U.S. Steel’s new owner gets poor marks in climate rating for steel industry
Instead, the Trump administration created a new subsidy for American metallurgical coal, used in steelmaking.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The new owner of U.S. Steel fared poorly in a new scorecard measuring how companies in the sector are paring back their climate pollution.
Nippon Steel ranked second from the bottom of 18 companies surveyed by SteelWatch, a European-based environmental group that looked at how well these firms are transitioning away from coal.
Steel is an important industry in climate change, since it accounts for around 10 percent of all global carbon emissions. Most of that is because companies still use coal to make iron, a key input in steel.
“There’s absolutely no way we can address the urgency of climate change unless the steel industry moves,” said Caroline Ashley, the executive director of SteelWatch. “Stabilizing the climate can’t be done without it.”
Climate change is heating the planet, causing more intense heat waves, storms and droughts, scientists say. The main driver is the burning of fossil fuels.
Overall, Ashley said the steel industry worldwide is failing to transition to decrease its output of climate-warming emissions.
“Unfortunately, none of them are ready, but some of them were getting more ready than others,” Ashley said.
Two European companies, Sweden’s SSAB and Germany’s thyssenkrupp, scored highest for their plans to retire coal-based steel plants and transition to cleaner fuels, Ashley said. Instead of using coke, a refined form of coal, to make iron, they will use hydrogen or natural gas in a process called “direct reduction” for the same purpose.
“They’ve started the transition. That’s what distinguishes those two,” Ashley said.
Nippon increases coal usage
Toko Tomita, a campaign director at SteelWatch, said Japan-based Nippon Steel scored so low because it’s actually shown a slight increase in its coal usage in recent years.
Tomita said U.S. Steel is middle of the pack in its ratings, but worries what the recent sale will mean for the company.
“I think our concern at the moment is that Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel could take them down the road of more coal entrenchment and dependence,” Tomita said.
Nippon recently announced it would re-invest $350 million in the coal-based ironmaking process at its U.S. Steel plant in Gary, Indiana. The project “represents tangible progress on our mission to invest billions in the future of American steelmaking,” David B. Burritt, the president and CEO of U.S. Steel, said in a statement.
Andrew Fulton, a spokesman for U.S. Steel, said in an email that newer technology that replaces coal “is not currently accessible or affordable at steelmaking scale and has never been economically feasible without major government subsidies.”
Replacing its coal-based steel mills would lead to “thousands of jobs lost and a financially disastrous change in operations,” he said. Nippon’s $11 billion commitment to upgrade U.S. Steel plants “will improve efficiency and make the steel we produce cleaner and higher quality.”
Trump administration now encourages coal
The Biden administration attempted to promote “green steel” technologies with government subsidies. Those have vanished under the Trump administration, replaced by subsidies for coal.
The Biden administration committed $1 billion to steel companies to pursue green steel projects in Mississippi and Ohio, but those projects were later pulled by the companies.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have since eliminated Biden-era subsidies for wind and solar energy, which can be used to produce the hydrogen necessary to clean up the steel industry.
Instead, the Trump administration created a new subsidy for American metallurgical coal, used in steelmaking.
SteelWatch’s Ashley says Nippon’s $11 billion investment in U.S. Steel plants could go toward making steel with lower carbon emissions, or continue its coal-based process.
“The real question,” Ashley said, “is where do the big investment decisions go next?”
Courtesy: www.alleghenyfront.org