Cleveland-Cliffs Redirects Half a Billion Dollars in Clean Steel Funding to Coal at Middletown Works

Cleveland-Cliffs and the Department of Energy have dropped a plan to clean up the company's Middletown Works steel mill in Ohio. In 2024, the company was awarded up to $500 million in federal funding to replace the plant's coal-fired blast furnace with a hydrogen-ready system and electric furnaces, a project meant to make Middletown one of the cleanest steel mills in the world while cutting about a million metric tons of carbon emissions a year. That plan has now been scrapped. Instead, the company will keep using coal and add a natural gas cogeneration system, a standard technology it already runs at other plants, that burns furnace gas to generate steam and electricity but does not significantly cut pollution.

This is a national policy and industry story rather than a home-upgrade program, but it points to a broader pattern worth knowing about: federal clean-energy and decarbonization funding that was awarded for one purpose can be redirected, delayed, or scaled back. If you're tracking programs like this because you expect similar federal incentives for home energy upgrades, it's a reminder that awarded funding isn't always a guarantee of the original outcome.

For people living near Middletown Works, the practical impact is different: local residents and advocacy groups say the mill remains one of Ohio's top industrial polluters, and dropping the cleaner-technology plan means air pollution linked to asthma, emergency visits, and other health effects is expected to continue rather than decrease.