Prospective LCA of E‐Methanol Along the Transformation of Steel Industry

The steel industry is considering switching from the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route to the hydrogen-based direct reduction (DR) route. This transformation will affect the availability of steel mill gases (SMGs) for carbon captureand utilization (CCU). This research article investigates the environmental consequences of the transformation on e-methanolproduced by CCU. Non-combustion of SMG reduces climate change impacts, whereas the substitution of the lost energy outputinfluences the other impact categories. The CCU-methanol routes are better than reference methanol in almost two-thirds of allenvironmental impact categories. Cleaner production of steel, copper, and concrete for renewables is imperative to achieve holisticreductions in all/majority of impact categories.