Trump administration threats to cut clean steel funding are boosting coal and jeopardizing plans to reduce the industry’s emissions, according to a new report from the Global Energy Monitor, a California-based clean energy group.
“The Trump administration has halted or attempted to roll back much of this funding that would support green steel development,” the report, published late Monday night, says. “Trump is framing coal’s use as central to his agenda of revitalizing domestic industry, despite the clear risks coal dependence poses.”
The report points to recent developments at U.S. steel giant Cleveland-Cliffs. On an earnings call this month, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said the company plans to make big changes to a previously announced $500 million Department of Energy grant to “better align with the administration’s energy priorities.”
While the original Middletown Works project — announced in the Biden administration — aimed to replace coal with hydrogen energy in iron and steel production, the new approach is likely to “instead rely on readily available and more economical fossil fuels,” Goncalves said, while adding that the company plans to extend the life of a coal-based blast furnace on site. Swedish company SSAB also withdrew from a similar award earlier this year.
