ECONOMICRESEARCHDISCUSSIONCENTER

PAPER

E-Series
No.E12-1

Development of the Japanese Energy Saving
Technology during 1920–1960 :The Iron and Steel Industry*bySatoru KOBORI**

January 2012

ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTERGRADUATE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICSNAGOYA UNIVERSITY* Research for this article was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of

Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), 21330084, 2009–2011.

** Nagoya University

Development of the Japanese Energy Saving Technology during 1920–1960:
The Iron and Steel Industry
Satoru KOBORI

Abstract

Purpose of this paper is to reveal how and why the Japanese iron and steel industry achieved thedevelopment of energy-saving technology after WWII. Not only did it realize rapid improvement of thebasic unit for fuel, but its basic unit for fuel was already better than that of any other country by the early
1950s. Regarding the development of energy-saving technologies in steel-making processes, twotechnologies have been pointed out; heat control and oxygen steelmaking. Of these two technologies, heat
control had developed since the interwar era; the latter was a new technology that was developing after
WWII. The Japanese energy-saving technology after the war was not an exact copy of the U.S.
technology. It was much different from the U.S. efforts in its objectives and contents. Its rapid
improvement and diffusion was contributed by the exchange of technology between firms through ISIJ
and the heat-control division and OJT of every iron and steel work. However the energy conservation
development of the Japanese iron and steel industry was not only a success story. The development of theenergy-saving technology by the Japanese iron and steel industry does not always decrease theenvironmental load. At least during the 1950s, it exacerbated environmental pollution.

Keywords : the Japanese energy-saving technology, heat control, oxygen steelmaking, environmental
pollution

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1. Introduction
Improving the basic unit for energy was an important measure for Japanese industrial
rationalization during the reconstruction period because energy supplies were severely
limited. Improvement of the basic unit for energy during reconstruction was truly as
important a shift in development as that which occurred after the oil crisis (Takeda 2007,
pp.62-70). Energy supply limitations stimulated the development of energy-saving
technology at that time.
We must make a sharp distinction, however, between the “possibilities” of thedevelopment of energy-saving technology in the context of limited energy supplies andtheir “realization”. Why did the Japanese energy-consuming industries not decline given
the background of energy supply limitations during reconstruction? How and why didenergy-consuming industries achieve the development of energy-saving technology tosurvive and grow?
This paper casts some light on the progress of the Japanese iron and steel industry toanswer the questions raised above. Not only did the iron and steel industry realize rapid
improvement of the basic unit for fuel, but its basic unit for fuel was already better thanthat of any other country by the early 1950s (Fig. 1). Regarding the development ofenergy-saving technologies in steel-making processes, two factors have been pointed
out. First is heat control, for example changing fuel and improving industrial
instruments, combustion, and combustion equipment. Second is the use of oxygen in
open-hearth furnaces (OHF) (Table 1). Of these two technologies, heat control had
developed since the interwar era; the latter was a new technology that was developing
after WWII throughout world. This paper therefore specifically describes development
processes of these two technologies to investigate why post-war Japan achieved rapid
improvement of the basic unit for energy.

2. Improvement of heat control 1
Regarding heat control, we must examine its development not only after WWII but
also from the 1920s to WWII because its development before WWII contributed to thatafter WWII.
(1) During the interwar era
1This section is fundamentally referred from Kobori (2010).

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Introduction of foreign energy-saving technology
During the 1920s, the Japanese took an increasing interest in energy-saving technology
because the industrialization and the rising of domestic coal production cost made theprice of coal increase (Fig. 2) and the quantity of coal imports exceed its exports (Fig.
3). The iron and steel industry was no exception, and energy-saving technologies in
Europe and North America, especially in Germany, were of great interest. For example,
Kuniichi Tawara, an outstanding engineer of the iron and steel industry, travelled toEurope and North America during June 1921 – July 1922 and reported, “[the US ironand steel industry] does not introduce many resource saving facilities because the US
has sufficient resource. …[On the other hand Germany] does not have many resources,
so the reason for the development of the German iron and steel industry was an attempt
to develop its technology” (Tawara 1922, pp.815-16). He appreciated that Germany had
aggressively developed energy-saving and resource-saving technologies under theconstraints of a resource set that differed from those of the U.S. and U.K. He also said,“Japan is short of resources for iron and steel and its quality is bad, so we have to study
hard like the German engineers.” He thought that the Japanese iron and steel industry
were compelled to follow the example not of the US rationalization, which used plentyof natural gas and heavy oil, but German rationalization, which tried with great
difficulty to conserve coal. He further emphasized the aggressive technology exchange
in Germany, which promoted technological development.
Heat control was a representative technology that was researched and exchanged
aggressively. Verein Deutscher Eisenhüttenleute (German Iron and Steel Institute)established Hauptwärmestelle (the Central Heat-Control Office) in Dusseldorf topromote energy-saving. The tasks of Hauptwärmestelle were not only research of heat
control but also training engineers, exchanging technology among iron and steel mills,
advertising of heat control, and so on. Each iron and steel facility also established aWärmestelle (heat-control center) and employed Wärme Ingenieur (heat engineers) toimprove heat control not by a skilled worker’s intuition but by an engineer’s
instrumentation.
Franz Kofler, who was actively involved in introducing heat control at the Showa
Steel Works (SSW), remarked that heat control was accomplished in two steps (Kofler
1934). He said, “The first step …is to recycle the energy which is generated at a process
to decrease the quantity of fuel.” This effectively means the recycling of surplus energy,
for example, that of blast furnace gas and coke oven gas. It is however only “the easiest
step.” He continued: “the second step is saving the quantity of energy which isnecessary to produce iron and steel.” The second step includes improvements of thebasic unit for energy at each process and the needed R&D, accurate instrumentation tomeasure the use of energy, and technological guidance for building and improving
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furnaces from the viewpoint of thermal economy. It was heat control on its way fromthe first to the second step that the Japanese engineers had observed in Germany during
the interwar era.
Energy conservation practices during the interwar era
These energy-saving technologies were actually introduced at some Japanese plants.
The Yawata Iron & Steel Works started reusing by-product gases, as entailed in the firststep of heat control. In November 1922, Yawata started to use coke-oven gas mixed
with producer gas for heating OHF at its No. 2 steelmaking plant. More Yawata plants
thereafter came to use by-product gas. At the neo-No.1 steelmaking plant established in
April 1935, Yawata did not install gas producers and used only the mixed gas ofcoke-oven gas and blast-furnace gas. The more such surplus energy Yawata used, thegreater the share of coal that came to be used for coke-ovens. The per-steel -product-ton
consumption of coal was reduced by half from the 1920s to the early 1930s (Fig. 4) 2 .
No department such as a heat control center, which investigates and guides the heateconomy of all plants of a factory, was established. No branch can carry out acentralized control of coke-oven and blast-furnace gas or guided plants to a differentmode of using gas. They noticed how much coal was conserved when using mixed gas
at each furnace, but they did not pay attention to the basic unit for all fuels (coal plusgas) at each furnace.
Although energy-saving activities at Yawata had these limitations, the factory that
had installed German heat control technology was SSW in Manchuria 3 . In fact, SSW
started the integrated iron and steel works in April 1935, and SSW “was stimulated byGerman technology at that time and felt the importance of heat control strongly.” Itplanned heat control “as the first trial in the East” (SSW 1940). SSW founded a heat
control center in 1934 and the center undertook full activity in the second half of the
1930s, for example repair and control of instruments, R&D with some plants, andguidance to the job sites. More than 100 staff worked at heat control center, and thevarieties and quantities of instruments increased and recording of combustion are
exercised automatically. In the second half of the 1930s, SSW installed and expanded
German heat control technology more rapidly than Yawata did.
The heat control at SSW was gradually recognized in the Japanese homeland. The
formal stage of it was achieved by the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan (ISIJ). From
November 1926, ISIJ held research meetings once or twice a year “in order to promote
the growth of the Japanese iron and steel industry and of the technology at the job site”
2

According to Fujii (1985), conservation of coal contributed about 29% of the decrease in net
manufacturing cost during 1928–32 at Yawata.
3
SSW was named Anshan Iron Works until March 31, 1933.

