We continuously further develop what is the most sustainable technology for the steel industry.
For more than 25 years, we have been producing steel at our site in Georgsmarienhütte in the most sustainable way there is: in an electric arc furnace. As a result, we save over one million tonnes of CO2 every year and are now just as much a pioneer in the industry as we were in 1994.
An electric arc furnace emits five times less CO2 than blast furnaces and converters. Each kilogram of crude steel from our EAF creates 1.6 t fewer CO2 emissions than crude steel from integrated steelmaking. In addition, our furnace can be flexibly controlled as needed and, unlike integrated iron and steelworks, is not in continuous operation. Since 1994, we have saved as much CO2 this way as 12.4 million passenger cars emit each year. Electric steel is steel with a future: it currently accounts for 30 percent of crude steel production in Germany, but causes only 3 percent of emissions from the iron and steel industry.
We melt steel in our electric arc furnace from 100% scrap – with no loss in quality. With every tonne of scrap, we save 1.6 tonnes of CO2. That corresponds to a 7,000-kilometre journey by car. We even recycle return scrap such as swarf, crop ends and other cutting waste, reducing our waste by 10%. Each recycling process improves our steel’s carbon footprint.
We use the waste heat from our operations for steelmaking, for heating buildings, and for hot water preparation. This covers a large part of our energy requirements and, in turn, saves several tonnes of emissions. We also feed the waste heat into the district heating network for the regional public utilities. For this, our Georgsmarienhütte GmbH has been honoured by the German Energy Agency (dena) as a “beacon of energy-efficient waste heat utilisation”.
