Integrated steelmakers like those along Northwest Indiana's lakeshore in Northwest Indiana have faced mounting international pressure to curb carbon emissions as the world reckons with climate change.
Now a new technological breakthrough might help the Region's steel mills clean up their act.
Cleveland-Cliffs is building a multimillion-dollar pipeline to pump hydrogen to Blast Furnace No. 7 at Indiana Harbor Works in East Chicago, said Traci Forrester, executive vice president of environmental and sustainability for Cleveland-Cliffs.
The steelmaker is looking to cut back its carbon footprint.
"We're an industry leader in clean hydrogen as a foundation of advanced steelmaking," Forrester said at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond. "We're proud of the progress we have made, achieving a 32% reduction in emissions compared to a 2017 baseline."
For centuries, blast furnaces have been fed with coke, a purified form of coal that's burned to make the liquid iron that's turned into steel for cars, appliances, buildings, bridges and many other end products. But now Cleveland-Cliffs is looking at burning carbon-free hydrogen as an alternative to coke.
Construction is already underway on the pipeline, Forrester said.
"We did a successful hydrogen test in Toledo and are installing a pipeline to No. 7 blast furnace in Indiana Harbor," she said. "We're looking at utilizing hydrogen in the iron and steelmaking process."
BP is looking at producing hydrogen at its BP Whiting Refinery. Cleveland-Cliffs is looking at sourcing hydrogen from multiple potential sources, Forrester said.
The company is not investing in hydrogen pipelines to its Burns Harbor steel mill at this time, she said.
Cleveland-Cliffs completed a successful hydrogen injection trial at a blast furnace at Middletown Works in Ohio, replacing the release of CO2 with the release of H2O with water vapor, with no impact on product quality or operating efficiency, CEO, President and Chairman Lourenco Goncalves has said.
"We believe hydrogen will be the true game changer for the decarbonization of steel. It's simple chemistry after all, and we have already proven its effectiveness," he has said.
Blast Furnace No. 7 is the largest blast furnace in the Western Hemisphere with a production capacity of 5.5 million tons of iron a year. It produced more iron for steel than both of the blast furnaces at Cleveland-Cliffs' Cleveland Works steel mill combined.
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