CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland-Cliffs flirtation with a hydrogen-power makeover of its Middletown Works appears to have gone the way of President Donald Trump’s bromance with Elon Musk – kaput!

Company CEO Lourenco Goncalves told reporters this week at an Iron and Steel Institute gathering that the project is not likely to happen due to a lack of available clean hydrogen.

The plan was to replace the blast furnace at the company’s Middletown Works, between Cincinnati and Dayton, with two electric melting furnaces and to run the plant with natural gas, hydrogen or a mix of the two.

The environmental upside would have been significant. A dirty coal derivative called coke would no longer be needed in the steel-making process. Carbon emissions would have been slashed as a result, up to 50% if

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