Product innovations of key economic importance for the steel industry

Birat, Jean‐Pierre

doi:10.1051/metal/2018010

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…Of course, downstream emissions are related in a complex manner to the material. Moreover, beyond the negative impacts of materials, such as air emissions, they also have a positive impact, which has been described as the eco-socio-systemic value of that material [3]. This is, however, going beyond the scope of the present review paper.…”

Section: Lifecycle Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…The anthroposphere itself, because steel-related elements and compounds influence the health of people (toxicological effects) while steel-related activities create economic and social benefits, directly through the use of steel in the anthroposphere, or indirectly, through its eco-socio-systemic services [3]-two sides of the balance sheet with the pros and cons of steel in the economy and society. Figure 1 shows a typical plot of the mass engaged for the production of steel in an integrated steel mill, from the mine to the exit of the steelmaking shop, where crude steel is generated [10]: In this example, the ratio of engaged material vs. useful material is 16.5 to 1.…”

Section: Steelmaking Activities Pollute and Affect Ecosystems And Biomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Society, Materials, and the Environment: The Case of Steel

Birat¹

2020

Metals

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This paper reviews the relationship between the production of steel and the environment as it stands today. It deals with raw material issues (availability, scarcity), energy resources, and generation of by-products, i.e., the circular economy, the anthropogenic iron mine, and the energy transition. The paper also deals with emissions to air (dust, Particulate Matter, heavy metals, Persistant Organics Pollutants), water, and soil, i.e., with toxicity, ecotoxicity, epidemiology, and health issues, but also greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., climate change. The loss of biodiversity is also mentioned. All these topics are analyzed with historical hindsight and the present understanding of their physics and chemistry is discussed, stressing areas where knowledge is still lacking. In the face of all these issues, technological solutions were sought to alleviate their effects: many areas are presently satisfactorily handled (the circular economy—a historical’ practice in the case of steel, energy conservation, air/water/soil emissions) and in line with present environmental regulations; on the other hand, there are important hanging issues, such as the generation of mine tailings (and tailings dam failures), the emissions of greenhouse gases (the steel industry plans to become carbon-neutral by 2050, at least in the EU), and the emission of fine PM, which WHO correlates with premature deaths. Moreover, present regulatory levels of emissions will necessarily become much stricter.

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Section: Lifecycle Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Steelmaking Activities Pollute and Affect Ecosystems And Biomentioning

confidence: 99%

Society, Materials, and the Environment: The Case of Steel

Birat¹

2020

Metals

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“…In truth, this will probably cause the recycling players to look for new solutions, either to dilute the scrap in virgin metal or to purify it. Moreover, taking the example of aluminum may be seen as unfair as, most probably, if the trend to make more alloyed steel continues [17], then the problem will also arise for steels, eventually. But the lesson is that the benefits of downcycling are much less than those of multi-step recycling.…”

Section: What About Materials?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Palimpsest and heterotopia, metaphors of the Circular Economy

Birat

2019

Matériaux & Techniques

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Words like palimpsest or heterotopia do not belong to the working vocabulary of materials or engineering sciences: they are used in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). A palimpsest is a manuscript written on an older document, the text of which has been erased. Heterotopia is a young word forged by Michel Foucault in 1967 to describe a closed space, the boundaries of which mark a discontinuity in terms of behavior: a jail or a monastery are thus a heterotopia. The Circular Economy (CE) is an essential concept in the framework of the ecological transition, pulled by a series of converging economic, ecological and political drivers. It is usually described as the adoption of a circular model of production to replace the “linear model”, but also as the new buzzword to describe material efficiency, the 3-R rule, the zero-waste ideal, the concepts of lean or frugal design or their reformulation by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, as a societal challenge and an ethical necessity. Materials producers claim that they have been practicing the Circular Economy since long before the expression was ever invented, thus à la Monsieur Jourdain, etc. The point of this paper is to describe the Circular Economy as a palimpsest and as a heterotopia and to use the metaphors, if indeed they are only metaphors, to highlight some of the less obvious features of the CE. A palimpsest is a parchment or a papyrus, which is used several times to support a series of consecutive texts. Secondary raw materials are like a palimpsest, because there are retrieved from a previous life and used again in a second life: a new artefact made from that material is like a new text written on/with this material – a metaphor also used, mutatis mutandis, in expressions like 3-D printing or laser scribing. Some interesting features of the CE pointed out by the metaphor: a the palimpsest can be used several times, like a material can be recycled several times; the concept of the palimpsest posits that the parchment is somehow more important than the text that is written on it, therefore a material is more important than the goods that are made of it; the palimpsest was used before the invention of paper and, similarly, the Circular Economy was the standard model before mass production of cheap consumer goods imposed the so-called “linear model”; a palimpsest keeps a fragmented memory of the past, in the same way as recycled material maintains a link to its past lives, through its composition in tramp elements. Examples of heterotopia are a prison or a cemetery. The Circular Economy defines a space where a particular material/element exists in its various avatars, impersonations and reincarnations and this may tentatively be worked out as a heterotopia. This is a more complex endeavor than discussing the palimpsest metaphor, but a potentially more fruitful one. Foucault has provided criteria defining heterotopia which can help us explore the analogy: particularly the point that such a space is either a space of illusion or a space of perfection. This analysis is original because it hybridizes materials and SSH concepts and thus fits with the exploration of the frontier between materials and society that SAM conferences are concerned about.

