1. Introduction
1.3 Research significance
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private, public and voluntary sectors whose activities impact (and are impacted by) corporate decisions to implement EMS. Next, the literature review section explores legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, and other viable explanations for why firms engage in (or avoid) developing their EMS. Finally, the results and discussion sections organize the feedback from surveys and interviews in light of the preliminary research.
Importantly, this study does not succumb to the critique levied by Vayda and Walters (1999) against early self-styled political ecologists; these researchers apparently begged the question by assuming that organized politics had a key role to play in environmental change, and then they set out to prove it. In fact, unlike many studies in the field of political ecology, this research tackles a relatively uncontroversial issue in Taiwan’s contemporary political scene – despite the important impact EAF steel production can have on public and ecological health. The following section about the significance of the research discusses this further.
1.3 Research significance
This study contributes to prior work in the political ecology field by examining a site of environmental conflict (industrial activity versus public and ecological health) that does not engage civil society groups in open, direct and political conflict with public and private sector actors. In other words, waste management and other environmental problems in Taiwan’s steel industry have not captured the public’s attention like issues such as nuclear power and untreated wastewater dumping by semiconductor and electroplating firms. In the course of my research, there has been little indication of a public scandal brewing in the steel industry, and this actually marks a departure from most subjects of inquiry in political ecology.
Most political ecology research emphasizes hot-button issues3 involving polluting industries that are in conflict not only with the sustainability of the natural environment but also with groups at various levels of society (NGOs, neighborhood associations, regional
governments, indigenous tribes, and more). It’s important to develop a clear picture of how industries that fly largely under the public radar operate, especially in regions where heavy industry is still a chief contributor to economic development. Despite the emotional appeal of intense industry-society clashes, most industries worldwide do not bear the weight of infamy,
3 For example, diamond mining in Africa, fair trade coffee plantations in Latin America, the destruction of mangrove ecosystems in the Philippines, etc.
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and yet the cumulative environmental impact of factories that go relatively unnoticed amounts to a much greater impact than the few firms that endure pointed scrutiny. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap in the critical field of political ecology — a methodologically strong field that needs a better understanding of “business as usual.”
In addition, this study makes a contribution to the knowledge available in English regarding the specific forces at work in Taiwan’s small- and medium-sized steel and iron enterprises and their relationship with the environment. This information is especially relevant considering the intensity of steel use in Taiwan per capita relative to other countries. Chang et al.
(2002), comparing Taiwan with Japan and the U.S., concluded that Taiwan has the second highest per capita use of steel (to Japan), but steel demand and use were increasing in Taiwan whereas Japan was on a downtrend. Taiwan also superseded Japan and the U.S. with regard to intensity of steel use (defined as production/GDP), which Chang understands to be an indicator of Taiwan’s relative inefficiency.
Furthermore, this work has practical significance for stakeholders in Taiwan who seek greater impact on industrial decision-making. The study isolates initiatives by sector while highlighting the activities of environmental agents, paying special attention to the unique limitations of institutions and groups. Thus, members of these organizations can leverage this insight to enhance their initiatives. Little (2007) says the following about the practical
significance of political ecology research: “This knowledge … contains the potential for being appropriated by the very social actors involved, and may even promote the questioning of existing public policies and the proposal of new forms of action and public control.” Moreover, local environmental policy wonks indicate that stymied progress in Taiwan can arise from a lack of mutual understanding across sectors and the poor communication that results; this is
especially true for some environmental activists who lack an understanding of corporate
motivators and limitations beyond “greed” and other unhelpful buzzwords. My own hope is that such activists will further empower themselves and their movement by harnessing more
knowledge and a greater array of potential solutions – including technological solutions – in the fight against environmental degradation. Thus, this study’s attempt to describe the circumstances of all members of EAF’s “political ecosystem,” while placing special emphasis on the steel production plants themselves, may serve as a jumping-off point to more informed and productive conversations about the nation’s economic and environmental future.
