Analysis of secondary energy in China’s iron and steel industry – An approach of industrial metabolism

ABSTRACT

This study developed a conceptual model based on the industrial metabolism approach and the generic model can be used to analyze the energy flows for the iron and steel (Is) industry. based on the general situation of china’s is industry, the energy flows with the focus on secondary energy reuse were analyzed for each of the is production process. by applying the model to a china’s is enterprise, it was found that corporation a recovered and reused 46.6% of its secondary energy in 2010, while there was still a large potential of secondary energy to explore, i.e. about 25.7 × 10¹⁵ joule. concerning the general situation in china’s is industry, over 1500 × 10¹⁵ joule of secondary energy could be further recovered, without the need of technological breakthroughs or unaffordable investments.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy flow
• industrial metabolism
• integrated utilization
• iron and steel
• secondary energy

Acknowledgement

This work gained financial support from the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB228305), which is acknowledged.