JFE Steel, a major steel manufacturer, has decided to consider shutting down one blast furnace in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture in five years at the earliest, and to promote efficiency in its production system.
On the other hand, we plan to build a new "electric furnace" that emits less carbon dioxide and accelerate efforts toward decarbonization.
According to people involved, JFE Steel is considering shutting down one of the three blast furnaces at its steelworks in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture in five to eight years, when it will be refurbished. .
JFE Steel currently has eight blast furnaces in Japan, but has already decided to shut down one at its steelworks in Kawasaki City, which will reduce the number of blast furnaces to six.
On the other hand, it is a policy to build a large-scale "electric furnace" to make steel products with electric heat on the premises of a steelworks in Kurashiki City.
Electric furnaces emit less carbon dioxide than blast furnaces, but there are also issues such as the difficulty of producing high-quality steel products for automobiles, etc., and they want to speed up technological development.
As the steel industry is the largest carbon dioxide emitter in the industry, there is a need for greater efforts to decarbonize the industry as a whole.