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2. Environmental governance and Taiwan’s steel industry
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources defines environmental governance as “the means by which society determines and acts on goals and priorities related to the management of natural resources. This includes the rules, both formal and informal, that govern human behavior in decision-making processes as well as the decisions themselves.”4 According to the World Steel Association, steel is the most recycled material globally; it comes from processed iron ore and generates byproducts that affect natural resources like air and water. Electric arc furnaces are particularly popular worldwide because, by using recycled steel rather than iron ore, they require less capital and less energy than other facilities.
For the purposes of this study, environmental governance involves stakeholders in the economic, political and social spheres influencing decisions to adopt and implement (typically capital intensive) environment-oriented technologies and procedures to control and mitigate negative externalities (Figure 1):
Table 1: Chief Aspects of Environmental Governance in EAF Steel Production
Governance Factors Components
Influence from the economic sphere (private sector) Influence from the political sphere
(public sector)
-central and local government regulations -voluntary initiatives
-development assistance and subsidies -recognition schemes
Influence from the social sphere (voluntary sector)
-neighborhood self-help groups -nongovernmental organizations -media attention
-expertise and activism from academics (not working on behalf of government or business) Environmental management systems
(technology and operations)
-expertise and information
-accessible technologies and protocols -allocation of capital for upgrades
-corporate decision making process, ethos Environmental impact
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-global issues (especially global warming) -resource and energy conservation -waste control
This section will explore each of the aforementioned parameters of environmental governance in turn, starting with an in-depth explanation of steel production in an EAF facility.
This information contextualizes environmental investment by positioning it within a paradigm of day-to-day operations and forecasts potential areas for improvement. Next, a detailed look at what is at stake for the industry (i.e., the environmental impacts of EAF) illuminates the broader context of private sector initiatives for EMS development. The final two subsections discuss political/regulatory and social influences on EAF operations. Later, the efficacy of multi-sector influence on actual Taiwanese firms’ EMS development will be explored in the results and discussion sections.
2.1 The steelmaking process with an electric arc furnace
Understanding in detail how EAF facilities produce steel makes it easier to grasp the inputs and outputs of the system and their environmental implications as well as the high level of expertise and capital required to make changes and improvements. As will be explored more thoroughly in the results section, cross-sector friction related to industrial upgrades (particularly when government regulators seek upgrades to older facilities) may result from or be exacerbated by company resentment over a perceived public sector failure to adequately measure the material constraints of an operation. The following section just skims the surface of the intricate industrial process of EAF steelmaking, implicitly drawing attention to the massive levels of sunk costs in particular technologies and existing methods of operation.
The process of producing steel with an electric arc furnace includes five complex phases:
raw material loading and furnace charging, melting and deslagging, refining and alloying, slag handling, and casting. More precisely, the slag handling stage is not strictly a part of the steel-making process, but is actually a waste management task of crucial importance during each production cycle. Figure 1 depicts this production cycle and highlights the stages at which pollution and waste are generated. Section 2.2 describes the production and treatment of emissions and waste in greater detail, including a breakdown of EAF’s solid and gaseous emissions and their respective impact on human and environmental health.
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Figure 1: EAF steel production and pollution/waste generation
First, scrap iron must be collected as a base material (sometimes after undergoing a pretreatment process). This scrap material is often called “ferrous scrap,” and can either
constitute trimmings and discarded pieces from industrial steel molding and production, or it can be end-of-life consumer goods and parts. Sometimes direct reduced iron, or “sponge iron” — pellets of iron ore that were subjected to a fossil fuel-derived gas — may be added at this initial stage as well as “ferroalloys,”5 which are concentrated nuggets of iron and some other desirable heavy metal like manganese, aluminum or silicon.
