World leaders in Dubai this week are concluding the latest United Nations conference on climate change, where experts and advocates repeated urgent pleas for governments to phase out fossil fuels and transition to clean energy.

In Minnesota, that change is underway. A new state law requires power companies to only sell clean electricity by 2040. Electric vehicle sales are growing, and energy efficient heat pumps are starting to replace gas furnaces — even in northern Minnesota.

But one of the biggest challenges for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota will be finding clean energy solutions for one of the state’s biggest industries: taconite mining. The state’s Iron Range supplies three-quarters of the raw material used to make domestic steel. Getting it out of the ground requires massive, diesel-powered trucks and other heavy-duty equipment for which less-polluting options aren’t yet widely available. 

The steelmaking industry is facing pressure from customers and governments to reduce its climate impact, and Minnesota mine operators Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel are both exploring new fuels and technologies to help them meet sustainability goals.

According to the companies’ public statements to shareholders, the path forward is likely to include investments in new, more efficient vehicles and equipment, along with a switch to powering them with renewable electricity, biogas, or hydrogen instead of coal or gas.

U.S. Steel announced in April 2021 a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Cleveland-Cliffs says it’s already exceeded its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2030.

The transition to clean energy could create new economic opportunities for the Iron Range, experts say, including the possibility to process iron ore on-site into a cleaner, premium product.

A recent event hosted by the city of Duluth and the National Renewable Energy Lab called industrial decarbonization the ​“billion-dollar question for the Northland.” Rolf Weberg, leader of the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute, says industrial operations have a real interest in reducing their carbon footprints.

“When you look globally between steel and concrete, that accounts for between 16-18% of carbon dioxide emissions globally,” Weberg explained. ​“Countries and industries are really trying to reduce their carbon footprint because we’re not meeting carbon goals across the globe.”

Weberg said NREL is interested in Minnesota because of its resources. Hydrogen, for example, is a clean-burning fuel that can be produced with no emissions using water and renewable energy – both relatively plentiful in Minnesota.

“(This includes) infrastructure for future energy, access to water — all of the things you need to have a hydrogen-based approach to preparing green iron and steel,” he said.

Aaron Brown, a Hibbing native and columnist who has written extensively about the region’s culture and economy, says the Iron Range is in a unique position to capitalize on new technologies and production methods designed to eliminate climate emissions. For example, one strategy steelmakers are exploring involves processing higher-grade iron pellets in electric arc furnaces, which is less geographically constrained by access to coal.

“What the new technology might do is create opportunities for entrepreneurs, and existing companies like Cleveland-Cliffs or U.S. Steel, to produce (steel) in Minnesota,” Brown said in a phone interview. ​“Now, whether that will happen or not, of course, is subject to speculation, but it is an opportunity to open up modern industry near the mouth of iron mines. And that should be very interesting to people in northern Minnesota.”

Minnesota taconite mine operator Cleveland-Cliffs is testing a new method for treating industrial wastewater in hopes of decreasing water, chemical and energy use — as well as costs.

The project is among several efforts by the company to lower its energy use as steelmakers face growing pressure from governments, investors, and customers to reduce the climate impact of their operations.

Energy efficiency is often the quickest and most cost-effective way for companies to cut their carbon footprint. When it comes to mining, the opportunity is as large as the massive trucks and other heavy-duty equipment used to haul and process taconite.

Cleveland-Cliffs was recently recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for cutting companywide energy use by nearly one-third since 2017. The federal agency’s office of industrial efficiency and decarbonization is monitoring the water treatment project, as well.

“Bringing these emerging technologies out of the laboratory and onto the factory floor is a critical part of reaching our industrial decarbonization goals,” said Avi Schultz, director of the Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office. 

Decarbonization refers to the process of lowering or eliminating emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that causes climate change. The steel industry is among the three biggest sources of carbon emissions on the planet, accounting for around 8% of all global carbon emissions. Most steelmakers, including those that own and operate the Iron Range’s taconite mines, have adopted internal goals for reducing emissions. 

