Cleveland-Cliffs CEO sees US steel industry as motivating factor for hydrogen expansion

Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenço Gonçalves expects “massive amounts” of hydrogen to be available by the end of this decade and the US steel industry can be a catalyst for its use in other industries, he said May 16.

“Hydrogen is the next frontier because it produces H2O, not CO2,” Goncalves said during a press conference at the American Iron and Steel Institute’s General Meeting in Washington. “We have to work together to make this thing happen but the steel industry can be the motivating factor and ignitor to get these things done.”

Expanding affordable, commercially available hydrogen is Goncalves’ top priority in conversations with President Joe Biden’s administration, he said. As part of the 2021 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration under the Department of Energy has set up an $8 billion program to support the creation of regional clean hydrogen hubs.

“I am laser-focused on bringing hydrogen to the steel industry because I’m convinced if we do that, we are going to be bringing hydrogen to everybody else outside of the steel industry,” he said. “We have the baseload and we are willing and committed to that.”

Cliffs is involved with two major efforts in creating US hydrogen hubs in Indiana and Ohio, Goncalves said. In Indiana, a potential combined hub is supposed to produce 1,000 mt/day and Cliffs has an offtake of 20%, or 200 mt, he said.

“With 200 mt we make that viable from a business standpoint so that we can use hydrogen in other things—in glass, in cement, in transportation, in electric-power-based plants that are a lot smaller than our own consumption,” he said.

The smaller proposed Great Lakes hydrogen hub in Toledo would have 100 mt/d of hydrogen and Cliffs is committing to 50 mt/d for its Toledo direct reduction plant, he said.

Cliffs successfully completed a hydrogen injection trial at its Middletown Works blast furnace in Ohio, on May 8, marking the first-ever use of hydrogen gas as an iron reducing agent in the Americas.

“Steel is a high-carbon alloy, you are not going to be able to get rid of carbon steel but you can knock down CO2 if you replace … CO2 with H20,” Gonçalves said.

Author Justine Coyne