To bring about certain properties in the finished steel, the raw material must be mixed, or alloyed, with other elements at either (or both) the initial furnace loading stage or the
refining/alloying stage. For example, add chromium (a highly toxic chemical) to make steel resistant to oxidation (rusting) — an immensely important feature of many grades of steel used in infrastructure development and transportation and other uses in a variety of climates with strict strength and longevity demands. Add aluminum to remove oxygen from the melted steel and prevent steel “aging” when under strain, add carbon for hardness and strength and add
manganese to improve the mixture’s hot working properties6. These preliminary additives can
5 The symbol for iron in the periodic table is Fe, which comes from the Latin root word for iron, ferrum.
6 See http://www.chasealloys.co.uk/steel/alloying-elements-in-steel/ for a list of common alloys and their properties.
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be collected along with the scrap material7 with the help of magnets or a mechanical claw and placed into an enormous metal “basket,” also known as a charging box, which can be positioned above the kiln. The bottom of the basket will then open to allow the contents to pour into the melting area, “charging” the furnace (often with 50-60% of the prepared scrap at first, adding the rest after successive stages of melting).
Second, the scrap materials are melted by lowering a graphite (made almost entirely of carbon atoms) electrode or group of electrodes 200-300 millimeters above the scrap, suspended in the furnace. With a massive input of electricity, these electrodes conduct an electrical current that can vary between 42,000 and 50,000 amps8 (compare that to a major home appliance that registers about 60 amps at most), generating an ongoing, ultra-hot plasma discharge from the head of the electrode and connecting with the head of the electrode beside it to form an “arc,” or
“u” shape approaching 3,000 degrees Celsius (and also producing a persistent, very loud crackling noise during the early stages of melting). As the melting process continues, the
electrodes descend deeper into the scrap, often accompanied by an increase in power. To protect the furnace from radiation from the electrodes, many EAF firms simultaneously inject oxygen and carbon into the liquid metal at this stage, which in part transforms into carbon monoxide bubbles and a foam slag that also helps distribute the heat energy more efficiently as it shields the furnace walls from excessive damage9. The furnace itself is a refractory-lined vessel (coated with an alkaline material, like calcium oxide and magnesium oxide, with an extremely high melting point) that is typically equipped with water-cooled panels. The electrodes may also come equipped with a water-cooled system.
Before the heating process is fully complete, typically limestone and/or dolomite (a kind of
“flux,” to use the industry jargon) will be added to the mixture at temperatures around 1,600 degrees Celsius to produce slag, a waste product. Between 50 and 120 pounds (about 23-54 kilograms) per ton of steel is required. Lime is particularly adept at reducing the sulfur,
7 It is perhaps most common, however, to add ferroalloys later, during the refining stage, to minimize the amount of valuable additives lost during deslagging.
8 An amp, or ampere, is a measurement of the amount of electrical charge, i.e. the number of electrons, passing a particular point in a circuit within a specific time period, with 6.241 x 1018 electrons per second constituting one amp.
9 Injection of oxygen at this point has even more benefits such as thinning overall levels of carbon (decarburization) and removing sulfur and phosphorus.
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phosphorus and silica from the molten metal. Slag is the result of these undesirable components binding with the limestone/dolomite additive and rising to the top of the heated mixture. Slag not only minimizes impurities in steel, it can also form a kind of thermal blanket to minimize heat loss during melting. After a while, the top layer of undesirable slag is poured out when the furnace tilts to the side and/or it gets raked off the melted steel during “deslagging.” The creation and removal of different types of slag (designed to remove different undesirable elements) may happen several times depending on the grade and type of steel being produced. Importantly, the removal of slag into a pot or directly onto the ground below the furnace results in the production of dust and fumes, the latter of which is pulled into an exhaust system.
Third, the furnace tilts to pour the molten steel into a preheated container called a “ladle,”
where it is refined. Refining is a process of making a metal more pure (rather than changing its fundamental, chemical characteristics), for instance, by removing sulfur, phosphorus and excess carbon and/or dissolved gases like nitrogen and hydrogen from the molten steel. Steel refining alone can be conceptualized as a number of specialized steps — at different “ladle treatment stations” based on the technological and steel grade-specific capabilities of an EAF facility — and often involves the removal of oxygen in the latter stages, i.e. via a process of chemical deoxidation, adding fluxes and deslagging, or sometimes vacuum degassing. The refining stage is also a key point to add ferroalloys to enhance certain properties of the steel and further deplete its oxygen content chemically. Also, inert gases are injected into the ladle to stir the mixture and achieve an adequate level of homogenization, and ladle furnace equipment reheats the finished mixture to the appropriate temperature for casting.
