The US Is Losing The Global Clean Steel Race, Too

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The dictator-adjacent Commander-in-Chief who occupies the Oval Office is determined to drag the US back to the high-carbon economy of the 20th century, but new clean tech innovations keep getting in the way. After all, it’s a big world out there and other nations are in hot pursuit of the sparkling green economy of the future. In the latest news on that score, the Texas-based firm Utility Global has achieved another milestone in its quest to support the global clean steel movement.

One Way Or Another, Clean Steel Is Coming

Clean steel stakeholders have a steep hill to climb. Traditional steelmaking is a fossil-centric, carbon-spewing business. Some progress has been made on the electrification front in combination with green hydrogen from renewable energy resources, but cost has been an obstacle.

Utility Global makes the case that until costs come down, conventional blast furnaces will continue to dominate the global steel industry. They propose a more expeditious, emissions-control pathway to clean steel, which does not deploy electricity. The company’s reactor-based “H2Gen” system converts the waste gas from blast furnaces into hydrogen and C02 in a capture-ready condition.

“H2Gen produces hydrogen gas from water using the electrochemical energy contained in off-gases such as biogas or various steel production gases, without the need for electricity to drive the reaction,” the company states.

The factory-built, modular system is designed to integrate with existing steel facilities. Utility Global also states that the system requires minimal waste gas pre-treatment and minimal post-treatment as well.

Clean Steel In Action: 3,000 Hours And Counting

Earlier today, Utility announced that it has successfully completed more than 3,000 hours of operation for its H2Gen system at a steel plant in North America. The company confirmed that its reactor-based system can restart within 15 minutes after a feed gas interruption, and operate reliably under different feed gas conditions, all without requiring electricity.

“By minimizing operating and capital costs with a very small onsite footprint and modular scalability, H2Gen provides a practical, economic pathway to clean hydrogen production for decarbonizing steel manufacturing, among many other hard-to-abate industry sectors,” Utility states.

A press announcement from the firm did not specify the location, but a spokesperson emailed CleanTechnica to confirm the location is the Stelco works in Nanticoke, Canada. Back in March of 2023, Utility announced that it would install a demonstration system at the plant, following a successful pilot test.

“This will demonstrate Utility Global’s technology and capability to produce reliable and cost-effective hydrogen under actual site conditions,” Utility explained at the time.

The H2Gen system could provide global steelmakers with an opportunity to catch up on their clean steel plans. ArcelorMittal, for example, took a lot of heat last month when it suggested that the business case for hydrogen-based green steel in Europe is dead in the water. However, the steelmaker has another card up its sleeve. In September of 2024, the company joined its XCarb Innovation Fund in an ongoing, $53 million Series C financing for Utility Global. Spearheaded by the OPG Pension Plan, the Series C financing was also joined by existing investors Ara Partners and Aramco Ventures.

With the series C funds in hand, the plan was to focus on the final design of the H2Gen system, leading to commercial production. The Series C venture also included a Collaboration Agreement between ArcelorMittal and Utility Global aimed at developing a commercial-scale facility at one — or possibly, several — of the steelmaker’s plants.

Clean Steel & Carbon Capture

As for the carbon capture angle, that’s where things get complicated. Oil and gas stakeholders are big fans of carbon capture and sequestration because they can use CO2 to stimulate well production.

A more beneficial use would be to deploy CO2 from a clean steel facility to produce e-fuels and other chemicals. Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, for example, are working on an economical, tin-based electrocatalytic conversion system for producing ethanol, acetic acid, and formic acid from captured CO2.

Among other breakthroughs, last fall researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign reported a new method for boosting the efficiency of electrochemical CO2 reduction systems, without requiring large amounts of gold or other expensive catalysts.

Korea Catches The H2Gen Bug

Trump or no Trump, Utility has been on the move this year. Biogas conversion is another centerpiece of the company’s business plan for the H2Gen system, and in January it signed an agreement with the hydrogen-focused architecture and engineering firm GH EnA of Korea.

“This agreement represents a strategic initiative to support South Korea’s Hydrogen Economy Roadmap which prioritizes biogas and hydrogen as energy sources to achieve carbon neutrality and reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels,” Utility noted.

The agreement covers multiple projects in Korea, starting with sites in Chuncheon, Taebaek, Hongcheon, Sokcho, Yangyang, Goseong and Inje. That’s just the first round. Utility hints there will be more to come, though the initial focus will not be on clean steel. GH EnA plans to convert biogas to hydrogen for fuel cell trucks and buses as well as passenger vehicles.

Meanwhile, Back In The USA…

It’s a different story here in the US, where trouble looms ahead for the clean steel movement. Nucor, for example, is facing a change in plans because President Trump decided the suspend the Interior Department’s offshore wind lease program. Nucor was counting on a booming Atlantic coast offshore wind industry to support its new, highly touted green steel plant in Kentucky.

Trump also summarily suspended almost all federal disbursements upon taking office and threatened to claw back others. That could impact steel decarbonization funds assigned from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

For example, in March of 2024 the leading US steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs announced that it was in negotiations for a BIL award of up to $575 million, aimed at pursuing hydrogen-based green steel plans in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Last month, E&E news reported that plans for a makeover were up in the air, partly due to Trump-fostered uncertainty over the hydrogen supply chain.

To cap the trifecta of bad news, in January the Swedish firm SSAB dropped plans to build a hydrogen-based green steel facility in the Mississippi. “Sweden’s top steelmaker SSAB AB has pulled out of funding talks with Washington to build a green steel plant in the US, as President-elect Donald Trump looks to dismantle policies meant to hasten decarbonization,” Bloomberg reported.

Ouch! Too bad for Mississippi, where voters picked Trump to lead the nation by a margin of almost 23%. He rewarded them with the loss of the 600 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs that would have come with the new SSAB plant.

Photo (cropped): The Texas-based startup Utility Global is offering a non-electric, hydrogen-producing blast furnace waste gas conversion system to the global green steel movement (courtesy of Utility Global).