Ranchi: NN Sinha, Secretary (Steel), Govt. of India on Friday said that sagacious technologies if adopted shall take us back to our roots & our roots in the Jharkhand state were the harbingers of Iron making several millennia ago as the Asur & other communities at Tanginath etc. were the pioneers in such difficult metallurgical processes way back.
He remarked that the COP26 at Glasglow, Scotland has defined our outer framework of net carbon neutrality by 2070. Each day this large goal is being broken up into sub-milestones, so all stakeholders should act fast. With a target of doubling the steel production of the country by 2030; there shall be demand for double the coal import which is 90% today at 60 MT.
Whereas the coal investments are getting discouraged, so for sustaining steel production there is none other way than to accelerate the production of biofuels and also develop simultaneously the technologies so that their percentage in steel making can be more than the stipulated amount of 20% today.
He explored the sufficiency of BioMass produce in India that out of a total produce of 770 MT of agribiomass, only 220 MT was available for industry use as biofuel. Going for the full 20% utilization in the blast furnaces, we need
10MT of biofuel today, which necessitates 0.1 million hectares of Bamboo cultivation, which is not a big ask.
However auxiliary bottlenecks in terms of transport & logistics, fire safety of biofuel during transportation, its detrimental effect on blast furnaces may also be looked into. Intuitively, it seems decentralization will be the key, which will ensure semiprocessing at farmer level for engendering rural jobs as an additional spin-off.
The first of-its-kind National Seminar on the efficacious use of Biofuels in the Steel Industry titled “BIOS 2023” Friday began amidst a galaxy of luminaries participating at the Ispat Bhawan precincts of SAIL, RDCIS, Ranchi. Sharing the dais with Shri Sinha in the inaugural session were Shri A. Bhowmick, Director I/C(BSL & RSP), Shri B.P. Singh Director I/C (DSP & ISP), Sri A.K. Singh, Director (TPRM), Shri N. Banerjee, ED I/C (RDCIS), all from SAIL and Dr. S. Rakshit Director (ICARIIAB).
The program began with lighting the lamp and the national anthem. Atanu Bhowmick urged the scientific community that Biomass was no more a mere academic exercise, but it is a necessity now. He said that among the 3Ps i.e. People Plant and profit, and Sustainability was the key. B.P. Singh said that Climate change is the most talked about global topic today and with 8% of carbon emissions we cannot ramp up to 300MT steel production by 2030.
Shri AK Singh beckoned all the delegates and the participants to fully utilize this Seminar which has been so well led by the Ministry of Steel. He opined that brainstorming with out-of-the-box ideas was required for reaching such pathbreaking technologies.
N. Banerjee welcomed all dignitaries, delegates, and participants and explained why this Seminar was organized. In the end, Dr. Rakshit Proposed the vote of thanx. He also stressed the need to utilize rice husk else its burning as it happens shall cause significant environmental damage.