Through successive stages of creating and removing slag, a process of slag handling and processing must be initiated to manage this kind of waste. If slag has been collected into a specialized pot, it must cool and solidify there (often with the help of water sprays). Some companies treat slag with silica, alumina and boron to make it easier to deal with. If slag was poured onto the floor, after it solidifies is must be crushed, collected and moved to a storage area with shovel loaders or excavator vehicles. Eventually this substance will be further crushed and processed and can be made into either material for construction (particularly road-building) or lime fertilizer. In Taiwan, independent off-site facilities must be contracted to handle slag treatment — except in the case of Dragon Steel, a China Steel subsidiary.
Finally, the liquid metal is evacuated from the ladle and casted (poured into molds and
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allowed to cool and solidify) according to the company’s or clients’ preferred specifications.
Before the 1960s, most steel firms poured the molten medal into permanent molds, one-by-one.
Thanks to modern metallurgy techniques, a more popular method today called continuous casting works by pouring metal from a ladle through a vertical gas-tight refractory tube and into a “tundish,” a special reservoir that allows the steel to continue to flow vertically at a controlled rate through parallel gas-tight refractory tubes before reaching water-cooled copper molds. With only the outer shell solidified, the steel is then pressed on a curve under a system of rollers and water sprays until it emerges horizontal as a parallel series of long strands of a particular size and width (different configurations exist with specialized machinery) and a mechanized torch cutter cuts each strand to size. This method saves on energy and water as well as reduces emissions.
The European Commission’s 2013 BAT report states that 90% of global steel is cast using the continuous method, which includes every EAF facility in Taiwan.
2.2 Environmental issues and mitigating technologies
The following paragraphs tackle the six main environmental issue areas associated with EAF steel production as well as the industry-standard environmental technology used to combat these problems (i.e., potential targets for EMS development). Generally speaking, the six
environmental issue areas at stake are as follows: waste management, air pollution (including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions), energy consumption, water use and spatial planning. With the exception of spatial planning, all these areas are included in the Best Available Techniques Reference Document for Iron and Steel Production published by the European Commission, which is the basis for the survey data I collected. These areas, however, are not equally important with respect to their levels of environmental impact. According to Ioana and Balescu (2009) and several of my interviewees, the main ecological issues with EAF steel production have to do with powder collection (waste management) and harmful gas control (air pollution). The following paragraphs will explore these environmental issues one by one as well as the industry standards and technologies used to mitigate their negative impact on the environment, beginning with the topic of waste management.
Waste management in EAF facilities targets industrial byproducts such as powders and slag. Tay Joo Hwa, researcher from the School of Civil and Structural Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, describes industrial waste management as a process of at
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least five (and sometimes six) steps.10 The first stage involves a collection process. On a comprehensive scale, waste collection may be as complex and technology-based as specialized filtration devices that capture particles of a certain size as they are expelled through a drain or vent, or it can be as simple as office trash collection. The next phase involves storage of waste.
Waste will accumulate in storage units until it is ready or able to move to the next stage. The third stage of the waste management process depends on whether or not a company processes its waste on-site. If the company has the capital and technical expertise necessary to process on-site, then the next stage is waste treatment. If not, then the waste in storage must be transported elsewhere for treatment; this is the case in Taiwan, where organizations like the Taiwan Steel Union Co. are charged with treating hazardous EAF dust.11 After waste treatment, Hwa labels the final two stages “disposal” and “control.” The most environmental form of disposal is
through recycling and re-use; some of the mineral elements in EAF dust can be extracted and put to use in other industries as raw materials (through processes discussed later), as in magnetic metals from iron oxide dust. The control stage is rather vague in Hwa’s report, but the term
through recycling and re-use; some of the mineral elements in EAF dust can be extracted and put to use in other industries as raw materials (through processes discussed later), as in magnetic metals from iron oxide dust. The control stage is rather vague in Hwa’s report, but the term