RAS question
Consider the following statements about EASyMelt technology being deployed at Tata Steel Jamshedpur: 1) EASyMelt replaces a significant share of metallurgical coke with syngas as the reducing agent in iron-making. 2) The project is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by less than ten per cent compared to baseline blast furnace operation. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Correct answer: (B) 1 only.
At Tata Steel Jamshedpur, EASyMelt uses syngas as the reducing gas in iron-making and targets more than 50 per cent CO2 reduction, so only statement 1 is correct.
Explanation
EASyMelt is relevant here because it changes the reducing route inside an existing blast-furnace setting rather than merely adding a generic emissions-control device. It replaces a significant share of metallurgical coke with syngas as the reducing agent. SMS group describes the core process as blast-furnace top-gas recycling to produce syngas by reforming coke-oven gas, followed by syngas injection at shaft and tuyere level. ETInfra also reports that Tata Steel will deploy EASyMelt at the Jamshedpur plant and that the project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50 per cent compared with current operations. Therefore, statement 1 is correct, while statement 2 reverses the scale of the target reduction.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) It accepts statement 2, but the project target is more than 50 per cent CO2 reduction, not less than ten per cent.
- (C) It rejects statement 1 even though EASyMelt uses syngas as the reducing agent through top-gas recycling and coke-oven-gas reforming.
- (D) It rejects both statements, although statement 1 correctly captures the shift from metallurgical coke towards syngas in iron-making.
Concept
This tests industrial decarbonisation in Science and Technology, especially how legacy blast-furnace steelmaking can be modified. It recurs in RAS because examiners often frame climate-tech questions around the exact mechanism and the claimed emissions reduction.