U.S. steel giant Cleveland-Cliffs is moving ahead with a major decarbonization project, but CEO Lourenco Goncalves said the company’s first-ever plans to use hydrogen are up in the air amid uncertainty in the Trump administration.
Under former President Joe Biden, the Department of Energy backed Cleveland-Cliffs for a $500 million grant to upgrade its coal-based Middletown Works facility in Ohio. The company planned to replace its traditional blast furnace with an electrified plant that can use hydrogen and natural gas to produce iron, which is the precursor to steel.
Now, those hydrogen plans are in limbo because of questions over whether the Trump administration will support the fuel source, which some clean energy supporters say is critical for a decarbonized future.
“It’s all about what’s going to happen next with the efforts to produce hydrogen in the area,” Goncalves said during his Ohio-based company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday. “That project can become more toward natural gas, which for me, is more comfortable.”
