Integrated Product- and Entity-Level Carbon Accounting Case Study: Steel Production Using Hydrogen Direct Reduced Iron–Electric Arc Furnace (April 2026) applies the EFI Foundation (EFIF) ledger-based carbon accounting framework to an illustrative U.S. Midwest steel production facility using hydrogen direct reduced iron (H2-DRI) and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology. The ledger-based framework was first described in the October 2025 EFIF report.
The system integrates engineering mass and energy balances with financial accounting principles, tracking carbon stocks and flows—including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds—across supply chain entities from upstream suppliers to downstream customers. Over a one-month period, the facility produces 416,000 tons of steel using iron ore, scrap steel, and on-site blue hydrogen from natural gas reformation with carbon capture and storage (CCS), achieving a cradle-to-gate product CO2 intensity of 0.3 tons of CO2 per ton of steel.
The ledger records transactions such as carbon transfers from suppliers, direct emissions, and allocations to products, ensuring mass balance and auditability without gaps or double counting. Reports derived from the ledger include product-level CO2 intensity breakdowns and entity-level totals, enabling comparisons with traditional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) pathways, described in a companion case study. The studies find that H2-DRI-EAF emissions are roughly one-quarter of those occurring under the BF-BOF pathway, even when the latter uses CCS to reduce net emissions.
This framework supports decarbonization by providing transparent, verifiable data for stakeholders. Such data are essential to facilitate low-carbon steel differentiation, policy incentives like the Inflation Reduction Act’s Section 45V credit, and supply chain-wide emissions tracking.
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