A coal-burning steel plant may thwart Cleveland’s climate goals

Cleveland has big ambitions to reduce its planet-warming emissions. But a massive steelmaking facility run by Cleveland-Cliffs, one of Ohio’s major employers, could make it difficult for the city to see those plans through.

The plant emits roughly 4.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, complicating Cleveland’s effort to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, according to a report released by advocacy group Industrious Labs this summer. The plant is the city’s largest single source of planet-warming pollution.

Cleveland’s climate action plan is ​“bold and achievable,” said Hilary Lewis, steel director for Industrious Labs. But ​“if they want to achieve those goals, they have to take action on this Cleveland Works facility.”

As a major investment decision looms over an aging blast furnace at the facility, it’s unclear whether the company will move to cut its direct greenhouse gas emissions — or opt to reinvest in its existing coal-dependent processes.

Cliffs’ progress in reducing its nationwide emissions earned it recognition as a 2023 Goal Achiever in the Department of Energy’s Better Climate Challenge. As this year began, the company was set to slash emissions even further through projects supported by Biden-era legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 infrastructure law.

Then the Trump administration commenced its monthslong campaign of reneging on funding commitments for clean energy projects, including ones meant to ramp up the production of ​“green” hydrogen made with renewable energy. In June, Cliffs’ CEO Lourenco Goncalves backed away from a federally funded project to convert its Middletown Works in southwestern Ohio to produce green steel, saying there wouldn’t be a sufficient supply of hydrogen for the plant.

To Lewis, coauthor of the Industrious Labs report, that’s a weak excuse, because hydrogen production by other companies would have ramped up to supply the facility. “[Cliffs was] going to need so much hydrogen that they would be creating the demand,” she said.

Meanwhile, Cliffs’ Cleveland Works continues to spew emissions that drive climate change and harm human health. Industrious Labs’ modeling estimates that pollution from Cleveland Works is responsible for up to 39 early deaths per year, more than 1,700 lost work days, and more than 9,000 asthma cases. Cleveland ranks as the country’s fifth-worst city for people with asthma, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

A road map for cutting carbon

Cleveland Works’ Blast Furnace #6 is a hulking vessel that removes impurities from iron ore by combining it with limestone and coke, a form of coal that burns at very high temperatures. Industrious Labs’ report notes the unit’s lining is nearing the end of its useful life.

To Industrious Labs, this presents an opportunity: The company could replace the old infrastructure with equipment that can process iron ore with natural gas or hydrogen instead of coal. Investing in this technology, called direct reduction, would cut the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30% if natural gas is used. Using green hydrogen would slash emissions even more, the Industrious Labs team found.

The alternative is to just reline the furnace, which was the course Cliffs chose for the Cleveland facility’s Blast Furnace #5 in 2022.

Relining might provide small emissions cuts when measured per ton of steel, due to increased efficiencies, Lewis said. But ramped-up production from running more ore through the furnace could offset those reductions or even increase total emissions.

Cliffs did not respond to Canary Media’s repeated requests for comment for this story, and it has not yet publicly announced its plans for Blast Furnace #6.

To put itself on track with Cleveland’s emissions goals, however, the company would need to do more than just convert Blast Furnace #6 to the direct reduction process, Industrious Labs said.

The next step in the road map the group laid out would be for Cliffs to process refined iron ore into steel with an electric arc furnace — which can run on carbon-free power — instead of using the current basic oxygen equipment. Investing in green-hydrogen-based direct reduction and an electric arc furnace, instead of relining Blast Furnace #6, would increase emissions cuts to 47%, according to the Industrious Labs report.

Later steps would use direct reduction of iron and an electric arc furnace to refine and process the ore that is currently handled by Blast Furnace #5. Completing that work would cut Cleveland Works’ greenhouse gas emissions by 96%, according to the report.

What happens now?

The Industrious Labs analysis appears to lay out a credible decarbonization pathway, although not necessarily the only one, said Jenita McGowan, Cuyahoga County’s deputy chief of sustainability and climate. Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, also has a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and is in the process of finalizing the latest version of its climate action plan.

“My question about the paper is how feasible it truly is that Cleveland-Cliffs will deploy it in the near future,” McGowan said. Policy uncertainties at the federal level further complicate matters, she added.

For now, the city and county seem to be taking a pragmatic approach, focusing on achievements to date and encouraging future cuts wherever companies will make them.

But getting to net-zero for the industrial sector ​“will require more fundamental changes … [which] will take place over decades, rather than over a few years,” Cleveland’s climate action plan says. It also notes that low-carbon steel costs 40% more to produce compared to standard methods, ​“making it difficult for steelmakers to justify the investment in clean production.”

Cuyahoga County’s draft climate plan highlights Cliffs’ energy-efficiency improvements, including Cleveland Works’ use of some iron from the firm’s direct reduction plant in Toledo, Ohio. Cleveland Works also leverages much of the waste heat from its industrial activities to make electricity. The facility recently boosted that combined-heat-and-power generation by about 50 megawatts, the plan notes. That replaces electricity the plant would otherwise need from the grid, a majority of which still comes from fossil fuels.

Faster emissions reductions are certainly better, McGowan said. But the county also wants to make sure companies can stay in business as they decarbonize — especially Cliffs, one of the largest sources of commerce at the city’s port.

In Lewis’ view, decarbonizing Cleveland Works earlier rather than later would be a smart business move for Cliffs. ​“I think the biggest thing is staying competitive,” Lewis said.

One of Cliffs’ largest markets is supplying high-quality steel for automobiles, including electric vehicles, she added. In March, Hyundai announced plans to invest $6 billion in a new plant in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, that will produce low-carbon steel. As automakers face global pressure to source cleaner metal, Cliffs could find itself left behind, Lewis suggested.

The Industrious Labs report ​“opens the door for Cleveland to be a leader in clean steel,” Lewis said. Before that can happen, though, ​“there’s a lot of work to do.”

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