“One of the most important issues impacting our industry, our stakeholders and our planet is climate change,” Cleveland-Cliffs told its investors this year. ​“We plan to achieve our GHG emissions reduction goal by focusing on actionable, commercially viable technologies and solutions while supporting research for breakthrough technologies for the primary iron and steel sector.”

It cited its partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to implement and test energy-saving technology as a key piece of its climate strategy.

Cleveland-Cliffs operates Hibbing Taconite, United Taconite, Northshore Mining and the Minorca Mine on Minnesota’s Iron Range. The company is working with Arizona-based Dynamic Water Technologies on two pilot projects to reduce lost water and energy waste from treating wastewater.

The technologies are first being tested in a Cleveland, Ohio, plant.

A Minnesota taconite mining company and its electric utility are seeking federal funding for a demonstration project aimed at slashing diesel fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.

After an unsuccessful attempt to secure money this spring from the state Legislature, U.S. Steel and Minnesota Power have applied for a U.S. Department of Energy grant in hopes of kickstarting the project, which seeks to test a system to partially power mining trucks with electricity.

Once loaded, the enormous vehicles would connect to overhead power lines for the steepest part of their climb from the open pit mine. Running on electricity for that portion could reduce diesel fuel use by 70% per trip, according to the companies’ presentation to legislators earlier this year.

That also means a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. A new Minnesota law requires power companies to only sell clean electricity by 2040, a target that Minnesota Power is making progress toward. If powered by carbon-free electricity, one mine trolley in the U.S. Steel demonstration project would equate to replacing 520 gas-powered vehicles with electric on Minnesota’s roads, each year. 

David Chura, manager of emerging initiatives for Minnesota Power’s parent company ALLETE, said the pilot project would provide insight into whether trolley systems could be scaled across the industry. The steel industry is seeing growing pressure from government, investors, and customers to lower its climate impact. U.S. Steel has committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

With the corporate green energy goals of Minnesota Power and U.S. Steel in mind, Chura said exploring applications of electrification in industrial settings was a natural step.

“We developed some model mines based on characteristics of actual mines here on the on the Iron Range,” Chura said. ​“That really helped inform our understanding of mine truck electrification and the opportunities here.”

Chura said energy savings are site-specific, meaning it depends on the steepness of the grade, the length of the haul and other factors. But this project’s anticipated fuel savings are 1.4 million gallons of diesel each year, amounting to 14,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. With those figures, mine trolleys could be a key approach to climate-friendly practices.

“That’s a very significant reduction of emissions as well as criteria pollutants in a key area of the state,” Chura said, noting the area’s proximity to the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs National Park, and state-designated environmental justice communities. 

How it works 

The idea of electric-powered mining trucks isn’t new. The 1970s oil crisis prompted numerous studies exploring benefits, according to mining electrification and automation company ABB. Despite this history, adoption has been slow. But ABB, which produces mine trolley systems, said recent projects demonstrating positive impacts show demand is on the rise. This includes in an open pit copper mine in Sweden operated by mining company Boliden.

Battery-powered electric mining trucks — which wouldn’t require hitching to a trolley line for hauling — are also moving closer to viability. In 2022, Caterpillar announced it successfully demonstrated a prototype of its first battery-powered truck at the company’s Tuscon, Arizona, proving grounds. The facility is set up to test sustainable solutions mining companies can use in their operations, offering firsthand experience with what it takes to run an electrified mining site.

Other types of clean fuel options are emerging, too. According to Caterpillar, green hydrogen production, fuel cell power generation and energy storage systems are all part of the equation.

“The site will also leverage a variety of renewable power sources, including wind, solar and hydrogen, capable of powering the facility and its products as they become electrified,” a news release stated. ​“The transformation of the facility will also serve as a learning platform for optimizing charging and energy management integration.”