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(ISIJ 1945) and exercised presentations and discussions about some themes such as iron,steel, and steel products. During the late 1930s, each division started to place energy
conservation on the agenda and a fuel-economy division conference was held in
October 1938 (Table 2). The first meeting of the fuel-economy division conference at
Osaka in October 1938 programmed “real scenes filmed for heat control at blast
furnaces, open hearth furnaces and a control room presented by Showa Steel Works”(ISIJ 1941). The head of the SSW heat-control center said, “By a request of thecommittee [division], we filmed heat control and instrumentation at SSW and displayed
the film at each committee [division] in each place” (Fukui 1961). Materials presented
by the SSW Heat-Control Center provided concrete details about installations and kindsof instrumentation. The head of the Heat-Control Center explained the organization of
the Center. Masao Shidara, who was involved in heat control at Yawata during wartime
and who served a Chief of the Heat Control Section after war, related that heat control
of SSW had been superior to that of Yawata and that Yawata referred the articles by
SSW published on the Journal of ISIJ when it started to calculate the heat balance of its
factory during wartime.
(2) During war-time
Introduction of heat control
As controls on the coal market were exercised and expanded after the start of theSino–Japanese War, several iron and steel factories in Japan earnestly began to imitate
heat control by SSW. Yawata, from May 1937, immediately before the start of theSino–Japanese war, established the Fuel Division under the Iron Department tocentralize the control of blast-furnace and coke-oven gas, which had been controlled
separately until then. The Fuel Division was placed directly under the head ofengineering in March 1942 and was changed to the Heat-Control Division in 1944.
Tasks of the Heat-Control Division were added as “matters on heat control”, as well as
control of gas and fuels. An Engineering Subsection, which dealt with “enlightening andadvertising concepts of heat control engineering”, e.g. guidance of combustion at
furnaces, measurements, and consulting about heat economy, in addition to analysis ofgas. The status of the Heat-Control Division was higher than that of Fuel Division in
1937, indicating a broader scope of the factory. Its tasks became to contain the guidance
in improvement of basic unit for fuel at each piece of equipment. Eventually,
Heat-Control Divisions were established not only by Yawata but also by each factory of
Nippon Steel Corp.: Hirohata, Kamaishi, Wanishi, and Kenjiho, in addition to the
Kawasaki steel works of Nippon Kokan K.K. (NKK).
During wartime, the following three matters advanced: (1) heat-control campaign togrow interest in heat control at a job site and to improve basic unit, (2) organization of a5heat-control committee, (3) improvement of instrumentation engineering. We deal thosecontents in light of the case of Yawata.
Yawata held a heat-control campaign for progress every year during fiscal years
1942–1944 and its contents grew. The first campaign in 1942 involved only
advertisement, but during the second campaign undertaken in 1943, it entailed
strengthening the repair of instruments and competition in terms of basic unit among
plants. The second campaign also sought to establish a basic unit for heat in terms ofcaloric value.
The Heat-Control Committee of Yawata Steel Works was organized in August 1943.
Its chair was the head of engineering. The committee made each Subsection andDivision form a heat-control team and required that the team report to the committee
chairman both the target and the actual quantity of gas use and the current
circumstances of equipment, instruments, and gas leaks.
To improve instrumentation, technical guidance by domestic manufacturers of
instruments, such as Shimazu, was exercised in an attempt to repair instruments at
Yawata independently.
These activities meant that Yawata came to regard the importance of setting a goal ofbasic unit at equipment and to reach that goal by attention to instrumentation. The
Japanese Engineers’ interest in energy conservation, which had been limited to reuse of
surplus energy during interwar era, came to be improvement of the basic unit for fuels at
a furnace, which was the “second step” of heat-control exercised by SSW.
Limits of heat control during the war
Did these efforts bear fruit at that time? To begin from the conclusion, basic unit for
fuels became much worse during the wartime era (Fig. 4) for four reasons.
The first reason was the worsening of coal quality, which posed a general limitation
to the Japanese wartime economy. It severely affected the iron and steel industry
because of the decrease of producer-gas coal brought from mainland China.
Second was a lack of instrumentation. It was not a comprehensive solution for the
steel industry to attempt to repair instruments through its own efforts. After 1937, it
became much more difficult to import instruments from abroad and the supply ofindustrial instruments for heat control stagnated because domestic production of
instruments was focused on aircraft instruments and instruments for oil refining. Repair
of instruments independently was insufficient because of the lack of spare parts. They
could only perform simple repairs.
Thirdly, it was difficult to make workers ignore their intuition and pay attention to thedisplay of instruments under circumstances entailing a lack and insufficient repair of
instruments. A heat-control engineer at Kawasaki Steel Works remembered the6following after war (Kuwabata 1952 p.12).
“Engineering of production and operating industrial instruments for heat control
was too poor for skilled workers at a job site to trust the instruments. Therefore,
we often had quarrels with workers over operation of instruments…because
workers felt they were watched by instruments and regarded instruments as a hot
potato, workers sometimes intentionally threw a gauge off and put instruments
backwards to the intended installation as a gesture of disagreeing with the
instruments. Therefore, we made small enclosures for instruments with a glass
case, iron door, and key. ”
Fourthly, even if a steel plant was operated according workers’ intuition, theengineering level could not help being worse than in the interwar era because manyskilled workers were drafted into the armed forces and many unskilled workers were
employed to increase output. The proportion of drafted workers to all employees at
Yawata grew from 10.0% in the end of 1937 to 14.5% at the end of 1941. The length ofa worker’s continuous employment decreased from 11 years and 10 months in 1934 to 7
years 3 months in 1940. After the start of the Asia–Pacific War, “special workers” suchas students, Koreans, prisoners, and corps of women volunteer workers increased. They
had to perform tasks not only as assistants but also as regular workers. It is not difficult
to imagine that these conditions lowered the engineering level at a job site that reliedheavily on the experience and skill of long-term employees.
During the wartime era, the heat control organization was introduced. Engineers
noted that it was necessary to improve basic unit for fuels using instruments, heat
control campaigns were held, and repairing instruments independently was attempted.
These trials show that energy conservation technology developed dramatically during
wartime. These trials did not bear fruit sufficiently at job sites because of the limits
imposed by the war. The war fostered interest in energy-conservation technology, but
the war also prevented its realization.
(3) During reconstruction
Technical guidance by U.S. engineers
During the reconstruction period, severe restrictions of energy usage were imposed asthey had been during wartime. In fact, in many instances and industries, conditions were
worse than during wartime. Heat control was regarded as extremely important not onlyby the steel industry but also in general. When the lack of coal became extremely severein 1946, the Japanese government adopted the “Fundamental Policy for Strengthening
Heat Control to Break the Coal Crisis” at a cabinet meeting in December. The
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government aimed to strengthen heat control as an “increase of coal output on the
consumption side” in concert with a policy for increasing coal output. The Japaneseenergy policy at that time was the priority production system in supply side and the heat
control on demand side (Kobori 2010, Chap.2). In the context of these circumstances
during reconstruction, the problems that had been acknowledged during wartime by ironand steel engineers started to be solved gradually.
It is impossible to ignore the technical guidance by American engineers in discussing
the iron and steel industry during the reconstruction period. Technical guidance byAmerican engineers started in 1947–1949 when the Strike Mission (1947) and the firstand second Scrap Iron and Steel Mission (1948–1949) were executed. Full-scale
guidance to escape from steel industry’s dependence on subsidies from the US thereafter
started by the direction of the Industry Division, Economic & Scientific Division (ESS),
GHQ/SCAP. First, W. G. Walk and R. S. Coulter, who were members of second Scrap
Iron and Steel Mission, remained in Japan for a month in 1949 after the Mission
finished and guided the main steel factories’ efforts at OHF and heat control. Moreover
F. N. Hays, J. T. MacLeod, and E. W. Hill came to Japan to exercise technical guidancein OHF and heat control.
They presented comprehensive advisory opinions related to fuel conservation,
increase of furnace productivity, and improvement of operations. In those opinions, theypresented four important points of advice related to heat control: (1) convertingpressures in OHF and heating furnace from negative to positive; (2) converting low
calorie fuel to high calorie, and especially switching from gas-producing coal to heavy
oil, and mixed gas to coke-oven gas; (3) expansion and conversion of furnaces; and (4)improved instrumentation. They also reported that if this advice was exercised
simultaneously, basic unit would be further improved.
Points (1)–(3) of this advice had been popularized in the Japanese steel industry by
April 1950, which was the next year of the guidance. The advice that popularization
delayed was (4), which had already been regarded as problematic during the war. Indeed
micromanometers, which were necessary for positive pressure operations, were
popularized but installation of other instruments for heat control such as thermometersand flow meters was delayed. Moreover, regulation and standardization of combustion
using instruments was not done. A mission of ISIJ issued the following warning (ISIJ
1950a, p.12).
“Almost no factories have any facility to examine and repair instruments and instead
depend on manufacturers for them. We found some incorrect broken instruments used
at a job site. That would cause severe mistrust of instruments.”
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Exchange of technology through ISIJ
How did countermeasures against such problems progress? We focus on ISIJ andsteel companies to consider the reasons for rapid improvement and diffusion ofheat-control technology.
The ISIJ played an important role in technology exchange. The Liaison Conference
for Research of Iron and Steel Technology was held in July 1948 by ISIJ, the Japan Iron
and Steel Association (called The Japan Iron and Steel Federation from November 1948,
JISF), and the Steel Bureau of Ministry of Commerce and Industry. They sought tomake the divisions of ISIJ active. Then ISIJ established eight divisions such as pig iron,steel-making, and steel products, and some divisions placed heat control as a researchsubjects. In the OHF division, each attending company announced and criticizedtechnology (e.g. a burner blueprint) for one another to encourage standardization oftechnology. The OHF division also researched oil-burning, furnace structure, andoxygen steelmaking (Table 3). This example illustrates that, by restoring researchdivisions in the 1920s–1930s, exchange of technology was already started before
technical guidance from U.S. engineers.
These exchange relations enabled the contents of the U.S. engineers’ guidance to beclosely shared among the Japanese steel companies. For example, when Hays andothers visited Yawata, some heat control engineers belonging to other Japanese steel
company such as NKK and Sumitomo came along and watched their guidance at
Yawata. Hays and Macleod gave lectures about the contents of their guidance at a
meeting held by ISIJ. The guidance report by Walk and Coulter was published and sold.
A division responsible for instrumentation and heat-control technology was alsoestablished when Hays visited Japan. It was the Heat Economy Division. Subsequently,
heat-control technology was exchanged and discussed at this division.
The predecessor committee of the Heat Economy Division was established in
October 1948. This committee discussed means to enhance and maintain heat-control
instruments. These activities were passed on to the new Division in June 1949. The
Steel Bureau of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) chose to place
the Division under the Liaison Conference for Research of Iron and Steel Technology
and to place a heat-control committee at each iron and steel production facility.
The Heat Economy Division established three special committees assigned to
Instruments for Heat Control, Heat Balance, and Melting Furnaces. At these special
committees, technology of instrumentation and relining work were exchanged;
standards were realized and published by Maruzen (ISIJ 1953, 1954).
Investigations of factories and technology exchange were conducted. In April 1950,
the Investigative Commission on the Heat Economy of Iron and Steel Industry wasdispatched to 27 factories throughout Japan to clarify the scores during the year after the9establishment of the Division. Investigation of a factory took 1–4 days depending on its
scale, and the Commission made intensive investigations about fuel management,
instruments, heat-control education, etc. and opened these investigations. The exchangeof technology was continued thereafter. To the Heat Economy Division, each factory
presented its monthly heat-control report for blast furnaces, coke ovens, OHF androlling. According to Shidara, factories did not hide work efficiency and knew eachother’s figures and circumstances. During reconstruction, technology exchange through
ISIJ, which started in the interwar period, was sufficiently displayed. Each iron and steel
factory cooperated and competed for the development of heat-control technology
mutually.
Heat control of Yawata Iron and Steel Works:
Heat Control Division and Steel Plants
As the exchange of technology progressed, each iron and steel factory expanded its
activities to improve the basic unit in relation to fuel. Details of the activities of Heat
Control Division and a job site in Yawata are given as shown below (Table 4).
The main subsections of Heat Control Division in post-war era were Instruments andEngineering. The Instruments Subsection firstly established an instrument repair shop. It
invited an engineer belonging to Shimazu as a temporary employee to give training. The
Instrument Subsection thereafter started to repair and inspect instruments in 1946–1947.
It also started visiting job sites to show workers how to use instruments in 1948 andreceived the responsibility and authority to buy all instruments at Yawata in 1951. Whena plant installed instruments, the chief of the Instrument Subsection also attended themeeting of the plant to give advice. During 1946–1951, the staff of the Instrument
Subsection became 2.5 times larger and its amount of work increased by 11 times.
The Engineering Subsection after the war had triple the staff as that in war time andthe amount of its work (heat audit and consultation) started to grow in the 1950s. Somegood cases of its consultations were also reported on the Journal of ISIJ.
The Engineering Subsection also hosted the Liaison Committee for Heat Control andHeat Control Month. Not all Yawata plants were interested in heat control. Some plants
often invited heat consultation, but others did not. Therefore, the Engineering
Subsection had to enlighten its clients about heat control.
The Liaison Committee for Heat Control consisted of the Heat Control Division andthe member of job sites. Its responsibilities included the present situation of fuel supply,
the present situation and goals of basic unit for fuel at each plant at Yawata, the heat
audit and consultation results, the present situation of instruments and their purchaseplan, standardization of heat control, and the circumstances of basic unit for fuel andheat control technology of other companies. Regarding Yawata, information about other10companies’ heat control was obtained through ISIJ or the Investigative Commission on
the Heat Economy of Iron and Steel Industry and delivered to job sites. The information
was used to campaign for heat control. To compare each plant’s score or goal seemed tocontribute to cultivation of a competitive spirit related to heat control.
Heat Control Month, which occurred annually in February, also seemed to contributeto a growing competitive sense. Yawata divided important points of Heat Control Monthevery year and awarded the head of a department a prize for a superior factory of eachdepartment and the president a prize for superior factory achievement among thefactories which obtained the department head prize. Kiyoshi Sugita, who entered
Yawata in 1954, said, “We exercised many projects during the Month because aninspection came to factories…Not only the Heat Control Division but also big names
came to check our score and give us advice. The score was one of our valued points”(Sugita 2008).
As the Heat Control Division expanded, heat control activities at job sites also
progressed. At steel plants, guidance from U.S. engineers was installed through“on-the-job training”, which was exercised to advance heat control technology.
Each factory of Yawata started not only to improve furnaces but also to equip themwith instruments and to use heavy oil. The combination of these improvements and OJT
enabled Yawata to improve basic unit for fuels. Steel Plant No. 3 was a shining example.
Basic unit for fuels at Steel Plant No. 3, which was about 1,600 thousand kcal/t at the
beginning of 1952, became 958 thousand kcal/t in February 1953 and 703 kcal/t in
February 1955. Steel Plant No. 3 was the first steel-making plant whose basic unit for
fuels became less than 1,000 kcal/t in Japan. During this development, Steel Plant No. 3
improved furnaces, used heavy oil, and installed several instruments. Moreover, it was
attempted to prevent instruments from being installed incorrectly “in order to makeworkers trust them” and standardized combustion was sought at each furnace and stage.
However, instrumentation was not soon realized through these exercises. Because
workers at Steel Plant No. 3 also “had obeyed their intuition”, instrumentation was very
stiff for workers. Therefore, “it took very long time and energy for engineers to makeworkers recognize the value of standardizing burning and obey the standard
spontaneously”. The engineers of Steel Plant No. 3 tried various means to interest
workers in instrumentation and heat control and thereby improve basic unit for fuel,such as adjustment of the arrangement of staff members to arouse competitive spirit
related to heat control, making workers calculate the basic unit for fuels for themselvesat every tapping and compare the scores with those of other factories or those in foreigncountries, trying special programs to get the president prize of Heat Control Month, andinstilling confidence of workers in their heat control.
It is important that Steel Plant No. 3 was not isolated from the Japanese iron and steel
11industry. The information about basic unit for fuels of other factories which was used in
OJT included data that had been exchanged at ISIJ and which had been reported throughthe Liaison Committee for Heat Control of Yawata. Heat Control Month was also used
to arouse workers’ competitive spirit. Other companies’ technology, as reported on the
Journal of ISIJ or through the Divisions of ISIJ, would be tried. The Japanese iron andsteel industry created a multi-tiered (worker→subsection→division→department→company) structure of competitiveness on heat control. Using this structure, interestin heat control rose and heat control technology was improved. Eventually,
consciousness of heat control, which engineers had become interested in during theinterwar era and which had started during the war, permeated into the job site.

