Potential for steel industry energy intensity improvements: Electricity use in minimills

摘要

US steel manufacturing has experienced an extended episode of creative destruction in the past twenty years. The creative destruction has been the closure of over fifty million tons worth of annual capacity in iron-ore based steel plants concurrent with the construction of nearly thirty million tons of productive capacity in scrap-based steel plants. Our focus is on the effects of the creative destruction in steel on the use of electricity in steel manufacture. This paper utilizes the plant level data at the Center for Economic Studies at the Census to analyze the energy and technical efficiency of minimills from 1972 to 1988. We examine the potential for improvements in energy (electricity) use within the minimills segment of the industry. Since the role of this segment of the industry has changed so dramatically in the last 20 years we examine in detail the role that the plant age and vintage plays in determining energy and technical efficiency. (ERA citation 17:028570)