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Bill clears path for $310M AK project

It turns blast furnace gas into renewable energy to capture federal funding.

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By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer 8:31 PM Wednesday, February 22, 2012

An Ohio Senate bill would help a Middletown steelmaker harness energy from its plant by expanding the legal definition of “renewable energy resource.”

Senate Bill 289 would allow AK Steel Corp. and Air Products and Chemicals Inc. to build a $310 million facility to capture waste gas vented from an AK Middletown Works blast furnace to generate steam and electricity as part of the state’s renewable energy market.

Today, the gas is burned off. But with this proposed facility, it could be used to generate steam and electricity for AK’s Middletown plant — about one million megawatt hours annually, enough to serve more than 85,000 Ohio homes, according to Air Products, which would own and operate the facility.

State Sen. Bill Coley, R-Middletown, who introduced the bill, wants to amend Ohio law so the blast furnace gas would qualify for the renewable energy market.

Companies that generate power from renewable energy sources — usually wind and solar — can sell Ohio renewable energy credits to other, less energy-efficient companies or to organizations that want to support renewable energy. The credits are meant to be incentives to pursue renewable energy creation.

Coley wants the bill passed by early March.

“My line has been that steel mills are as natural in Ohio as the sun and the wind, and God willing, they will stay that way,” Coley said.

The Ohio Environmental Council, a group of environmental-issue activists, backs the project, but council members are concerned the proposed facility would generate so much power that letting AK and Air Products trade in renewable credits could “quite literally wreck” the market for those credits, as Nolan Moser, a council attorney, testified last week to the Ohio Senate.

AK and Air Products want to build the facility to take advantage of $30 million in federal funds.

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