Stories of High-Quality Development: A steel plate's road to carbon reduction

Birds are singing and flowers are blooming outside the "lights-out" cold rolling factory of Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (Bao Steel). Inside the factory, robots work round the clock. This is a far cry from the traditional idea of a noisy steel factory.

Here, more than half of the production capacity is used to produce a new generation of automotive steel, including low-carbon emission automotive steel plate.

For Bao Steel, the transformation from high emissions and high energy consumption to an increase in the green quotient and quality of development seemed like a fantasy before 2009.

"The automobile industry's environmental protection and emission requirements gradually improved around 2005, and car manufacturers wanted us to produce ultra-high-strength steel. But at that time this technology was held by foreign enterprises. When we sought to acquire it, the foreign side said, 'Sorry, this is not for sale!'" Bao Ping, a chief engineer at Bao Steel, recalled, adding that these words served as a wakeup call for them.

"Core technologies would not be gifted to us, nor could they be purchased or begged for," Bao said. After a decade of dedicated efforts, Bao Steel produced the world's first roll of third-generation ultra-high-strength steel, BaoQP980, giving rise to China's very own X-GPa® (tensile strength greater than 1,000MPa).

Today, the story of the steel plate is still being written. In April 2024, the trial production of ultra-low carbon emission steel produced using the electric furnace smelting of all scrap steel was successful, achieving a 60 percent reduction in carbon emissions across the whole process.

"Green is an important feature of new quality productive forces that I have personally experienced," said Bao. Having dedicated nearly 30 years to the development of automotive steel plate, Bao hopes to continue making breakthroughs in smart and low-carbon technologies, and through working together with the industry chain, strive towards more high-quality development to create a new chapter for a green future.