A study on energy consumption and CO₂ emissions according to manufacture of recycled rebar using wasted steel from building demolition

In recent year, Korea relies on imports for most of the iron ore, the main raw material of rebar, resulting in CO₂ pollution with lots of energy consumption. Hereupon, this study carried out the research on the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of the recycled rebar using the wasted steel from building demolition. For that, this study worked out the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the process of generation, transportation and production of wasted steel and, on the basis of which, it conducted the comparative study with virgin materials. The major research results are as follows: First, the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of the recycled rebar were found to be highest in the process of its production at 89.2% and 85%, respectively. In addition, in the comparison between recycled rebar and virgin material, the former was found to be most advantageous in energy consumption. On the contrary, as for CO₂ emissions, the recycled rebar showed a 88.3% reduction possibility of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions comparing to statistics of input-output analysis based on competition inducement coefficient, but it was found to be more disadvantageous from the perspective of GHG reduction than the statistics of input-output analysis based on non-competition inducement coefficient.