3. Improvement of oxygen steelmaking(1) Installation of oxygen steelmaking
The use of oxygen for OHF was tried even before the end of war. In Japan, Kawasaki
Heavy Industry Fukiai factory experimented using oxygen at a gas producer in 1928
(Yoshikawa 1949) and Kobe Steel Ltd. (KOBELCO) blew oxygen into OHF from 5–6cylinders in about 1937. Because KOBELCO manufactured oxygen generators at themachinery department, it planned to use a surplus oxygen generator (50 m3/h) for OHF
in 1943 but did not exercise it in earnest (KOBELCO 1954, pp.158-59).
Full scale use of oxygen started after WWII throughout the world because thedevelopment of big-scale oxygen generators such as Linde–Frankl type devices started
during the 1930s to decrease the cost of producing oxygen rapidly. After the SteelCompany of Canada Co. began experimentation with oxygen steelmaking at OHF in
March 1946, the large U.S. steel companies started similar experiments from August to
the autumn 1946 and The Iron Age reported some activities on oxygen steelmaking at
OHF by the U.S. and Canadian steelmakers. At Proceedings of the Open Hearth Conf.
held by the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers(AIME) in spring, 1947, studies of oxygen steelmaking at OHF were reported
increasingly in the literature (Iihama 1981 pp.43-48, Sanso Kyokai 1998, pp.49-54).
In Japan, the Basic Process Division of ISIJ was established in March 1947 which
was the same time of the Conf. by AIME. The Basic Process Division of ISIJ held up
the “way to use oxygen” as one of “the subjects to be researched most urgently” and theexperiment by Kawasaki in 1928 and recent activity in the U.S. were reported(Yoshikawa 1949).
The first oxygen steelmaking experiment in Japan was undertaken by Amagasaki
Steel Works (ASW) in cooperation with Teikoku (meaning Imperial in Japanese)12

