A hulking steel plant in Middletown,Ā Ohio, is the cityās economic heartbeat as well as a keystoneĀ origin storyĀ ofĀ JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to beĀ Donald Trumpās vice-president.
Its future, however, may hinge uponĀ $500 million in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a āscamā and is a Trump target for demolition.
In March,Ā Joe Bidenās administrationĀ announcedĀ the USās largest ever grant to produce greener steel, enabling theĀ Cleveland-CliffsĀ facility in Middletown to build one of the largest hydrogen fuel furnaces in the world, cutting emissions by a million tons a year by ditching the coal that accelerates theĀ climate crisisĀ and befouls the air for nearby locals.
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When campaigning for the Senate in 2022, Vance said Bidenās sweeping climate bill is ādumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer,ā and more recently as vice-presidential candidate called the IRA a āgreen energy scam thatās actually shipped a lot more manufacturing jobs to China.ā
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It is frustrating that Couchfucker doesnāt want this and for the wrong reasons.
Hydrogen powered shit is dumb. Like, super dumb. It is nearly impossible to store the shit without it corroding the tanks, fittings, whatever. So maintenance cost will be a killer in the long run. Nevermind the whole Hindenburg-esque possibility of the plant. Worse than that, unless that hydrogen is coming from renewable sources (aka. āgreenā hydrogen), it will actually be way worse for the environment. Most of the shitty sources are actually fossil fuels (aka. āblueā hydrogen). And guess who would love to make and sell hydrogen from fossil fuels and is therefore lobbying for government projects for this kind of shit? Thatās right, our āfriendsā Big Oil.
Hossenfelder discusses this in her video Hydrogen Will Not Save Us. Hereās Why. https://youtu.be/Zklo4Z1SqkE
So yeah. I hate agreeing with Couchfucker about this one very specific point.
I had the same skepticism, so I looked into it. The TL;DR is that this isnāt that. Itās not using the hydrogen as a fuel source; itās using it as reactant in the reduction reaction that produces metallic iron from iron oxide, so that it does { FexOy + H2 ā¶ Fe + H2O } instead of { FexOy + CO ā¶ Fe + CO2 }.
(For the record: I completely agree with everything you wrote, except for the small mistake of assuming āhydrogen powered shitā was an accurate description of this particular project.)
TIL!
Thanks for the links