Coal-based steelmaking is the predominant way steel is made around the globe and is still practiced in the Pittsburgh region.
A new report says it has serious consequences for public health. The report from Industrious Labs, an environmental group that works to lower carbon emissions from the industrial sector, found health costs from coal-based steel in the U.S. were up to $13 billion.
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It found pollution from the industry, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), was responsible for between 460 and 892 premature deaths nationwide.
It also found nearly 250,000 cases of asthma every year were caused as a result of the air pollution from coal-based steel.
“These are really notable impacts on community health, and they’re affecting communities that are disproportionately low-income and communities of color,” said Hilary Lewis, the steel director at Industrious Labs.
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Lewis said that while more of the steel industry was moving toward using electric arc furnaces to turn recycled scrap steel into new steel products, some types of steel, like the type used in the automotive industry, still use a coal-based process.
In the coal-based process, coal is converted into coke, which is then put into a blast furnace with iron ore to produce iron. The iron is later turned into steel in a separate step.
That’s the process used by U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh-area operations at the company’s Clairton coke plant and Edgar Thomson Works.
The two plants annually produce millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. They also emit thousands of tons of harmful emissions a year, ranking among the top emitters in the state.
The Clairton plant is responsible for between 37 and 66 premature deaths a year, according to the analysis done by Industrious Labs.
Hydrogen-based steelmaking
Lewis said a solution to the problem would be converting the steel industry to hydrogen, which can replace coke in the ironmaking process. Hydrogen can be made with renewable electricity in a process that lowers carbon emissions by 95 percent or more. Making hydrogen from renewable energy, so-called green hydrogen, would be both a climate solution and cause an immediate drop in emissions that are bad for public health, Lewis said.
“Getting coal out of steelmaking is the solution,” said Lewis. “We are really focused on a green hydrogen solution where we can get to near zero [emissions].”
The group analyzed pollution data from 17 steelmaking facilities in six states and ran that data through an EPA model that calculates the health damage done by various pollutants.
Public health experts say analysis is ‘reasonable’
Public health researchers who reviewed the study for The Allegheny Front found the methods used in the report were generally acceptable.
“This approach is actually fairly straightforward,” said James Fabisiak, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh and director of Pitt’s Center for Healthy Environments and Communities. Fabisiak said the EPA model used by the group was a fair way to come up with health impacts of various types of pollution.
“The EPA essentially put this program together as an attempt to model the various health burdens that might have been incurred by living near sources of pollution,” he said.
Fabisiak said that since the report is based on computer models, the numbers aren’t going to be precise, but that they are “pretty consistent with actually what was found by other groups,” including one that found coal-fired power plants caused 460,000 premature deaths nationwide between 1999 and 2020.
Jennifer Baka, associate professor of geography at Penn State University, said in an email she thought the modeling used in the study was “reasonable” but that the costs were “likely overestimates” based on some of the study’s assumptions of how clean alternative forms of steelmaking would be.
“Nonetheless, the report does a good job highlighting the burdens of current steelmaking processes to air quality and public health in the small number of US regions where steel is still manufactured in the US, which have higher percentages of population that are (minority) and low income,” Baka said.
Lewis said since the study relies on self-reported industry data, she doubts the data is an overestimate.
“This is self-reported industry data, which in my experience as a climate advocate is never an overestimate and is almost always based on a model that does not account for the regular ‘accidents,’ startup(s) (and) shut down(s)… that allow for higher emissions during short periods of time,” she said in an email.
Public health scientists say it’s well-established that the type of pollutants emitted from these plants are associated with asthma, heart diseases, stroke and other diseases.
“Air pollution is now associated with health outcomes you’ve never even thought of before. That’s how long the list is now,” said Jonathan Buonocore, assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health. “These particles are small enough, they get into the lung, and when they get into the lung, they’re small enough, they can cross the barrier between the lung and the blood, so they enter general circulation. And then, every single piece of the body is on the table for harms at that point.”
On the flip side: impacts of plant closures on workers’ health
Altogether, the plants represented in the study produce 25 million tons of steel a year and employ 18,000 workers, mainly in the Rust Belt from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Most of those workers are unionized.
Ge Bai, professor of health care accounting and finance at Johns Hopkins University, said one thing the report’s authors did not take into account was the possible negative consequences of plant closures.
She said that would have a negative effect on public health in some ways since workers would lose their insurance, have less money, and also suffer mental health problems as a result.
“Money is … the most important non-clinical social determinant of health. If you are poor, then you are more likely to face all sorts of clinical issues,” Bai said.
In an email, Lewis said job losses would also impact public health but said the group is not recommending plant closures.
“Instead, we recommend stronger regulations to reduce health harms and transitioning the facilities to clean alternatives including green hydrogen direct reduced iron,” Lewis said.
Lauren Camarda, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said in an email the state had not reviewed the study.
