Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) pointed out that we should speed up the implementation of the innovation-driven strategy and accelerate the self-reliance and self-improvement of high-level science and technology; promote new industrialization and accelerate the construction of a manufacturing power. During the thirty-sixth collective study in the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that great efforts should be made to promote the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries such as steel and nonferrous metals, and accelerate the low-carbon process innovation and digital transformation in the industrial field. Metallurgy is an indispensable foundation and pillar of industrialization for the development of national economy, and provides key raw materials for major strategic projects such as aerospace, national defense and military industry. Building a metallurgical science and technology power and promoting the high-quality development of metallurgical industry are important supports for safeguarding national security and coping with international competition.

Although China is the largest metallurgical country in the world, the security situation of metal resources is very severe, and its dependence on foreign countries is high. More than 85% of iron ore, 73% of copper ore and 70% of lithium, niobium, cobalt and nickel are imported. The governance system in the mineral field with western developed countries as the main body has existed for a long time, and the initiative to formulate rules in China is quite lacking. In the complicated international competition pattern, it is urgent to enhance the core competitiveness of the metallurgical industry chain and strengthen the security of metal resources.

In 2020, the output value of China’s metallurgical industry has exceeded 15 trillion yuan, and a number of enterprises with global competitiveness have emerged. The overall technical level has improved and the ability to resist risks has increased. However, metallurgy is not only a high-energy-consuming industry, but also a key industry recognized by the world as “difficult to decarbonize”. In 2020, the energy consumption of steel industry accounted for more than 13% of the total social consumption, the electricity consumption of aluminum electrolysis accounted for 6.7% of the total social electricity consumption, and the carbon emissions accounted for more than 20%. With the promotion of the national “dual carbon” strategy, the development of metallurgical industry faces triple constraints of resources, energy and environment, and the bottleneck problem that restricts the high-quality development of metallurgical industry is outstanding. It is urgent to strengthen the original innovation ability of metallurgical science and technology, promote intelligent green metallurgy, optimize the layout of national strategic scientific and technological forces in metallurgical field, and implement major metallurgical innovation projects.

First, speeding up the formulation of the international metallurgical standard system for the whole life cycle. It is required to accelerate the formulation of the international metallurgical standard system of resources/energy, process equipment and green production in the whole life cycle, create a new model of green, low-carbon, recycling and intelligent development of the industry, drive advanced metallurgical technologies and standards to go abroad, especially countries along the “belt and road”, enhance China’s voice and authority in the international metallurgical field, and actively build a new global governance system for metal resources, to lead the development of the world metallurgical industry.

Second, implementing “intelligent green metallurgy” major innovation projects. Facing the national “dual carbon” strategic goal, aiming at the national resources and energy security issues, we will implement the “intelligent green metallurgy” major innovation project. It mainly includes future resource/energy security innovation: carrying out research on metal resource/energy development strategy, building resource management information system and sharing mechanism, developing resource/energy substitution and energy-saving technology, developing unconventional resources and ensuring resource/energy security; primary smelting innovation of renewable resources recycling: innovating primary smelting with urban mineral utilization technology, building an integrated industrial chain of waste—recovery processing (recycling)—products or raw materials (reuse), breaking through pollution reduction and carbon reduction technologies, and promoting the construction of a “waste-free society”; alternative innovation of clean energy: breaking through clean energy such as hydrogen energy, solar energy, hydropower, coal-to-gas and multi-energy collaborative complementary technologies, exploring new technologies and equipment for cross-process and cross-industry energy recovery, increasing the proportion of clean energy in the industry, and promoting “peak carbon dioxide emissions”; innovation of intelligent smelting equipment: building a large database of smelting life cycle, break through the standardization technology of green smelting process and equipment, realize intelligent smelting and promoting the optimization and upgrading of the industry.

Third, building the world metallurgical innovation highland and talent center. It is required to strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological strength of metallurgy and set up a national metallurgical laboratory; strive to build a talent center for cultivating and gathering leading scientists and engineers in the metallurgical industry in the world; continue to invest in the basic research of “integration of metallurgy and multiple fields” and establish new theories and methods such as extremely poor and miscellaneous resources, urban minerals, metal extraction under extreme environment and complex system, material preparation and ecological disposal; vigorously develop unconventional resource metallurgy, hydrogen metallurgy, critical metallurgy, intelligent metallurgy, carbon-free aluminum metallurgy, arsenic metallurgy and other leading technologies of energy substitution and pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and promote technological changes in the metallurgical industry, to form a metallurgical innovation highland in the world.