Supplementary information

Energy Efficiency in the Japanese Steel Industry
February 25, 2008
The Japan Iron and Steel Federation

1. Methods for properly determining steel industry energy efficiency
During the steelmaking process, energy is consumed for the production of steel while being
simultaneously converted for the production of coke, recovery of byproduct gasses, recovery ofexhaust heat, generation of electricity and other purposes. That means a unified evaluation
covering energy consumption and conversion is needed in order to accurately determine the steel
industry’s energy efficiency. In addition, for international evaluations, it is vital to precisely
match boundary terms such as the scope of the evaluation and the evaluation coefficients. If asteel industry energy efficiency evaluation were performed without using uniform rules forstatistics, the evaluation would produce a conclusion that is completely different from the actual
situation.
In “IEA Energy Statistics,” which is produced by the International Energy Agency, the above“Energy Consumption (Final Consumption)” and “Energy Conversion” are presented separately.
Furthermore, each country is allowed to use its own methods for dividing energy consumption
and conversion, resulting in a large number of different approaches.
As a result, only the IEA’s Final Energy Consumption can be used to compare the energy
efficiencies of different countries. Even in the IEA report (Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency
and CO2 Emissions, IEA 2007), there are separate sections in “IEA Statistics” for the steel
industry for coke ovens, blast furnaces and other uses of energy. However, an analysis revealed
the need to improve these statistics, which are based on information from individual countries.
For example, in some cases, energy used for steel production is categorized as “other industries.”
This creates problems such as an underestimation of energy consumption or the conclusion thatan inappropriate amount of byproduct energy for power generation is being used for the steel
industry. Therefore, individuals must pay attention to these problems when making simple
comparisons based on “Energy Final Consumption” of the IEA’s energy statistics.
Currently, the “Asia Pacific Partnership (APP) Concerning Clean Development and Climate,” anorganization made up of public and private-sector individuals from seven countries, including theU.S., China, India and Japan, and International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI), which brings
together the world’s major steelmakers from the U.K., Germany, France and many othercountries, are working on a set of unified rules for international benchmarking that can be thebasis for approaches used for specific industries. However, this process is based on the major
premise that final energy consumption and energy conversion will be evaluated together as asingle unit. Unified evaluation scope and coefficients will be established based on thiscombination of consumption and conversion. If this evaluation system is used, the outstanding
efficiency of Japan’s steel industry will be obvious. This is because the combined
consumption-conversion method will accurately reflect all of the hard work of Japanese steel

1companies to devise ways to recover and effectively use exhaust heat and byproduct gases.

2. Energy efficiency in the Japanese steel industry
The Japanese steel industry has already made public a large volume of information about energy
efficiency. The most recent document was announced in January 2008 by the Research Institute of
Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE). In this January 2008 report, 16 other reports alongwith IEA energy statistics are used to produce an international comparison of energy efficiency
using a combined evaluation of energy consumption and conversion. The report gives Japan’ssteel industry an energy efficiency of 0.59 tons-oil/tons-crude steel. This is 15% to 20% better than
the steel industry energy efficiency in Germany (0.69), France (0.71) and Britain (0.72), making
Japan the world’s most efficient steel industry.
Furthermore, a 2007 international thesis collection called Energy Economics included a report on
the results of a survey concerning the diffusion rate of energy conservation equipment at steel
companies in different countries. Based on this survey, the diffusion rate of energy conservationequipment at Japanese steel companies is far higher than in any other country.
In addition, the January 2008 RITE report presents data concerning the potential CO2 reduction
if all countries in the world started using Japanese energy conservation technologies.
APP, IISI and other international organizations all recognize Japan’s steel industry as the world
leader in energy conservation.

International Comparison of Steel Industry Energy Efficiency
1) Unit Energy Consumption in Steel Industry
10.8

0.74

0.75

0.79
0.72

0.71

0.78

0.80

0.69
0.59

0.6

0.76
0.63

0.4

t-oil/
t-crude iron

0.2
0U.S.

CanadaU.K

Japan ranks higher than theU.K., Germany, France and allother countries in terms ofenergy efficiency at integrated
steel mills. Japan’s leadership isdue in large part to theextensive use of exhaust heatrecovery equipment and thehighutilization
rateofbyproduct gases.

Germany
Australia
China
RussiaFranceJapan
Korea
India

Source: International Comparison of Energy Efficiency (Power Generation, Steelmaking andCement), RITE, 2008 (Japanese translation and numbers by JISF)

22) Diffusion Rate of Energy Conservation Equipment in Steel Industry

Capacity share of facility
in total BOF steel production

Energy conservation equipment diffusion rate

JapanJapan
日本

U.S.
US
米国

EU(15)
EU (15)

Korea
Korea
韓国

India
India
インド

China
China
中国

100%

The diffusion rate of exhaust heatrecovery equipment (CDQ, TRT) is
much higher in Japan than inEurope and the U.S. Furthermore,
Japan is clearly ahead of othercountries in the recovery ofbyproduct gases (coke oven gases
and basic oxygen furnace gases).

設 80%
備
装 60%
備
率
40%
20%
0%

Continuous

連続鋳造
CCasting
ontinuous
castingoxygen CokeCokeoven gas Basic
drying fire Blast
furnace top
コークス炉
転炉ガス
コークス乾式
高炉炉頂圧
CrecoveryOG
recovery LDG
recovery
CDQ
TRT
furnacegas extinguishingpressure
recovery

ガス回収

回収
recovery消(CDQ)
火設備(CDQ) power
回収発電(TRT)
generation(TRT)

Source: Diffusion of energy efficient technologies and CO2 emission reductions in iron and steel
sector (ODA et al, Energy Economics, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp 868-888, 2007) (Japanese translation byJISF)

3) Potential CO2 Emission Reduction in Global Steel Industry

CO290Crude steel unit energy consumption

8080

7060

55
4650
40
30
910

(millions tons of0

20

1620

U.S.

Canada

7U.K.

8Standard

55

Germany
Australia
China
FranceKorea
JapanIndia

RussiaThere would be a large reduction
in CO2 emissions if all othercountries could reach Japan’slevel of energy efficiency. UsingJapanese energy conservation
technology on a global scalewould clearly make a bigcontribution to slowing global
warming.

CO2/year)

Source: International Comparison of Energy Efficiency (Power Generation, Steelmaking andCement), RITE, 2008 (Japanese translation and numbers by JISF)

3