New iron production process cuts emissions by 90 %

www.gizmag.com...

November 17, 2006 A new manufacturing process developed appears set to make the production of iron much more environmentally friendly. The outstanding feature of the “Corex process” is that it uses conventional coal instead of coking coal, the customary ingredient. The world’s largest Corex-based plant is currently being built in China and is scheduled to begin operation in late 2007. It does not require a coking plant, reducing the discharge of dust and nitrogen oxides by more than 90 percent and sulphur dioxide emissions by 97 percent.

This is great news and just goes to show us that the solutions are all around us. The most significant part is the 97% SO2 emissions.

the process is nice but not as new as your article makes it sound:

wiki link

USGS link

In 1988, the first commercial Corex plant was commissioned at Pretoria in the Republic of South Africa. Many of the technical problems associated with the startup of this 300,000- metric-ton-per-year demonstration plant have since been solved, and several steel companies are now considering building much larger units in the United States and Western Europe. The proposed Corex plants are still significantly smaller than existing blast furnaces but can be brought up to full operation much quicker with less cost. A key feature of the Corex process is that it uses untreated raw coal in place of coke. The ability to operate without coke gives the Corex plant two environmental advantages over the conventional blast furnace. First, because coke ovens are not needed, all of the problems associated with the generation of benzene and other coal tar byproducts are eliminated. Second, the dust problems associated with blast furnaces are also eliminated because the offgas is used as fuel.

Well I hope then that the technology is ready for prime time now. The Iron industry is a very big contributor of Industrial pollution. The average CO2 line for the Industrial sector has flattened out due to the Soviet Union falling apart. Thing like this can make the CO2 emissions from this sector of the economy actually start to decline for the first time since the early 90s. It's already in a distant third behind Commercial and Residential pollution.