Energy consumption and CO2 emission in Taiwan\'s iron-steel industries

Abstract

This article investigates an empirical model to provide a reference for policies or regulations of energy consumption and greenhouse gas reduction in the iron and steel industry. Crude steel production is used to evaluate the energy consumption level and carbon dioxide emissions of Taiwan\'s iron and steel industry during the period 1982 to 2009. Empirical findings show that the annual growth rate of blast furnaces is on average lower than the annual growth rate of electric arc furnaces. When economic growth and the effect from energy saving are considered, an inverted U-shaped trend is observed in the energy consumption of crude steel. Moreover, carbon dioxide emissions are found to be the lowest at the economic growth rate between 2% to 4% and an energy saving rate of 0.6%, corresponding to 24.35 and 32.36 million tons in 2010 and 2020, respectively, will reduce to 29.9 million tons in 2050.