Modeling activities and scenario building are at the heartof the economic analysis delivered by the ULCOS program.Two main objectives were followed in the framework of SP9.First the modeling team had to provide a set of coherentenergy economic scenarios using POLES model. Second,the economic conditions for the emergence of the ULCOStechnologies were analyzed. ULCOS contributes to theelaboration of contrasted scenarios that the steel industrycould face in the long term. To aim at these objectivesspecific tools have been used: POLES model for the globalenergy system modeling and ISIM model for the steel sectorbased prospective (Hidalgo, 2003). The most promising steelproduction technologies identified in ULCOS Phase 1 havebeen introduced into ISIM as generic technologies. ISIM wasthen integrated as a module into POLES modeling system.The main model outputs are the energy prices and mixes andthe steel sector balances with a focus on the technology mix.Actually the climate policy scenarios developed in projectallow making recommendations to the steel industry in termsof sustainable development but also in terms of businessstrategy.

An important task in the structure of the ULCOS program hasbeen to provide a fair and homogeneous comparison amongthe elements of the initial and the short lists of processes,which are candidates to become the ultimate ULCOS,carbon-lean breakthrough steel production processes of thefuture. Eventually, that information is being used to providethe rationale for moving forward in the selection of the futurebest technologies. The CO2 tool, developed within SP9, thesubproject devoted to measuring the sustainability of theproposed ULCOS processes, is one of the key tools workedout but also used to carry out this essential part of the ULCOSprogram.
The CO2 tool is a mass and energy balance model of acomplete steel mill, i.e. a steel mill simulator, which focuseson estimating energy consumption and GHG emissions of ahot mill site. It applies a standard analysis to all the processroutes proposed in the course of the ULCOS program, bynormalizing the size of the site (4 Mt/y), the nature of theraw materials it uses, the scrap input in the steel shop and anumber of other parameters. The tool is fed by process dataof the various plants lined up in the steel mil, which havebeen generated by more detailed models and also arisefrom experimental data, when they are available. The tool ismeant to feed a further tool that compares the production andAbstracts of technical articlesinvestment costs in various scenarios extending until 2050,with a series of mild to strong carbon constraints.
The structure of the tool as well as the results it brought aboutare presented here. The major conclusion is that severalsolutions offer the possibility to cut steel mill emission bymore than 50% compared to the baseline “best technology”steel mill, provided that breakthrough solutions are taken intoaccount, based on the uncoupling of energy savings andCO2 mitigation targets.

The “cost tool” is a model that calculates the CAPEX & OPEXof the ULCOS routes. Along with the “CO2 tool”, it providesone of the key elements necessary for selecting the bestroutes: it was used for decision making when the programmoved from phase I, where 80 different routes whereunder investigation, to phase II, where 5 routes only arestudied further; it now provides updated information on theon-going routes of the last phases of the program. OPEX arecalculated by an extension of the CO2 tool, based on plantby plant simulation of the flow sheet, and CAPEX result fromthe concepts provided by the line SPs scaled by standardchemical engineering design rules. The tool is embedded in asophisticated futures studies framework, using the same longterm(2050) scenarios as the economic modeling of energyfutures carried out by LEPII [E. Bellevrat, P. Menanteau - Scenarios and economic mod-eling, Proceedings, ULCOS-4, Essen, October 2008.], which assumes a series offutures ranging from mild to strong CO2 constraint. This givesan unusual vision of when and how the CO2 externalitywill be internalized in the economy. Indeed, as claimedby the Steel Industry, the existing process routes are veryefficient and, therefore, in the context of prices encounteredsince 2000, there are not any no-regret ULCOS routes. Theselection of ULCOS routes has been carried out in coherencewith the tool conclusions, although other, non-model basedconsiderations have also been taken on board.


Life Cycle Assessment is a powerful method to compare thefull environmental burden assignable to products, services orprocesses. In the framework of ULCOS project, this methodwas chosen to assess the environmental burden of futureiron and steel making processes. We propose here a novelmethodology which consists in replacing the traditional datacollection by a rigorous physico-chemical calculation. Suchan approach allows precise environmental assessment ofexisting or future processes.