Oxygen Co. (TOC) in June 1948. Each company reported this experiment as described
below. The ASW said, “at the beginning of 1947, we investigated foreign literature that
had been delivered to Tonomura’s laboratory at The University of Tokyo and recognizedthat the U.S. had succeeded in using oxygen at OHF” (Iihama 1981 p.44). In contrast,
the TOC emphasized its own initiative. Although TOC had been established under joint
French–Japanese management, its French managers were deported during the war andthe right of management had been actually held by the Japanese Navy. When they
returned to Japan after the war, it was a problem for TOC to find a new market because
TOC had lost its largest customer: the Imperial Navy. At that time, the French HeadEngineer, Pierre St. Leu, had become aware the use of oxygen steelmaking, which had
been already introduced into France. St. Leu “busily introduced [it] to the managers ofsteel companies” and set his eye on ASW, which had restarted production. He persuaded
ASW to introduce oxygen steelmaking (TOC 1981, pp.56-59).
We cannot clarify which company first performed the experiment. It was clear that
ASW got the information of oxygen steelmaking by March 1947 because it became thetopic at ISIJ. Not only TOC but also other oxygen producing companies were compelled
to find new markets because they had lost military contracts and had surplus equipment.
Therefore, the steel industry faced a daunting market (Sanso Kyokai 1998, p.97).
Presumably, the offer by TOC enabled ASW to secure oxygen, which was necessary foroxygen steelmaking experiments that ASW had been interested in since one year prior.
The negotiating process to start the experiment was not as difficult as we might infer,even though TOC told that TOC “had persuaded” ASW to conduct experiments.
TOC supplied the oxygen from its Kobe factory and manufactured a decompression
valve to increase the amount of oxygen because “though there was the decompression
valve of which the flow was a little, there was no decompression valve of which theflow rate was 2–10 m3 per minute in Japan”. At the first experiment, which started inJune 1948, 50 containers of oxygen and six decompression valves were used. In thenext experiment in August 1948, 160 containers and 12 valves were used. The methodof using a burner was investigated simultaneously in experiments. “Several hundredcontainers of oxygen were carried from Kobe to Amagasaki during the high season of
the experiment” (Iihama1981 p.44).
The experiments by ASW were investigated and reported at the division of ISIJ. On
the Steelmaking Division, “they inspected real works of oxygen steelmaking anddiscussed” at ASW on 29 October 1948 and “results of the experiments were reported
and analyzed in detail” in April 1949. The other steelmaking company also opened its
oxygen steelmaking plan to mutual criticism in January 1949 (Table 3).
Furthermore, in February 1949, JISF, ISIJ, manufacturers of oxygen generator, theMinistry of Commerce and Industry and so on discussed oxygen steelmaking and13

