By Mathew Carr*

Trump is a secret climate lover, after all.

The $15 billion plant announced by President Trump—planned by Mesabi Metallics in Lee County, Iowa—is designed as a modern Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) facility rather than a traditional coal-fired blast furnace.

Because full environmental impact disclosures for the Iowa site have not yet been released, its CO_2 footprint can be evaluated based on the standard emissions profiles for DRI-EAF steelmaking:

Carbon Intensity: DRI-EAF vs. Traditional Steelmaking

Technology Route Primary Energy / Fuel Est. Carbon Intensity (CO_2 / ton of steel) CO_2 Reduction vs. Coal Blast Furnace

Traditional Blast Furnace (BF-BOF) Metallurgical Coal / Coke~1.8 – 2.2 metric tons Baseline (Most polluting)

Natural Gas DRI + EAF(Planned Mesabi Route) Natural Gas + Grid Electricity~0.6 – 1.0 metric tons~50% – 70% lower emissions

Green Hydrogen DRI + Renewable EAFGreen H_2 + 100% Renewables< 0.2 metric tons~90%+ lower emissions

The EU places carbon costs at its border on dirtily produced steel.

Key Drivers of the Plant’s CO_2 Efficiency

• DRI-EAF Process: Direct Reduced Iron paired with Electric Arc Furnaces avoids the high-emissions coking and blast furnace steps of traditional integrated steel mills, cutting direct emissions roughly in half right out of the gate.
• Ore Supply Integration: The plant will source high-grade DR-pellet iron ore directly from Mesabi’s newly opened mine in Minnesota’s Iron Range, reducing international maritime transport emissions associated with imported ore feeds.
• Iowa’s Electrical Grid: EAF steelmaking consumes large amounts of electricity. Because Iowa generates over 60% of its electricity from wind power, the indirect emissions (Scope 2) from powering the arc furnaces in Iowa will be significantly lower than in coal-dependent power grids.
• Fuel Source (Natural Gas vs. Hydrogen): Mesabi’s standard DRI setup utilizes natural gas as the reducing agent.
• While vastly cleaner than coal, it still generates fossil emissions.
• Upgrading the gas reformers to run on clean hydrogen in the future would be required to reach true near-zero (“green steel”) performance.

At an intended initial capacity of 7.5 million tons per year (scaling to 10 million), running on natural gas DRI and Iowa wind-supported EAF will make it substantially more CO_2-efficient per ton than legacy blast furnaces, though still short of zero-carbon hydrogen steelmaking without further clean-fuel integration.

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*With Gemini