How We Make Green Happen
Maximizing the environmental compatibility of today’s plants is the ambition of Dr. Thomas Steinparzer, which goes hand-in-hand with creating salable by-products.
Why do you want to make green happen?
Dr. Thomas Steinparzer: I care a great deal about sustainability. As a company building steel plants, we have the opportunity to make a significant contribution by designing our solutions for maximum environmental compatibility. Today’s plants should, for instance, integrate nicely into residential areas without any major disadvantages for the surrounding population. By making the necessary considerations, we help to ensure that the next generation can count on sustainable metals production and greener steel products. This chance to make a positive impact gives me purpose.
What are the main objectives of your environmental solutions?
Steinparzer: My team and I are putting it this way: we strive to be “saving resources while creating value.” This mantra stretches from waste-heat recovery and the reduction and containment of noise all the way to off-gas cleaning and dust-recycling plants. The latter two are a great showcase for our motto: First, we remove various kinds of emissions and ensure clean air, for example, with our MEROS system. Then, we turn what we’ve filtered into something salable—via By-Product Leaching.
Greener Technologies for a Changing World
*The following interview appeared in Metals Magazine in March 2018.
How can ECO Solutions support full-scale digitalization in tomorrow’s steel plants?
Dr. Thomas Steinparzer: The waste-gas system is an integral part of any modern steel plant and has recently become mandatory. Proper waste-gas treatment is an important step toward optimized and energy-efficient production processes. Intelligent control systems can make a significant contribution when it comes to lowering a facility’s maintenance requirements and energy consumption, so that overall compliance with even the most stringent environmental standards can be achieved and kept over time.
Which markets are currently the most relevant, and which carry the most potential?
Steinparzer: Under the current market conditions, our business has largely shifted from greenfield projects to the modernization of existing steel plants and the implementation of specific upgrade packages to conform to the latest environmental guidelines. This has reintroduced Europe as an interesting market. Asia and Russia are also highly relevant, and I see great potential for our ecological innovations in Japan and Southeast Asia. Additionally, steel plants in China are putting much attention on lowering their emissions and increasing energy efficiency.
It seems that China is transforming more rapidly than many would have imagined. How would you assess the country’s recent ecological progress?
Steinparzer: China is currently undergoing a huge transformation due to the country’s new, more stringent environmental regulations. Compared to other regions, China’s emission standards are quite rigorous today. For the environment, this certainly is a positive development.
With all the controversy around the Paris climate agreement, do you foresee sufficient progress within our industry in the next four years?
Steinparzer: For many of our customers, CO2 emissions continue to be a key topic. To use a metaphor, the train for minimizing the carbon footprint in steel production is unstoppable. It is hard to tell what speed this train will travel at due to a variety of political factors, but I am convinced that we will be seeing numerous steel plants with a vastly lower CO2 footprint over the long term. Our ECO Solutions will make a significant contribution to this trend, particularly as we have many brilliant innovations in our pipeline for the years to come.
