The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $500 million to fund and industrial transformation project at Cleveland Cliffs’ Middletown Works facility in Ohio. The funding is provided by DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations’ Industrial Demonstrations Program (IDP). The project is expected to create 170 permanent jobs and 1,200 temporary union construction jobs, while sustaining the sites existing 2,500 jobs.
Workers at the Middletown facility are represented by International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local Lodge 1943. This project would deliver an innovative overhaul of the integrated iron and steel mill with cutting-edge clean hydrogen-ready direct reduced iron technology that will drastically reduce emissions.
The IDP seeks to help companies drive down emissions and reduce toxics and other pollutants in the U.S. industrial sector to make them more competitive, all while creating and sustaining good-paying, union manufacturing jobs. The award recipients were required to meet a robust set of criteria to ensure local communities and workers benefit from the proposed projects.
