The United Nations conference on climate change may be marked by a certain environmental “blah,” to use the words of activist Greta Thunberg, but it is also the place where concrete and very promising initiatives are revealed. ‘hope for a real and substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the short term.
I was intrigued on Wednesday by the announcement of the global steel group ArcelorMittal, which has pledged to invest 205 million in its iron ore pelletizing plant in Port-Cartier to modify the manufacturing process there and thus reduce 200,000 tonnes per year its CO emissions2 from 2025.
To find out more, I joined Mapi Mobwano, CEO of ArcelorMittal Canada, in Glasgow, Scotland, where he is participating in COP26.
“It’s amazing what’s going on here. We feel that things are really changing, that there is an urgent need to act. We are committed to reducing our CO emissions by 25%2 by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050, ”he told me at the outset.
As a reminder, ArcelorMittal Canada extracts 25 million tonnes of iron ore annually at its Mont-Wright deposit, near Fermont, on the North Shore.
The company also operates an iron ore pelletizing plant in Port-Cartier which transforms 10 million tonnes of ore into pellets used in the manufacture of steel. The other 15 million tonnes are exported to the group’s steelworks in Europe and to customers in Asia.
To make the famous iron balls, you must first process the ore to increase its iron content and reduce that of silica. Each year, ArcelorMittal consumes 210,000 tonnes of process coal imported from Europe and large quantities of heavy fuel oil to heat its furnaces.
“We are going to implement a flotation process that will reduce the silica content to produce pellets with a higher iron content. We are going to do this while abandoning imported process coal and replacing it with biochar produced in Quebec.
“We will also replace heavy fuel oil with pyrolytic oil, a bioenergy produced with residual forest biomass that the Bioenergy company of Port-Cartier will manufacture from wood chips,” Mapi Mobwano tells me.
This new flotation system and the use of alternative energy sources will reduce the emissions from the Port-Cartier plant by 200,000 tonnes of CO.2 per year, the equivalent of removing 57,600 cars from the roads.
From forest to steel
The environmental effect of this transformation of the industrial process will however extend far beyond the North Shore since the iron pellets produced in Port-Cartier can be transformed into steel by the ArcelorMittal steelworks in Contrecœur and Hamilton (Dofasco) in a very large way. less polluting.
With iron ore low in silica, ArcelorMittal plants and other steel plants will be able to use electric arc furnaces that consume much less energy than current furnaces.
“Our direct reduction pellets will be able to be transformed into steel with electric arc furnaces, which will lead to a reduction in CO emissions.2 2.7 million tonnes per year, starting in 2030, which represents 778,000 cars that will be taken off the roads, ”Mapi Mobwano explains.
In Contrecœur, electric arc furnaces are already being used since the Port-Cartier pellet plant produces 2.5 million tonnes of pellets with a low silica content. From 2025, the 10 million tonnes of pellets will all be directly reduced.
By using pyrolytic oil to replace heavy fuel oil, ArcelorMittal also provides an outlet for forest producers who no longer find any for their chips since the closure of the Baie-Comeau paper mill.
“We are participating in the circular economy and we want to go further with the production of biochar made from forest biomass. We are going to reduce our imports of process coal that was imported from Europe; here too, we will reduce the carbon footprint, ”emphasizes the CEO.
ArcelorMittal is not the only company established in Quebec to have distinguished itself in Glasgow. Elysis, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Alcoa, which has designed new zero-carbon aluminum electrolysis technology, announced Thursday that it has started production of green aluminum on an industrial basis at its center in Saguenay research, with a view to possible marketing from 2024.
If all the aluminum smelters in Quebec adopted the Elysis technology, this represents 20% of all industrial CO emissions.2 of Quebec that would be eliminated. There is talk in Glasgow, but there is also a horizon that finally seems to want to emerge.