Today, all major steel companies have ongoing conservation programs. These gains were achieved in a period of industry restructuring to meet both foreign and domestic competition. The steel industry is committed to energy conservation, and it has employed varied efforts to reduce energy consumption. Steel was a pioneer in the field of cogeneration because the blast furnace process lends itself naturally to cogeneration by virtue of the large amount of byproduct gases generated. Today's steel industry recycles a high percentage of scrap steel, which greatly reduces the amount of energy to produce steel from virgin materials.
Steel makes good use of fuels that are byproducts from the coke-making and ironmaking processes.
Significant advances have also come from energy-saving process changes such as the replacement of open hearth furnaces with basic oxygen furnaces and the implementation of continuous casting. Additional improvements in energy efficiency have come from the installation of recuperative burners for reheat furnaces, waste heat recovery systems and variable frequency controls. The steel industry has collaborated with the Department of Energy on numerous research projects designed to discover and promote energy-efficient technologies. Equally important to conservation efforts is the availability of adequate, reliable and competitively priced energy supplies. The North American steel industry will continue to support and promote policies and legislative and regulatory initiatives that provide opportunities to achieve these important goals so that it can remain a leader in today's global marketplace.