2021 is the European Year of Rail.

Officially launched on 29 March by the European Commission, the European Year of Rail will aim to highlight the benefits of rail as a sustainable, smart, and safe means of transport. “Environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient, rail will play a crucial role in helping the EU become climate neutral by 2050. The COVID-19 crisis has also shown how rail transport can facilitate the supply of essential goods such as medical devices, food, and fuel in exceptional circumstances” declared Oleg Butković, Croatian Minister for the Sea, Transport, and Infrastructure, President of the Council of the EU.

A truly sustainable means of transport

Rail emits far less CO2 than equivalent travel by road or air. It accounts for only 0.4 % of EU greenhouse gas emissions, while all EU transport accounts for 25% of the EU’s total emissions. Plus, it is the only transport means that has consistently reduced its emissions and energy consumption between 1990-2017 while increasingly using renewable energy sources.

Moreover, rails are infinitely recyclable. At the end of its service life and when it is removed from the track, a rail can be recycled as raw material to manufacture new rails or other steel products, which means a significant amount of natural resources and energy savings. This ability to infinitely recycle is one of the environmental strengths of steel.

ArcelorMittal committed to being climate neutral by 2050

As the world’s leading steel and mining company, ArcelorMittal supports the European Commission’s Green Deal and believes the right market mechanisms are a critical part of enabling the deployment of low-emissions steelmaking. ArcelorMittal was one of the first companies to support a proposed carbon border adjustment and backs the European Commission’s proposals for a €35 billion ‘just transition’ fund to invest in research, innovation, and green technology.

ArcelorMittal Europe has committed to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 with a further ambition to be carbon neutral by 2050, in line with the EU’s Green Deal and the Paris Agreement. As Europe’s largest steelmaker, we have a significant role to play.

ArcelorMittal has recently launched XCarb™ as part of the company’s journey to deliver on its 2050 net zero commitment. XCarb™ will ultimately bring together all of ArcelorMittal’s reduced, low, and zero-carbon products and steelmaking activities, as well as wider initiatives and green innovation projects, into a single effort focused on achieving demonstrable progress towards carbon neutral steel.

ArcelorMittal Rails & Special Sections bringing innovation to the railway sector

ArcelorMittal Europe Long – Products Rails & Special Sections operates rail production facilities in Spain, Poland, and Luxembourg offering a wide portfolio of products covering rails for trains, undergrounds, trams, light rails, crane rails, crossings, and rail accessories, building an incomparable knowledge and expertise of these product ranges.

ArcelorMittal’s current main trending topics for railway are:

• Digitalisation: ArcelorMittal Rails & Special Sections is extending its 4.0 transformation with the launch of several digital tools such as the new Rail Tool app, Life Cycle Cost models, and predictive maintenance.
• Increasing rail length in order to provide further track safety, welding, track laying, and maintenance cost savings.
• Increasing rail service life with the most appropriate solutions related to different applications: LCV for tramways, new hardness grades for heavy haul, and other uses.
• RailCor®: A completely new range of corrosion-resistant rails which offer protection in severe environments whether the rails are installed inside tunnels, city centres, or coastal areas. It also offers increased rail service life and increased cost savings reducing Life Cycle Cost.
• Customer experience: The development of new passenger and citizen-oriented solutions to increase comfort and reduce traffic noise.
• R&D: To satisfy customers’ increasing requirements, ArcelorMittal has its own dedicated R&D Rail Excellence Centre that allows us to provide our customers with prompt, innovative, and cost-effective solutions. The research lines are structured around three main axes: optimisation of the manufacturing process, new product development, and implementation of new rail track solutions. The welding pilot plant, the advanced testing systems of in-use properties, or the ongoing developments of track monitoring are some examples of the solutions that ArcelorMittal, through the R&D Rail Excellence Centre, will bring to the railway sector. This will be possible thanks to an open innovation in collaboration with a network of universities, technology centres, and companies from the railway sector.

Text:
ArcelorMittal Europe Communications

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ArcelorMittal

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ArcelorMittal
Shutterstock

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In February 2021, ArcelorMittal Asturias completed its coke oven gas (COG) injection project for Blast Furnace B in its Gijón plant, a strategic step to reduce CO2 emissions and operational costs thanks to lower coke consumption. Use of this innovative technology will result in a reduction in CO2 emissions of 125 000 tonnes a year, equivalent to the emissions generated by the annual consumption of 84 000 Spanish households with individual natural gas-based heating systems*.

CO2 emissions reduction

ArcelorMittal Europe has a target to reduce its CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 and an ambition to become carbon neutral by 2050. To achieve this target, ArcelorMittal Europe has two main technological pathways, innovative DRI (direct reduced iron) and Smart Carbon, which were presented in the company’s first Climate Action Report published in June 2020. Innovative DRI involves the use of hydrogen for the direct reduction of iron ore for use in both electric arc furnaces and blast furnaces. Smart Carbon is a carbon-neutral steel production path that makes use of all clean energies (circular carbon, clean electricity, and carbon capture and storage, or CCS) in a controlled high-temperature reduction environment for the production of hot metal. In the first stage, the Smart Carbon path will basically use circular carbon, expanding to become hydrogen Smart Carbon when green hydrogen is widely available and affordable.

Smart Carbon

The Smart Carbon approach, as applied in the projects that the company is working on at its European Flat Products sites, allows gases from various sources to be injected into the blast furnace. The injection of coke oven gas, with high hydrogen content, is an effective and cost-efficient method that enables steel producers to reduce CO2 emissions immediately. ArcelorMittal Asturias has completed the most advanced project in the company linked to the use of coke oven gas and has initiated the injection of grey hydrogen (hydrogen recovered from various gases, including natural gas and coke oven gas) into Blast Furnace B.

The Asturias project is based on the idea of reducing the amount of CO2 generated in the hot metal production process through the reuse of part of the gas generated in the coke oven batteries to partially replace the coke used as fuel in the blast furnace. With the same circular economy approach, the plant is finalising the work that will allow coke oven gas to be supplied to the reheating furnaces in the Heavy Plate and Rail mills, thus reducing the consumption of natural gas and the generation of CO2. These rolling mills process steel slabs and billets from the Avilés and Gijón steel plants, transforming them into heavy plates and rails respectively.

Oswaldo Suárez, CEO of ArcelorMittal’s Asturias Cluster, notes that “the injection of coke-oven gas into Blast Furnace B is an important milestone in the transformation of our processes to progress towards a more sustainable, low-carbon production model.”

*Based on a recent study by the Spanish Institute for Energy Diversification and Savings (IDAE).

Text:
ArcelorMittal
Constructalia

Images:
ArcelorMittal