Europe needs Chinese cooperation for decarbonisation

Europe’s role as leading region in the race for decarbonisation was questioned at “Green Steel World”, a trade fair plus conference set up by publishing house KCI last week in Essen.

In a discussion following a presentation on hydrogen, speaker Joachim von Schéele of Linde AG addressed the weakening role of Europe as an industrial region, despite its leadership in forward-thinking. “People in the world do appreciate our CBAM. However, we [Europe] have become small in industrial terms,” Kallanish heard him say at the conference. “Its relative economic power is half of what it was when I was a kid.”

Europe has become a somewhat “tiny” player in the world steel industry, but has still maintained a technological “thought leadership”, he noted. In the transition towards low-emission steelmaking, most reference and pilot facilities are operating in Europe.

Until 2040, Europe’s steel industry will reduce its CO2 emissions by 60%, and China by 40%, according to figures von Schéele provided. One helping factor in China will be the increased usage of scrap, which is expected to accrue massively in the country in the mid-term future. Overall, scrap availability will increase globally, to a stronger degree than steel production will, “which is essentially good news”, Schéele said.

He maintained that Europe needs to cooperate with China if the global steel industry wants to go ahead with decarbonisation. But he recommended a change of attitude because “China does often not appreciate the way European politicians speak”.

Regarding the shift towards hydrogen in Europe, he pointed to “tremendously” high costs for renewable energy in Italy, and high costs in Germany, while France, Spain and Scandinavia have a much better position.  He noted that power suppliers often maintain elevated prices for renewables, to make the business profitable, calling the scenario an “econondrum”.

Christian Koehl Germany

kallanish.com