The U.S. steel industry has taken enormous strides over the past decades to reduce its energy consumption; since the end of World War II, the industry has reduced its energy intensity (energy use per shipped ton) by 60 percent. Between 1990 and 1998 alone, intensity has dropped from 20 to 18 million Btu (MBtu) per ton. This figure is projected to decrease to 15 MBtu/ton by 2010 with an asymptotic trend towards 14 MBtu/ton. Domestic shipments are projected to flatten out over the next decade to around 105 million tons which means that total energy consumption will also decrease. Historically, the steel industry has accounted for about 6 percent of U.S. energy consumption. Today, that figure is less than 2 percent and will decrease further to 1.5 percent by 2010. The primary causes for the decrease in energy consumption since WWII are: The use of pellets in the blast furnace and the application of new technology in the ironmaking process to further reduce fuel rates per net ton of hot metal (NTHM); The total replacement of the open hearth process by basic oxygen and electric furnaces; The almost total replacement of ingot casting by continuous casting (which improved yield dramatically and thus reduced the tons of raw steel required per ton of shipments); and The growth of the electric furnace sector of the industry at the expense of hot metal-based processes (which has also stimulated scrap recycling so that about 55 percent of ''new'' steel is now melted from scrap steel). This report focuses on the concept of good practices (i.e., those that are sustainable and can use today's technology). If all the industry could operate on this basis, the additional savings per ton could total 2 MBtu, As further restructuring occurs and the swing from hot metal-based to electric furnace-based production continues, the average consumption will approach the good practice energy per ton. Further savings will accrue through new technology, particularly in the areas of reduced blast furnace fuel rates and reheating efficiency, both of which relate to large tonnages of material.

Renowned industry expert Dr. John Stubbles has projected the energy savings that the U.S. steel industry could reasonably expect to achieve in the report, Energy Use in the U.S. Steel Industry: Historical Perspective and Future Opportunities (PDF 432 KB). The report examines the potential impacts of state-of-the-art technologies and operating practices, as well as structural changes in the industry itself.

Comprehensive analysis of present and future steel industry technologies through an extensive review of the current literature and discussions with experts at selected steel companies, research institutes, universities, and equipment developers/suppliers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Japan. Volume 1 analyzes the potential of the technologies under consideration and describes the Canadian steel industry as it existed in 1989, with some updates for 1990/91, and as it could be in the year 2000 and in 2010, and the implications of the potential changes in technologies. Volume 2 describes, in some detail, those technologies applicable to the year 2000, that is the best technologies in operation industrially anywhere in the world today. Volume 3 describes those technologies applicable to 2010, that is those promising technologies being researched and developed now.