decided to undertake joint experiments at ASW. Eventually, JISF and eight steel
companies started joint experiments for oxygen steelmaking at ASW in June 1949
(Sanso Seiko Kyodo Kenkyu Iinkai 1950 pp.2-3). During 1949–1950, some companies(Sumitomo, Yawata, NKK, Kawasaki and KOBELCO) also experimented with oxygen
steelmaking independently (Iihama1981 pp.44-45, Sanso Kyokai 1998 p.119).
As described above, the Japanese steel industry had keenly researched oxygen
steelmaking in 1949 when the U.S. heat control engineers undertook technical guidance.
It was noted that the U.S. engineer was negative about the introduction of oxygen
steelmaking ([NKK] 1949 p.7).
“You said the U.S. pamphlets report that oxygen was used for 80% of steel
production, I imagine about 0.5% of all American steel factories use oxygen. You
should not mind oxygen [steelmaking] for some time and should try to conserveheavy oil and firebrick, shouldn’t you?”
The process of introducing oxygen steelmaking was extremely independent.
(2) Full-scale implementation of oxygen steelmaking
KOBELCO was the first company to put oxygen steelmaking to practical use(KOBELCO 1954 pp.158-60, 187). Its implementation had two characteristics. First,
KOBELCO made and used an oxygen generator for private use. Second, KOBELCO
not only made oxygen blow into OHF but also operated slagging gas producers, whichused oxygen and domestic low-quality coal.
As described above, KOBELCO had a machinery department. It manufactured afreezer for fisheries before 1924, but KOBELCO tried to apply it in other fields about
1932 (Makita 1953-54). KOBELCO first test-manufactured a low-temperature air
separation unit in 1934 because of an order from the Army Engineering Division andsupplied an air separation unit to manufacture oxygen for the Agochi plant of Japan
Nitrogen Fertilizer Co in 1937. This actual capacity was at first less than half of anominal capacity, 2,000 m3/h, and KOBELCO reformed it through inspection of a
Linde–Frankl type oxygen generator that had been bought by the Mitsubishi Kasei
Kurosaki Plant. During 1934–1945, KOBELCO manufactured 28 air separation units
and 25 hydrogen separation units and others (some were unfinished).
After the war, in 1948, KOBELCO decided to practice oxygen steelmaking. The
purpose was improvement of basic unit for heavy oil. Because of the scarcity of coal
after the war, KOBELCO planned conversion from coal to heavy oil and did so at threefurnaces during 1947–1948. However, two of these furnaces were operated at high basic
unit for heavy oil because of overuse during the war. Therefore, KOBELCO introduced
14oxygen steelmaking to improve the scores. KOBELCO expected to use “its highest
technology and manufacturing capacity in Japan” for an oxygen generator for
steelmaking to relieve its energy-related constraints.
KOBELCO set up a new oxygen-generating plant in February 1950 and used a 250
m3/h generator for an OHF. KOBELCO exercised two stages of experimentation during
1950–1951 and added a 2,000 m3/h oxygen generator in July 1951 to start “a full scale
oxygen steelmaking”. KOBELCO planned and manufactured all generators.
KOBELCO also started to research a slagging gas producer. For a general gas
producer, a gas-producing coal (more than 6,500 kcal/kg, with low coking properties
and high melting point of ash) was requested but the highest quality domestic coal was
far inferior to the gas-producing coal that had been imported from Manchuria before thewar. KOBELCO, however, expected that, “if we can exhaust ash of a gas producer in a
molten state, gas-producing coal becomes unnecessary and a general coal can be used asfuel for OHF”. Based on that expectation, KOBELCO started an experiment for aslagging gas producer in February 1951. A subsidy from the Industrial Technology
Agency was used for establishing the furnaces. “Though a slagging gas producer had
been researched in several countries, it was used for a chemical industry. Its main fuelwas coke and few slagging gas producer used coal as the main fuel. KOBELCO was thefirst company to use a slagging gas producer for steelmaking”. KOBELCO wasawarded a patent for it and succeeded in industrialization in August 1951. A slagging
gas producer was a quite original technology based keenly on the expectation of its
usage of domestic resources.
In light of those two experiences of KOBELCO, oxygen generators for private usewere popularized among the other steel companies during the 1950s, but slagging gas
producers were not.
During the 1950s, gas producers were actually almost abolished because of theconversion from producer gas to heavy oil. The Steelmaking Division reported that aslagging gas producer presented some merits but could not help being operated
unsustainably and uneconomically (Steel Division 1955, p.295). It was unavoidable fora slagging gas producer, which was similar to a general gas producer, to be converted toheavy oil when the supply of heavy oil became sustainable. However, at the beginningof the 1950s, although the conversion from coal to oil had begun, the energy revolution,
which had already finished in the early 1950s at OHF (Kobori 2010, chap.4) had notbeen anticipated at all. Indeed, in autumn 1951, when KOBELCO had succeeded inindustrializing a slagging gas producer, engineers from Yawata and NKK also greatly
looked forward to using them (Round-table 1951, pp.13-14). Although they knew a gas
producer was more inefficient than heavy oil, they suspected in the early 1950s that theJapanese resource endowments and restriction of the amount of heavy oil imports would
15

compel them to use gas producers even in the future.
However, each company progressed in installing oxygen generators for private use
during the first rationalization period (Table 5) and shared 15–20% of the amount ofinvestment in plant and equipment of steel processing (MITI 1957, p.333). The
government promoted the installation through accelerated depreciation (MITI 1952,
p.474). It was also interesting that KOBELCO supplied oxygen generators for use byother steel companies.
According to data of April 1958, the number of factories with installed oxygen
generators for private use was 18. All 13 molten iron plants had installed them and 13 of
17 cold pig iron plants used oxygen steelmaking. Five of them had generators forprivate use (Steel Division 1959, pp.219-21). As generators for private use became
popularized during the 1950s, basic unit for oxygen were increasing and those for fuels
were decreasing (Table 6). The amount and degree of oxygen use in Japan was very
high among all countries of the world (Fig. 5).
(3) Energy conservation and environmental load
When Hays returned to visit Japan in 1958, he had some opinions to share about
oxygen steelmaking (NKK 1958, p.62).
“One of the reasons why oxygen steelmaking was not popularized in the U.S. was thereddish brown smoke, which was peculiar to oxygen steelmaking. In the U.S., smoke
was severely regulated by city rules for public hygiene.”
Although it was necessary to examine whether smoke regulation in the U.S. were as
stringent as his statements imply, it was certain that development of energy conservationby the Japanese iron and steel industry during the 1950s was encouraged by loose
smoke regulations and tacit acknowledgment by neighbors of plants that smoke fromthe plant was a symbol of their prosperity. Oxygen steelmaking actually worsened air
pollution. The first experiments for preventing smoke by the Japanese steel industry
were undertaken in June 1957 at the Hirohata Plant of Fuji Iron Works, andpopularization of dust collectors occurred after 1960. Its speed had been delayed morethan the rapid popularization of oxygen steelmaking (K 1960, p.46, Shoji and Miyamoto
1964, pp.40-41, Sugita 1997, p.41) 4 .
This example revealed that energy-saving technology did not always decrease4

It was in 1958 that a famous film director Keisuke Kinoshita described a hero and heroine who “wishedtheir happiness each other while watching the smoke [from Yawata] like a rainbow” as the last scene of
Kono Ten no Niji (A Rainbow in the Sky). (http://www.walkerplus.com/movie/kinejun/).

16

environmental loads. At least during the 1950s, the development of energy-saving
technology not only increased environmental loads; it was also promoted by a Japanesesociety that permitted worsening pollution.

