Biden's $6B Climate Plan Helps Ohio Steel Mill Clean Up

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm walked amid billowing steam from red-hot steel plates rolling along the line at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in Ohio on Monday to tour her department's latest multimillion-dollar investment in cleaning up climate pollution from heavy industry.

Company officials here said that by 2028, they plan to be operating two electric furnaces to melt steel. That would eliminate most of the carbon dioxide emissions from the plant's current blast furnace while creating 170 new jobs in a struggling small town where the steel mill is a major employer.

The new furnaces will be possible thanks to a $575 million award from the Department of Energy, part of funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Biden administration's signature legislation on climate action.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm with Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves as they tour the company's steel mill in Middletown, Ohio. The company will use a $575 million DOE award to install cleaner furnaces for... U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm with Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves as they tour the company's steel mill in Middletown, Ohio. The company will use a $575 million DOE award to install cleaner furnaces for steelmaking. More Jeff Young/Newsweek

"We're making the largest single industrial decarbonization investment in American history right here," Granholm told a room full of steelworkers at Middletown Works.

The award for Cleveland-Cliffs is part of $6 billion in total funding the DOE announced Monday for 33 companies. Those projects aim to cut CO2 from the production of aluminum, steel, paper, concrete, chemicals and even condiments—ketchup maker Kraft Heinz will use its $170 million award to electrify heating equipment at 10 facilities.

Kraft Heinz, which ranks ninth among food and beverage companies on Newsweek's list of Most Trustworthy Companies in America, calls its project "Delicious Decarbonization."

Each project tackles segments of industry that are difficult to decarbonize. Not only are these operations energy intensive, but they also often rely on traditional industrial practices that release large amounts of CO2, such as the coal-based coke used in steelmaking, or the limestone used in Portland cement for concrete.

"Together, these industries, the heavy industry sector of America's economy, emit about a third of our carbon pollution," Granholm said in Middletown.

The billions in awards are part of the Biden administration's industrial strategy to link climate action with support for domestic manufacturing, and Granholm said cleaner, more climate-friendly manufacturing will give U.S. products a competitive edge in the global market.

"We don't want to just make the best products in the world," she said. "We want to make sure that we make the best and cleanest products in the world."

Cleveland-Cliffs ranks 15th in its sector on the Newsweek list of Most Trustworthy Companies in America. President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves told Newsweek that the switch to the cleaner furnaces would not be possible without the government support the Inflation Reduction Act offered.

In addition to replacing the carbon-intensive blast furnaces at Middletown, the company plans to use the government funding to allow it to connect to another DOE-funded project, a new regional hub of green hydrogen production in the upper Ohio Valley.

Inside the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works, hot steel is de-scaled using water to remove impurities before the steel is flattened and rolled into coils. The plant's upgrade is part of an effort to cut climate pollution... Inside the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works, hot steel is de-scaled using water to remove impurities before the steel is flattened and rolled into coils. The plant's upgrade is part of an effort to cut climate pollution from the country's heaviest industries. More Jeff Young/Newsweek

In October, the Biden administration announced $7 billion to launch seven regional clean hydrogen hubs using renewable or low-carbon energy sources to produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that can be used in place of fossil fuels in many industrial processes.

Goncalves told his assembled workers that their facility will be the world's first of its kind to use clean-burning hydrogen. He called it an example of the technological leadership that many in the industry thought the U.S. had ceded to other countries.

"The United States, as far as steel, needs to forget one thing that has been around for around three decades, it's a complex of inferiority," he said. "We are not behind technologically, we are ahead."

John Giltrow, a maintenance apprentice instructor at Middletown Works, had the job of introducing Granholm and Goncalves on stage. Giltrow said he has worked at the plant for 45 years, following in the footsteps of both his father and grandfather, who also worked there.

"Everything I've ever had in my life, from an infant to today, has come out of this plant," Giltrow told Newsweek. He said he'd seen a lot of ups and downs over the years, including suffering through layoffs in the industry's lean years of the late '80s. Now, he said he felt optimistic about the mill's chances, and Middletown's.

"This is really good," Giltrow said.