The project in Minnesota would focus on converting existing trucks that operate on a diesel-electric hybrid system, similar to rail locomotives. Chura says some of these trucks, which have electric motors on each wheel, are already in use on the Iron Range. 

Converting a truck to utilize overhead power lines to run the motors costs about $1.1 million, according to a presentation prepared for the Minnesota Legislature. The infrastructure costs would run $5 million-$8 million per mile, according to Chura. But the lines would be installed on the steepest parts of the trucks’ route, where the diesel engine works the hardest, resulting in substantial fuel savings.

“Just as the state has helped incentivize residential and commercial electric vehicle service, funding from either the state or the feds would help achieve those same benefits, but yet, at an industrial scale,” Chura said. ​“And those benefits really benefit all taxpayers.”

Bills were introduced in the state House and Senate this year to provide a $10 million grant, but they didn’t make it out of committee. 

John Arbogast, District 11 staff representative for the United Steelworkers, testified in committee on behalf of the bill. 

“Even some of the people that you thought might have been opposed to it were like, ​‘Holy cow, is this interesting,’” Arbogast said.

Arbogast spent 26 years working at U.S. Steel’s MinnTac mine in Mountain Iron and is now the co-chair of the Iron Ore Alliance, a partnership between U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers. He said environmental policy issues are one subject on which the union and the company often find agreement.

The trolley system would also increase the speed of the trucks as they travel up the incline, an aspect Arbogast said he thinks will appeal to the mining truck drivers.

“I think our members, the men and women who drive the trucks, will really like that,” he said. ​“Because they’re really good at what they do, and they have a lot of pride in hauling the ore to the crusher and getting as many loads as they can in their 12-hour shifts.”

Chura noted that the faster speeds mean a site could potentially get by with fewer trucks, which can cost millions of dollars each.

State Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, was chief author of the bill. He said he’s committed to fighting for the project into the future as part of an overall approach to a cleaner energy economy.

“Our mines are a critical part of that effort, and so why don’t we look for opportunities to move towards a cleaner industry, while also providing the very minerals and resources that we need in order to transition?” Hauschild said. ​“I think it’s a really a perfect putting-together of the puzzle pieces that make our region so strong and vital.”

The project partners turned their sights toward the federal government, applying for funds through the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. About $6 billion will fund projects aimed at reducing emissions in industrial subsectors, with award announcements expected early next year.

A Hoyt Lakes native leading a regional hydrogen partnership says the emerging fuel source could someday help make Minnesota’s Iron Range a leader in the production of green steel.

“Yes, certainly it has great potential,” said Tom Erickson, president and chief operating officer of the Heartland Hydrogen Hub, one of seven regional projects recently funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to kickstart hydrogen fuel production. ​“The first obvious use of hydrogen within the taconite (mining) industry is just to produce electricity.” 

The federal government is investing billions to develop regional hydrogen production hubs, intended to spur the infrastructure needed to increase the supply and lower the cost enough to make it commercially viable. 

Hydrogen emits only water vapor and warm air when burned, but it’s typically produced from natural gas in a process that creates high greenhouse gas emissions. The Heartland Hydrogen Hub will use renewable energy and nuclear power to try to reduce the climate impact, as well as the price tag. 

The initial focus will be on supplying hydrogen for ammonia fertilizer, but Erickson said the same output could also replace more carbon-intensive fuels used to heat and power taconite mining operations on the Iron Range. 

“That industry uses a lot of natural gas for heat and thermal systems, for producing the pellets,” Erickson said. ​“You’d have to design (the systems) quite a bit differently, but you could certainly add some hydrogen power to that and decrease the emissions from that standpoint.”

Manipulating molecules

The most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen has historically been difficult to harness into energy. The Hindenburg Disaster of 1937 is an infamous example that demonstrates hydrogen’s explosive qualities.

“You can’t mine it. You can’t stick a pipe in the ground, then bring hydrogen up. You have to produce it from something else. It’s the smallest molecule, the hardest one to trap,” Erickson explained. ​“It’s the hardest one to move around once you’ve produced it, so we have some things that we need to get over and get behind coming up with new innovative ideas to really bring the costs down.”

