Carbon emission prediction in the steel industry based on system dynamics analysis

The steel industry is an important source of carbon emissions. Predicting and controlling carbon emissions in the steel industry will contribute to China's early achievement of carbon neutrality. Based on the current development status of China's steel industry, a carbon emission analysis of each process in the steel production process was conducted, taking into account the factors affecting carbon emissions in the steel industry under technological innovation and market influence. Firstly, a system dynamics model was constructed, incorporating scenarios of business as usual (BAU), scale emission reduction (SRS), and technology emission reduction (TRS), to predict the future production of major products in the steel industry. Secondly, the data were imported into LEAP software and the predicted steel product production was used to forecast the carbon emissions of the steel industry from 2024 to 2035 under different measures. The results indicated that: 1) Without any policy-driven or technology-based emission reduction measures, carbon emissions from China's steel industry would continue to rise, projected to reach 2 716.779 Mt by 2035. 2) Adopting a single scale-based emission reduction or a single technology-based emission reduction could both reduce carbon emissions; in the long term, technology-based emission reduction was more effective. It was expected that by 2035, the effect of technology-based emission reduction would be 1.63 times that of scale-based emission reduction, resulting in a further 290.36 Mt reduction in carbon emissions. 3) Only in the scenario where both scale-based and technology-based emission reduction measures were implemented simultaneously could carbon peaking be achieved as soon as possible, with the peak projected to reach 1 841.29 Mt in 2026.