4. Conclusions
The Japanese iron and steel engineers became interested in energy conservation
during the 1920s because the supply–demand circumstances of coal changed drastically(increasing its imports and price). After the Sino–Japanese War broke out, heat control
also appeared. Although energy conservation technology entailed only the recycling of
surplus energy initially, it developed to include improvement of basic unit for fuel at
each furnace. The Research Divisions of ISIJ often placed heat control on the agenda
since the 1930s. The iron and steel industry during wartime came to increase the use of
instrumentation, establish the Heat Control Division and Heat Control Committee, andto hold heat control campaigns to improve basic unit. Although these attempts did not
bear fruit in improving basic unit because of various restrictions, which were particularburdensome during the Japanese wartime, heat control after the war advanced fromthese first steps to solve the problems that had been identified during the war.
Introduction of U.S. technology also contributed to improvement in the basic unit
after the war. Nevertheless, energy-saving technology developed after the war was not
an exact copy of the U.S. technology. Japanese heat control technology after the war
was much different from the U.S. efforts in its objectives and contents. Takami Ohta,
who was the chief of No. 1 Steelmaking Division of Yawata Iron and Steel Works andinspected an overseas in 1954, reported that the basic unit for fuels of the U.S. steel
industry was inferior to that of Japan and analyzed the reasons (Ohta 1954, p.770).
“I intuited that Yawata and the other Japanese steel plants installed as high-level
instruments and automatic controllers as the U.S. highest class plants… a job sites of
the U.S. OHF operators were not necessarily interested in research or improvements
for burning at OHF or in checking burning scores of daily work…The reason why
basic unit for fuels is not necessarily superior was that they attach the greatest
importance to the efficiency of steelmaking (t/hr)…”
Ohta saw that the most important objective of the formation of technology in the U.S.
was the efficiency of steelmaking (t/h), and that the most important objective in Japan
was the basic unit for fuels (cal/t). He also noticed that the difference in the formation oftechnology influenced the difference in daily work between the U.S and Japan. Kiyoshi
Sugita also said about heat control during the 1950s, “Unexpectedly, many men got
17

promoted because they were deeply engaged in heat control. [the man who succeeded inheat control was] remarkable. It was a little different from general improvements on
output” (Sugita 2008). His comments indicate that heat control was an outstanding
matter among the Japanese iron and steel industry during reconstruction. We shall fail ingrasping the characteristics of the post-war Japanese iron and steel industry if notice
only the introduction of U.S. technology and ignore the history of energy conservation
activities, which bore fruit after the war.
The case of oxygen steelmaking was as similar as that of heat control. The
introduction of oxygen steelmaking was extremely independent and the technology wasactively exchanged, similarly to heat control. It was actually used much more than in
any other country. The background of such aggressive introduction was a severe crisisof energy restrictions. In the beginning of the 1950s, the Japanese steel engineers
apparently believed that heavy oil was much more effective than coal, but Japan could
not secure sufficient heavy oil, unlike the U.S. It therefore seemed clear that they should
use oxygen steelmaking to improve basic unit for fuel without heavy oil (Steel Division
1955, p.100). Because of these expectations, Japanese steel engineers regarded oxygen
and the industrialization of a slagging gas producer as symbolic of their sense of crisis
related to Japanese energy restrictions. Furthermore, after they became able to obtainheavy oil sustainably, they continued improving the basic unit for energy using bothheavy oil and oxygen to rationalize firms and to strengthen international
competitiveness.
Heat control and oxygen steelmaking, the two major factors of energy conservationby the iron and steel industry after war benefited from contributions of the introductionof technology, but the technology was introduced independently by Japanese engineers
who understood the differences between the U.S. and Japan in terms of energy
restrictions. The Japanese experience and the energetic exchange of technology which
had accumulated since the interwar era enabled the technological developments, whichattached the greatest importance to basic unit for energy, enabling them to develop andpopularize the technologies much more than the West. Development of the Japaneseiron and steel industry after the war started as energy conservation, which was thetechnological objective that had been pursued since the interwar era.
However the energy conservation development of the Japanese iron and steel industry
was not only a success story. Energy-saving technology does not always decrease theenvironmental load. At least during the 1950s, the development of energy-saving
technology, especially oxygen steelmaking, exacerbated environmental pollution. By
and large, Japanese society ignored and permitted pollution, and instead promoted thedevelopment of energy conservation. To reveal the degree of this relationship and why itchanged after the 1960s, we must examine not only factors inside of the firms and18

industry (business history, industrial history) but also those outside of them (political
history, social movement history).
Articles(All articles are in Japanese.)
Agency of Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) ed. (1966), Netsukanri no Ayumi (A History of Heat
Control), The Central Council for Heat Control.
Fujii, Nobuyuki (1985), “The Profitability of the Yawata Iron Works and the Merger Movement in theJapanese Iron and Steel Industry at the Beginning of the 1930s”, in Socio Economic History, vol.50, no.6.
Fukui, Makoto (1961), “Unno Saburo Shi wo Omou (Memories of Mr. Saburo Unno)” in HeatManagement, vol.13, no.2.
Iihama, Uichiro (1981), “Heiro heno Sanso Seiko-ho no Donyu (Introduction of Oxygen Steelmaking toOHF)”, in ISIJ, Waga-Kuni ni okeru Sanso Seiko-Ho no Rekishi (A History of Oxygen Steelmaking inJapan), ISIJ.
Iron and Steel Institute of Japan (ISIJ) (1941), “Report by a Society for the Research of Heat Balance at a
Blast Furnace: Part 1”, The Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan, vol.27, no.9.
ISIJ (1945), Nihon Tekko Kyokai Yoran (The Digest of ISIJ), ISIJ.
ISIJ (1950a), Tekko Netsukezai Gijutsu Chosadan Hokoku-sho (The report by the Investigative
Commission on the Heat Economy of Iron and Steel Industry), ISIJ.
ISIJ (1950b), “Kenkyu Bukai Kiji (Proceedings of the Investigation Committee)”, in The Journal of ISIJ,
vol.36, no.10.
ISIJ ed. (1953), Tekko Netsukezai Gijutsu Yoran: Keisoku-hen (A Handbook of the Heat Economy:
Instrumentation), Maruzen.
ISIJ ed. (1954), Kanetsu-Ro no Sekkei to Jissai narabi-ni Netsuseisan no Hoshik (Plan and Practice of a
Melting Furnace and the Way of Calculating Heat Balance), Maruzen.
Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF) (1959), Sengo Tekko Shi (A History of the Iron and Steel Industry
after War), JISF.
K (1960), “Dust Collectors for Exhaust Gas from OHF”, in Tekko Kai (Bulletin of JISF), vol.10, no.3.
Kobe Steel Works Ltd. Co. (KOBELCO) (1954), Shinko 50 Nenshi (fifty-Year History of KOBELCO),
KOBELCO.
Kobori, Satoru (2010), Nihon no Enerugi Kakumei: Shigen Shokoku no Kingendai (The Energy
Revolution in Japan between Modern and Contemporary periods), the University of Nagoya Press.
Kofler, Franz (1934), “Heat-Economy in the Iron Works”, in The Journal of ISIJ, vol.20, no.8.
Kuwabata, Kazuhiko (1952), “Seitetsu Gyo ni okeru Keiryo Kanri ni tsuite (Metrology Management of
the Iron and Steel Industry)”, Journal of the Instrumentation Control Association, Japan, vol.1, no.2.
Makita, Kenjiro, (1953–54), “Ogata Sanso Sochi Seisaku Kushin no Omoide (Memories of Trying to
Manufacture Big Oxygen Generators: Part 1, 2)”, in Kobe Seiko, vol.3, no.4 - vol.4, no.1.
Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) ed. (1957), Sangyo Gorika Hakusho (White Paper on

