Abstract: The energy and industrial sectors are among the highest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Espirito Santo, accounting for up to 56% in the year 2021. There are factories that consume a large amount of energy and emit a vast mass of GHGs every year. These factories have industrial processes that involve the combustion of carbon fossil fuels. During combustion, the carbon and hydrogen in the fossil fuels are converted into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), releasing the chemical energy in the fuel as heat. This heat is generally either used directly or employed to produce mechanical energy, often for electricity generation or transportation. There is also an industrial process that uses carbon fossil fuel for the reduction of iron ore to produce steel in metallurgy, accounting for 35% of the total emissions in the state. Steel production can occur at integrated facilities that typically include coke production, blast furnaces, and a basic oxygen furnace (BOF), which are technologies used in the steel plant located in the state. Raw steel is produced using a basic oxygen furnace from pig iron produced by the blast furnace, which uses metallurgical coke as a combustible and coke oven gas as a reduction agent, and is then processed into finished steel products. Metallurgical coke production is considered to be an energy transformation of fossil fuel and, as a result, also emits GHGs. For this reason, there is a Decarbonization Plan of Espirito Santo that outlines metrics to mitigate emissions in various sectors, including energy and industry. This study is based on these metrics, estimating how new technologies and fuels could efficiently work to reduce emissions in different scenarios, using different technologies. The IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories is an important tool to estimate GHGs emission from combustion to energy or heat, in Energy Sector, and emission from metallurgical process, in Industrial Processes and Product Use, being used in this present work. Preliminary results indicate that using fuels such as hydrogen and natural gas to replace metallurgical coke and coke oven gas significantly reduces GHG emissions from steel production. To produce hydrogen fuel, a large amount of energy is necessary, so depending on the source of this energy, the potential benefits of the hydrogen fuel solution could be compromised. Using renewable energy sources is a key factor in making hydrogen a fully sustainable fuel in terms of GHG emissions. This study also presents the scenario of how much energy will be necessary to substitute present fossil fuels, comparing onshore and offshore wind energy, solar energy, hydraulic energy, and other possibilities, to make a decision on which one of them would be the best choice and how to integrate them, optimizing the energy sector in the state.

Keywords: Greenhouse gases, emissions, mitigation, energy sector, industrial sector, decabornization.