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“…Materials themselves play a complex role in this interaction: they enforce the barriers between the spheres and make the life of humans more comfortable or even possible; they also contribute to emissions and pollution, directly where materials are produced and indirectly through the artefacts that are made of them; finally, they borrow from the limited amount of "fossil" resources available, either energy or raw materials [3].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An effective search for materials and energy efficiency as well as ecodesign approaches that include lean and frugal design have been particularly active, earlier and to a larger extent than in other industrial activities. This points to a genuine commitment to the environment, in the sense of countermeasures being actively implemented in plants and incorporated into the business model of materials industries [3]. This has even led to the conclusion that caring for the environment, from an industrial standpoint, is often a way to improve its own processes and to become more efficient: the optimum for the whole environment is often also an optimum for the industrial ecosystem.…”

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confidence: 99%

The environment and materials, from the standpoints of ethics, social sciences, law and politics

Birat

2019

Matériaux & Techniques

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Materials are deeply connected with the environment, because they stem from raw materials extracted from the geosphere, rely on large amounts of energy and of water in their production stage, project emissions to air, water and soil when their ores (or minerals) are mined, when they are made in steel mills or cement kilns, including very significant amounts of greenhouse gases. They also contribute to emissions and energy consumption of the artifacts of which they are part, either consumption or investment goods. Their connection with the biosphere raises many issues, in terms of toxicology, ecotoxicology or biodiversity or simply of public health or in the working place. Materials, as an essential part of the anthroposphere, interact deeply with the anthroposphere itself but also with the biosphere, the geosphere, the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, thus with nature in a general way through mechanisms which can no longer simply be described at the margin, as resource depletion or as pollution. This raises issues related to the sustainability of materials in human activities, in which they are deeply immersed and entangled. The standard way of dealing with these environmental issues is to invoke sustainability and to explain that all actors are engaged in sustainable development, a morals or an ethics that points in which direction to go: all players in the materials field, industry, institutions and research, claim allegiance to sustainable development. At a more technical level, specific tools like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are used extensively to measure the interaction of materials with the environment. This, however, is not enough to deal properly with the environmental issues of materials, because these issues are not marginal any longer: the anthroposphere has become so large with respect to the biosphere, the geosphere and the planet in general that environmental risk is now part of modern life, especially in connection with climate change and the loss of biodiversity. To go deeper in analyzing the connection of human activities with nature, it is therefore necessary to reach out to SSH (Social Science and Humanities) disciplines and particularly to environmental ethics. This is a prerequisite for materials scientists (and others) to act decisively in the future in the face of the danger that lies ahead of us. The present paper reviews the advances of environmental ethics, a fairly young discipline born in the 1970s, in as far as it can help all actors on the world anthropospheric theater choose their lines for the future in a more conscious and sophisticated way than simply claiming obedience to sustainability. We will review briefly intellectual forerunners of the discipline like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri David Thoreau, Rachel Carson or Paul Ehrlich. This will help flesh out well-known concepts like the precautionary principle or the “polluter-pays” principle, which are invoked in creating new materials or new processes to keep pollution and health issues under control, as part of the constraints of professional ethics but also of environmental law. It will be necessary to question to whom or to what the key concept of intrinsic value is attached: people, all living organisms or ecosystems, i.e. the environment in general, and thus to define anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism. Environmental law and the ethics of sustainable development are still mainly anthropocentric while scientific ecology is more clearly ecocentric. To tackle the challenges of environmental issues as they are posed today and to avoid catastrophes, it might be necessary in the future for all social players and for people of the world of materials to follow the steps of environmental ethics and to move up from anthropocentrism to the broader vision of ecocentrism.

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Product innovations of key economic importance for the steel industry

Abstract: Steel and materials in general entertain a special connection with time and therefore with innovation.

Cited by 4 publications

References 9 publications

Society, Materials, and the Environment: The Case of Steel

Society, Materials, and the Environment: The Case of Steel

Palimpsest and heterotopia, metaphors of the Circular Economy

The environment and materials, from the standpoints of ethics, social sciences, law and politics

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