ArcelorMittal joins Bill Gates to support decarbonisation, including hydrogen
The Catalyst program brings together public and private finance, aiming to fast-track the deployment of projects which can deliver significant carbon reduction.
ArcelorMittal (Leading steelmaker) today (20th September) announced to have joined Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program as an anchor partner to support hydrogen, among other decarbonisation technologies.
ArcelorMittal has committed an equity investment of $100 million over the next five years through the XCarb innovation fund.
Breakthrough Energy, founded by Bill Gates, is committed to scaling the technologies the world needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 through investment vehicles, philanthropic programs, policy advocacy, and other initiatives, including Catalyst. Catalyst is a new model launched this year for how companies, governments, and private philanthropy can finance, produce, and ensure the adoption of next-generation clean technologies. It will initially focus on four decarbonisation technologies: direct air capture (DAC), green hydrogen, long-duration energy storage (LDS) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
ArcelorMittal’s investment will be made through its XCarb™ innovation fund launched earlier this year, expecting to invest around $100 million annually in companies developing decarbonisation technologies for steelmaking. So far, it has invested $10 million in Heliogen (a renewable energy company focusing on unlocking the power of sunlight to replace fossil fuels) and $25 million in Form Energy (a company working on the development of energy storage technology).
To achieve net-zero by 2050 needs an unprecedented level of coordination on a global scale. ArcelorMittal plans to cut the group emissions intensity by 25% by 2030 through its own efforts but is on the look for partnerships to scale up and accelerate the decarbonisation progress. It has increased its European 2030 CO2e intensity reduction target to 35% by 2030. It aims to achieve net-zero by 2050 by working on the five key levers – steelmaking transformation, energy transformation, increased use of scrap, sourcing clean electricity and offsetting residual emissions.
Aditya Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, said, “For ArcelorMittal and the steel industry, this kind of initiative is critically important. The steel industry knows how to decarbonise – essentially, what is missing is the availability of clean energy at competitive prices that provides the foundation for us to really accelerate.”
Bill Gates, Founder of Breakthrough Energy, commented, “Avoiding a climate disaster will require a new industrial revolution. We need to make the technologies and products that don’t cause emissions as cheap as those that do, so the whole world can afford them and reach our climate goals.”
