Trump Just Used a $500 Million Clean Steel Grant to Fund a Coal Furnace
This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A $500 million Biden-era grant to decarbonize steelmaking has been refashioned by the Trump administration to upgrade a coal-fueled blast furnace in southern Ohio. On Friday, Cleveland-Cliffs confirmed that the US Department of Energy had changed the scope of the previously…
The U.S. Department of Energy has repurposed a $500 million clean steel grant originally intended for decarbonizing steelmaking to fund a coal-powered blast furnace upgrade at Cleveland-Cliffs' Middletown steel mill in Ohio. The change comes as President Donald Trump's administration seeks to prioritize coal-fired blast furnaces over cleaner alternatives.
The Middletown plant, a key employer in the region, will refurbish and optimize its 73-year-old blast furnace using waste gases from the furnace to generate steam and electricity. Despite criticisms from green-steel advocates and some local residents, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves claims the investment will make the plant more efficient and productive while meeting the Department of Energy's business case.
However, critics argue that the altered project scope will not contribute to reducing industrial emissions or improving air quality, contradicting the original intent of the grant.
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