Among the local impacts which are considered within the SubProgram 9.3 of the ULCOS project for the assessment of technologiessustainability, air quality is a key issue for the evaluation ofthe environmental impact of a steel plant in its surrounding area. Inthis paper a method based on the use of air dispersion modellingis proposed for the assessment of the ULCOS technologies on thebasis of the concentration in the atmosphere of the main pollutants(NOx, SO2, TSP, PM10, PM25, CO, Pb, PCDD) produced by theplant. For performing this task the AERMOD model, a widely usedmodel belonging to class of Gaussian models, was used. For exploitingAERMOD it was necessary to characterize the case base plantspecifying the positions and dimensions of its main parts and itsstacks as well as the characteristics of their emissions. Furthermoreit was necessary to collect information on the meteorological conditionsand the terrain of the considered zone. The results, measuredin terms of average concentration of the pollutants at ground level,show that such concentrations are below the limits established bycurrent legislation. In the future these results will be used for comparisonsof the case base with new technologies.

SSSA is involved in the Subproject 9 Scenarios, Sustainability,Dissemination & Training, in particularly in the Work Package4. This KPI, developed at SSSA, measures the most importanteffects in the EU/Rest of the World Steel Trade due to theimplementation of a new technology: a quantitative approachhas been used in order to evaluate the EU raw materialdependence from the rest of the world and an approachboth qualitative and quantitative has been used in order tocalculate the variations in the EU competitiveness. An importantconsideration in the development of KPIs is the selection of theappropriate measurement categories. The selection is based,first of all, on the quantification of the European dependencethrough the weight of the non EU supplier countries andthrough the weight of the most important raw materials in theproduction process, then on the measurement of the Europeancompetitiveness. The article describes the methodology andthe algorithms applied in the steel sector. Finally, some resultsare shown and discussed.

This paper presents a part of work developed inside theULCOS project, which aims at the radical reduction of CO2emissions from iron and steel production, through new routes thatmust be sustainable, i.e. environmentally-friendly, economicallyviable and socially acceptable. In order to demonstrate theirsustainability, Key Performance Indicators are the main toolsdeveloped inside the work package 9.4, “Sustainability Model& Process Selection Tool”, which aims at making complex issuesmore manageable. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are themost useful tools for evaluating and managing not only theenvironmental and economic impacts, but also the social impacts.The assessment of social aspect of sustainability must betaken into consideration, nevertheless the prediction ofsocial impacts is often hard to be done, not only becauseof the lack of a clear cause-effect relationship but alsobecause of the difficulty to analyse and to predict socialphenomena, especially through a quantitative approach.The purpose of this work is to present a methodology, basedon both quantitative and qualitative approaches, carried outin order to develop the social indicator (Local CommunityImpact Indicator), which has primarily taken into accountpossible impacts of a current integrated steelworks on thecommunities within the close vicinity of the plant operations.

MOGADOR is a 2D mathematical model of the blast furnaceat steady state. In this project, it is used to get a better insightof the internal state of the BF, as the new types of operationdiffer greatly from the conventional one. Three importantapplications for the project are illustrated.


The history of the LKAB's Experimental Blast Furnace isbriefly reviewed and an introduction to the ULCOS newblast furnace is presented. The feasibility of the scale-up ofthe ULCOS New Blast Furnace - UNBF based on previousand new trials results at EBF are concisely discussed.
The historical trial results of using the EBF to simulate theconventional industrial blast furnace processes indicatedthat the EBF is able to imitate the commercial blast furnacesof different size and burden structure. The trial results canbe directly extrapolated to the commercial furnaces. Thediscussions regarding the scale-up of the UNBF showed thatbased on the EBF as well as the trials of the UNBF conceptit is completely feasible to determine the dimensions ofa full scale furnace and the process parameters for anindustrial scale trial of the UNBF concept.

ThyssenKrupp Steel AG has developed a numerical model tostudy the combustion of coal particles which are fed into theblast furnace through the tuyeres. The basic aim is to evaluatevarious coal lance / tuyere configurations and assess theiradvantages or drawbacks for successful operation. In theULCOS project, this model was used to check the feasibilityof some tuyere configurations for the Top Gas Recycling BlastFurnace process, which is especially challenging regardingtuyere design, combustion kinetics and raceway size.