19Industrial Rationalization), The Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Ltd.
MITI Kigyo-Kyoku (Firm Bureau) ed. (1952), Kigyo Gorika no Shomondai (The Issues of Rationalizing
Firms), The Association of Industry and Science.
[Nippon Kokan K.K. (NKK)] Kikaku-Shitsu Gijutsu-Ka (Planning Office, Engineering Division) (1949),
Beikokujin Gijutsusha tono Shitsugi Oto:Sono 1 (Q & A with the U.S. Engineers: Part 1), in Matsushita
Chokyu Papaers (owned by City of Yokohama Municipal Archives Reference Room), No. 395.
NKK Engineering Section, Kawasaki Works and Tsurumi Works (1958), F.N. Hays Shi ni yoru
Netsukanri Gijutsu Shido Keika ni tsuite (On Heat Control Guidance by Mr. F. N. Hays) in Soeda
Arimichi Papaers (owned by City of Yokohama Municipal Archives Reference Room), No. 585..
Ohta, Takami (1954), “Obe Tekkogyo no Insho (An Impression of the West Iron and Steel Industry: Part1)” in Yawata Technical Report, no.209.
Round Table by Chiefs of Engineering Department (1951), “The Japanese Iron and Steel Industry fromthe viewpoint of Technology”, in Bulletin of JISF, vol.1, no.10.
Sakai, Takeo (1961), “Oxygen utilized in the iron and steel industry: Part 2”, in Bulletin of JISF, vol.11,
no.2.
Sanso Kyokai (Oxygen Society) (1998), Sanso Sangyo Shi (A History of Oxygen Industry), Oxygen
Society.
Sanso Seiko Kyodo Kenkyu Iinkai (Joint Research Committee into Oxygen Steelmaking) (1950), Sanso
Seiko Ho no kenkyu (A Research for Oxygen Steelmaking), JISF.
Shoji, Hikaru and Ken’ichi Miyamoto (1964), Osorubeki Kogai (Fearful Pollution), Iwanami Shoten.
Showa Steel Works (SSW), Iron Division (1940), Showa Seiko Sho 20 Nenshi (Twenty-Year History of
SSW), SSW.
Steel Division (1955), Saikin ni okeru Heiro Seiko-Ho no Shimpo (Recent Progress of Open Hearth
Steelmaking), ISIJ.
Steel Division (1959), Heiro Seiko-Ho no Shimpo (Progress of Open Hearth Steelmaking: 1955-59), ISIJ.
Sugita, Kiyoshi (1997), “The Japanese Steel Industry Survived Postwar Energy Crisis: a condensed
history based on the activities of the Heat Economy and Technology Committee in its infancy”, inBulletin of the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan, vol.2, no.12
Sugita, Kiyoshi (2008), An Interview from Satoru Kobori.
Tabata, Shintaro (1956), “Sengo Ju-nenkan ni okeru Seitetsu Gijutsu no Shimpo ni tsuite (Developmentsof the technology of the iron and steel industry during ten years after war)”, in Bulletin of JISF, vol.6,
no.3.
Takeda, Haruhito (2007), “Juyo Kozo: Sangyo Kigyo no Hatten to sono Seiyaku Joken (Demand
Structure: The Developments of Industries and Firms and Those Restrictions)”, in Takeda ed. The
Reconstruction of the Japanese Economy in the Postwar Decade: Structural Change Unaccomplished,
Yuhikaku.
Tawara, Kuniichi (1922), “A Talk on my Observation of the West Iron and Steel Industry”, in The Journalof ISIJ, vol.8, no.11.

20

Teikoku Oxygen Co. (TOC), (1981), Teikoku Sanso no Rekishi (A History of TOC), TOC.
Tekko Kaigai Shijo Chosa Iinkai Ippan Bukai Kokusai Kyosoryoku Bunkakai Gijutsu Sho-Iinkai(Committee on Investigating Foreign Market of the Iron and Steel, General Division, International
Competitiveness Subcommittee, Technology Small Committee) ed. (1963), Nihon Tekko-Gyo no Kokusai
Kyosoryoku no Hyoka: Dai 2 Hen Gijutsu (Evaluation of the competitiveness of the Japanese Iron andSteel Industry: Part 2 Technology), Technology Small Committee.
Yoshikawa, Haruju (1949), “First Summarized Report of the Basic Open Hearth Research Committee of
the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan”, in The Journal of ISIJ, vol.35, no.1.
Yoshikawa, Haruju (1950), “Report of Steel Making Division, Investigation Committee of the Iron andSteel Institute of Japan (I)”, in The Journal of ISIJ, vol.36, no.10.

21Basic unit for fuels (1,000kcal/MT)

Fig. 1. Basic unit for fuels of OHF in four countries in 1953.

U.K.
USA

West Germany

Japan

Capacity of an open hearth furnace (MT)
Source : Tabata (1956), p. 83.
Notes : 1. U.K. and Japan: all of the basic OHF
2. USA: all of OHF
3. West Germany: all of the tilting OHF

22

Fig.2. Coal price indices 1905-1935(the avarage of 1911-13 =100)

360

320

1.7

(2) / (1) →

280

1.6

1.5

(←) coal (2)

240

1.4

200

1.3

160

1.2

120

1.1
(←) wholesale price (1)

80

1

40
1905

10

15

20

25

source : Kobori (2010), p.36

23

30

0.9
35 year45,000

1,000 tFig.3. Coal market of the Japanese homerland
1905-1935

1,000t 4,500
4,000

40,0003,500

35,000export (→)
30,0003,000

25,000

2,500
2,000

20,00015,000(←) total domestic
supply

1,500
1,000

10,000import (→)
500

5,000
0
1905

10

15

20

25

source : Koboi (2010), p.35

24

30

0
35 year

25

No.2

I

4

3
2

1

2
3

No.3

J

4

2

3
1

3

No.4

3

2
4

1
2

4. Although there are some inconsistent scores, e.g. Yawata No. 2, we do not modify them.

names as possible.

3

Osaka
Sumitomo Metal
Nishijima Pipe & Tube Wakayama
1
1
1
2
2
3
2

3. In the source, the name of plants are hidden and expressed by symbols. Reading the other pages of the source and several numbers of the Journal of ISIJ , we specified as many actual plants'

2. Data are based on the research exercise conducted during October--December 1953.

Notes : 1. Number means the rank of importance of each plant.

Source : Steel Division (1955), p. 180.

Table 1 Factors of the improvement of basic units for fuels at major OHF plants
Japan Steel Fuji
NKK
D
Works
FactorKamaishi Hirohata
Kawasaki
1
Change of fuel (producer gas to heavy oil)3
Improvement of instruments
3
2
2
Thoroughness of combustion control
2
Improvement of combustion equipment
12
1
Reconstruction and expansion of furnace
1
Exercise of heavy charge
Utilization of oxygen
1
3Reduction in time
Improvement of work
Amagasaki
Nichia Steel
YawataKawasaki
Steel
Amagasaki
Kure
No.1
Factor1
2
Change of fuel (producer gas to heavy oil)2
3
1
Improvement of instruments
1
3
3
Thoroughness of combustion control22
2
Improvement of combustion equipment
Reconstruction and expansion of furnace
Exercise of heavy charge
11
3
Utilization of oxygen
Reduction in time
Improvement of work
Kokura

2
1

1

5.0

t

Fig. 4. Amount of coal consumption per a ton of steel material at Yawata, 1912-57.

