Health, Safety, Environment and Community Report 2004

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Meeting the Challenge of Greenhouse

BlueScope Steel is actively seeking to improve the intensity of our greenhouse gas emissions by developing and deploying a range of energy efficiency initiatives across our major sites in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Within the constraint of the direct chemical link between production of steel and CO2 produced, the global steel industry is continuing to improve greenhouse intensity even as the tonnage of steel produced increases. We are making our contribution to the global effort by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced for each tonne of steel we make.

Our Western Port Works has reduced its greenhouse emission intensity by some five per cent, from 0.68 T CO2-e per tonne of product in 2001 to 0.65 T CO2-e per tonne of product despatched in 2004. We have agreed an Environment Improvement Plan with the Victorian Sustainable Energy Authority targeting a one per cent reduction in energy intensity per year. To date our Western Port Works has effectively met double that target.

New Zealand Steel has made numerous improvements to energy efficiency, the centrepiece being two co-generation plants generating approximately 60 per cent of the Glenbrook Plant's required electricity from waste heat and gas created by the ironmaking process. The 600GW of co-generated electricity offsets electricity that would otherwise have to be imported from the grid.  The larger plant generates some 430GWh per year. The smaller plant has been operation since 1987 and generates approximately 170GWh per year. This equates to a reduction in carbon intensity of 16 per cent in the last five years.

We are now evaluating the opportunity to establish a similar, though larger scale, co-generation plant at the Port Kembla Steelworks.

Greenhouse