- Analyst Insight

DOE Grant to Help Cleveland-Cliffs with Blast-Furnace Restoration

Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs will spend $1 billion to modernize the blast furnace at its Middletown, OH, facility, a total that includes a $500 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant originally intended to support a hydrogen-focused decarbonization project, the company said August 21. The revised project will reline and upgrade the blast furnace while installing a cogeneration plant for the Middletown site. 

- Blog

I Can See Clearly Now - As Hydrogen Market Evolves, Best Uses Will Focus on Cost, Sustainability

Hydrogen has a well-established, if limited, role in the modern economy. It has been used in refining and ammonia production for decades, but its potential has long been touted in various areas, including decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial processes such as steelmaking, as well as in larger roles in heavy-duty transportation and energy storage. The last few years have seen a significant push to expand hydrogen’s role — an attempt to capitalize on its versatility and lack of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions —  but a number of formidable obstacles to wider adoption remain, including price, availability and infrastructure, in addition to its tenuous political support. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the challenges that make forecasting the industry’s growth difficult and the emerging consensus around the most practical end uses for hydrogen.