The UK government and Tata Steel agreed on 15 September 2023 on a 1.25 billion pound joint investment to replace the coal-fired blast furnaces at Port Talbot in Wales with a new electric arc furnace. The package includes a government grant of up to 500 million pounds, one of the largest support packages in British history. Port Talbot is the UK's largest single carbon emitter, and the switch is expected to cut the country's entire carbon emissions by around 1.5 percent. The proposal, subject to consultation and regulatory approval, was expected to safeguard more than 5,000 jobs across the UK, although unions warned that the shift from blast furnaces to scrap-based steelmaking would still cost jobs at the site. The project is the first major step in decarbonising the British steel industry.
Source: GOV.UK — https://www.gov.uk/government/news/welsh-steels-future-secured-as-uk-government-and-tata-steel-announce-port-talbot-green-transition-proposal
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (freely licensed).