Most commercial hydrogen is produced today by separating the hydrogen atoms from methane under high heat and pressure, with many industrial facilities using natural gas as the methane source. This method produces hydrogen, carbon monoxide and a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide.

Electrolysis splits hydrogen from water using an electric current. This method does not create any byproducts or emissions other than oxygen and hydrogen. It is the primary focus of the Department of Energy’s investment into hydrogen energy.

The Heartland Hydrogen Hub’s projects are expected to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 1 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of 220,000 gasoline-powered cars.

Erickson — who is also the director of exploratory research at University of North Dakota — said infrastructure for hydrogen’s use on a wider scale is in the future.

“Shipping — whether it’s trains or whether it’s ships moving large quantities of oil around — they are even bigger targets,” he said. ​“Maybe even a little bit easier targets for application of the hydrogen fuel.”

Erickson, whose grandfather and numerous other relatives worked in the taconite mines on the Iron Range, said technology to produce higher quality taconite pellets has been studied in Keewatin, where U.S. Steel plans to invest $150 million in a new higher-grade taconite plant.

“Folks on the Range have looked at (higher grade taconite pellets) produced from natural gas, from coal derived gases and of course from hydrogen,” Erickson said.

The Heartland Hydrogen Hub is currently in the concept development phase, and Erickson said he is excited for the advancing technology in energy for the future.

“What I’m most excited about is to start to see larger scale production of hydrogen,” he said. ​“Once we start producing it, we can start to find other ways to utilize the things that advantages society, different ways that we can manipulate the molecule …. to provide clean, reliable and sustainable energy.”

Feeling the heat 

Steel is made using a lot of heat, and coal-powered blast furnaces are still used for 57% of global steelmaking capacity. That’s a decrease from the year before, when 67% of the world’s steel capacity was made using blast furnaces — marking a shift toward electric arc furnace technology worldwide.

The Iron Range supplies three-fourths of the country’s iron ore, from which steel is made. Steelmakers such as U.S. Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs, which own the mining operations on the Iron Range, are seeing growing pressure from governments, investors, and customers to reduce their climate emissions. It’s not just the potential for future environmental regulations. More companies are willing to pay a premium for steel that comes with a smaller carbon footprint. 

Cutting emissions from mining and other heavy industry is expected to be a bigger challenge than cleaning up cars or power plants. That’s because of the need to power massive furnaces and other equipment for which electric alternatives aren’t widely available. 

These factors are leading many manufacturers to be interested in the potential of hydrogen fuel. Cleveland-Cliffs, which owns and operates Hibbing Taconite, has already committed to funding a hydrogen power project at its Toledo plant. Without any modification to the plant, the company says it could replace up to 30% of natural gas consumption with hydrogen. And with equipment upgrades and other investments, this number could rise to 70%, accounting for 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Cleveland-Cliffs is also part of a federally funded hydrogen hub based in northern Indiana. In October, the company was recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by more than one-third.

The company didn’t respond to requests for comment on what its emission-cutting efforts might mean for northern Minnesota, but researcher Rolf Weberg said the state’s mining industry is well-positioned to make use of hydrogen fuel.

“It turns out that Minnesota is by far highly competitive for making green iron and steel, beyond other states in the country,” said Weberg, the executive director of University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Natural Resource Research Institute. ​“We have essentially all of the resources, including infrastructure for future energy and access to water. All the things you need to have for a hydrogen-based approach to preparing green iron and steel.”

With the future of hydrogen energy, Weberg said conversations with stakeholders are only just beginning.

“Minnesota industry has been investing to prepare for this,” Weberg said. ​“It’s an exciting opportunity for Minnesota to embrace, and the conversation is just started. This is an opportunity to really lead the charge in this area, and also do it in tandem with green hydrogen and green steel.”