4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0

coal consumption per ton of steel material
coaking-coal consumption per ton of steel material

0.5fiscal year

0.0
1912

15

18

21

24

27

30

33

36

Source: Kobori (2010), p. 107.

26

39

42

45

48

51

54

57

Table 2 Investigations of ISIJ Divisions on energy saving technology
Year/Mo.

No.

Place

Research Division

Subjects

2

1927.11 Tokyo

1st Steel Division

6
6
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
20
22
24
28

1931.10 Yawata
1931.10 Yawata
1935.10 Kobe
1936.04 Tokyo
1936.10 Fukuoka
1937.04 Tokyo
1938.04 Tokyo
1938.10 Osaka
1939.04 Tokyo
1939.11 Tokyo
1940.11 Tokyo
1941.06 Tokyo
1943.05 Anshan
Hirohata,
1944.10Kobe

2nd Iron Division
2nd Steel Division
2nd Steel Material Division
3rd Steel Material Division
7th Steel Division
8th Steel Division
9th Steel Division
1st Fuel Economy Division
2nd Fuel Economy Division
3rd Fuel Economy Division
4th Fuel Economy Division
5th Fuel Economy Division
6th Fuel Economy Division

Gas producer, selection of fuel and improvementof gas quality
Dedusting of blast furnace gas
Regenerator of OHF
Heat economy of steel material plant
Heat economy of steel material plant
Heat balance of OHF
Heat balance of OHF
Heat balance of OHF
Heat balance of blast furnace
Heat balance of OHF
Heat balance of blast furnace
Heat efficiency of iron and steel making
Heat efficiency of iron and steel making
Heat balance of OHF and regenerator

7th Fuel Economy Division

Heat balance of OHF

33

Source: ISIJ (1945), pp. 9-12.

27

28

Place

38

Structure of OHF, heavy oil burner
Structure of OHF, heavy oil burner, castingmold
Gas producer, heavy oil, materials for a
furnace, structure of OHF, sound ingot
Structure of OHF, sound low carbon steel(pipe)
Producer gas, substitute materials for a
furnace bed, structure of OHF
Lecture by Eitaro Tomiyama on
steelmaking technology of the U.S.
Structure of OHF, sound carbon steel（sheet bar）

50.6.7 Tokyo （IISI）

50.8.8 Tokyo (IISI)

11

12

Source: Yoshikawa (1950), pp. 510-13, ISIJ (1950), p. 513.

50.4.1 Tokyo (IISI)

1950.2.3-4 Tokyo （Tohto Steel, IISI）

10.27 Tokyo （IISI）

10

9

8

7

35

Oxygen steelmaking, heavy oil burner

Amagasaki (Nichia Steel,Amagasaki Steel Works)
8.5 Tokyo (IISI)

5.29-30

6

41

41

42

50

45

39

Oxygen steelmaking, gas producer

4.1 Tokyo （IISI）

5

30

75

20

1949.1.25 Tokyo （ISIJ）

10.29 Amagasaki Steel Works

3

87

Combination ratio of iron, materials for a
furnace bed
Oxygen steelmaking
Oxygen steelmaking, materials for a
furnace bed

Note

8

12

14

13

22

14

8

7

Each company submitted a blueprint of a burner used atpresent and examined ways of operation and amounts of fueluse.

Experiments for oxygen steelmaking at ASW (6 November 1948)
was reported and analyzed.

14 Opening own oxygen steelmaking plan and mutual criticism.

2 Inspection of real works of oxygen steelmaking and discussion

7

35

No.
No.
submitted
attendingmaterials

How to use heavy oil

Main subjects

48.20 Tokyo （ISIJ）

1948.8.5-7 Yawata Iron and Steel Works

Date

2

1

Order

Table 3 Activities of ISIJ Steel Division, 1948--50

Table 4 Activities of the Heat Control Division of Yawata, 1944--54
Engineering Subsection
Instrument Subsection
Fiscal
No.
Year
Staff
Staff
operations
Engineers

1944
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54

13
14
17
37
37
37
37
43
43
―
81

3
4
3
8
8
8
8
9
9
―
10

Engineers

―
―
20
12
27
12
30
41
49
62
82

―
―
20
33
37
44
44
49
49
―
47

Source: Kobori (2010), p. 143.

29

―
―
7
6
8
8
8
8
9
―
―

No. operations

Own
―
18
383
1,050
1,743
2,769
3,557
4,255
4,470
4,244
4,309

Outsourcing

―
―
―
―
―
―
―
2,731
4,897
6,586
7,403

All
employees
66,74035,52628,40727,93032,70635,36235,03837,08736,72935,431
34,578

Table 5 Oxygen generators for steelmaking completed during the First Rationalization Plan
Company

Style

Year and
month

Linde
Linde
Linde--Frankl
Linde--Frankl
ClaudeLinde--Frankl
ClaudeHeiland
Linde--Frankl
Kaken
Linde--Frankl

1952.051952.05
1955.09
1952.01
1953.12
1953.03
1954.04
1954.051954.01
1953.05
1955.11

Plant

ASW
Osaka
Nishijima
Kawasaki Chiba
FukiaiJapan Steel Works
NKK
KawasakiFuji
Muroran
Kamaishi
Hirohata
YawataSource: Sanso Kyokai (1998), p. 122.

30

Nominalcapacity(m3/h)

Manufacturer

500 KOBELCO
500 KOBELCO
2,000 Japan Oxygen
2,000 Japan Oxygen
500 Imperial Oxygen
2,000 Japan Oxygen
500 KOBELCO
500 Mitsubishi Kakoki
500 Japan Oxygen
500 Hitachi
2,000 KOBELCO

Table 6 Oxygen steelmaking and basic unit for fuels, 1950--59

Year

1950
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59

Amount of ingot
production at
OHF

Amount of ingot
production atfactories using
oxygenShare ofoxygensteelmaking

Amount ofoxygenconsumption(1)t4,269,192
5,710,330
5,688,473
6,394,655
6,327,455
8,101,652
9,360,119
9,562,959
9,899,028
13,056,559(2)
t
117,615
496,5012,512,705
4,484,716
4,642,092
6,196,731
7,530,016
8,431,933
9,166,500
12,220,939(2)/(1)
%
2.8
8.7
44.2
70.1
73.4
76.5
80.4
88.2
92.6
93.6

(3)

Note : Basic unit for fuels does not include the score at acid OHF.

31

(3)/(1)3

1,000m599.8
3,537.8
32,398.1
49,347.9
64,547.7
75,485.5
92,360.7
117,255.8
164,997.0
260,306.0

Sources : JISF (1959), p. 768, AIST (1966), p. 85, Sakai (1961), p. 63.

Basic unit for Oxygen Basic unit
for fuels

3

m /t
0.14
0.62
5.70
7.72
10.20
9.32
9.87
12.26
16.67
19.94

(3)/(2)
3

m /t
5.10
7.13
12.89
11.00
13.90
12.18
12.27
13.91
18.00
21.30

1,000 kcal/t

1,819
1,771
1,609
1,357
1,157
1,051
1,025
995
842
758

20 m3/t
Fig. 5. Oxygen consumption
per ton of ingot, 1950--59.

18
16
14
12

Japan

USSR

10
8

USA
6
4
U.K.

2
0
1950

51

52

53

54

55

56

Sources : Table 6, Tekko Kaigai Shijo Chosa Iinkai (1963), p. 74.

32

57

58

year
59