Brussels, 04/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP) decided on Wednesday 27 February to launch the second stage of its ultra-low CO2 steel research programme, ULCOS-II, one of the world's biggest R&D programmes to reduce process-related carbon dioxide emissions from steel-making.
The current ULCOS project brings together steel makers, companies in the steel supply chain, research laboratories and universities to devise the breakthrough technologies that can bring about enhanced reductions in CO2 emissions from steel making, with almost €30m of funding already allocated from the EU's research programmes, including the Coal and Steel Research Fund managed by the European Commission. The next phase will require significant levels of investment - the first industrial-scale demonstration is estimated at €300 million.
The ULCOS-II programme, which was given the go-ahead by the Technology platform on Wednesday, will set up several larger scale pilots to test the most promising medium/long term technologies on an industrial scale. Except where carbon-lean electricity is massively available, all breakthrough routes will need to be coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS), a concept which will have to be adapted cleverly to the particular features of the sector. The first technology to be evaluated on an industrial scale will be based on the Blast Furnace technology with Top Gas Recycling (TGR-BF) and CCS. This research will require considerable investment, with a price tag of about € 300 mil for the implementation of the TGR-BF route. The outcome of this research will be technology for CO2 capture, transport and storage in steel making, thus allowing CO2-free steel making for the first time. The technology will be developed in line with EU objectives on CO2 capture and storage. The European Steel Technology Platform will work closely with the European Zero Emissions Technology Platform, which is also focusing on research into CO2 capture, transport and storage.
At its meeting, the ESTEP Steering Committee also gave its strong support to several other large environmental projects such as scale-free and lean-energy processes, sustainable use of resources, the societal impact of development of new materials, intelligent manufacturing and energy-efficient buildings, working in tandem with the European Construction Technological Platform (ECTP) platform.
ESTEP website: http: //cordis.europa.eu/estep/home_en.html (O.L.)