Full Title: Reline or Revitalize: The Narrowing Window to Modernize the US Steel Industry
Author(s): Maeve Masterson, Kaitlyn Ramirez, Chathurika Gamage, and Thanh Ha
Publisher(s): Rocky Mountain Institute
Publication Date: January 30, 2025
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Investment in reviving or “relining” the seven aging blast furnaces in the Great Lakes region is a multi-billion dollar bet that risks continuing job decline at these assets, weakens the ability of the US steel industry to compete in the global market, and perpetuates serious health and climate emissions harm from coal-based steel production.
Although the seven remaining coal-based blast furnaces represent only about a quarter of US steel production, these plants generate approximately 75 percent of the industry’s emissions. Continuing business-as-usual operations at these sites for the next few decades risks blowing past the domestic steel industry’s carbon budget by nearly two-fold (RMI analysis based on ORNL and MPP data).