300 million on tonnes (MT), production of 255 MT and a robust finished steel per capita consumption of 158 Kgs by 2030-31.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) Which is the first country to make green steel?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Sweden has become the first country in the world to manufacture fossil-free steel which is also known as green steel. Green steel has been developed by HYBRIT Technology and the first delivery was done to Volvo AB as a trial run.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindubusinessline.com\/specials\/clean-tech\/much-hope-rests-on-the-green-steel-initiative\/article65666636.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Much hope rests on the green steel initiative<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green steel is the manufacturing of steel without the use of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}