Construction has begun on Tata Steel’s electric arc furnace (EAF), which will eventually allow one of Britain’s remaining steelworks to transition to low-carbon production.
In 2023, the government struck a deal with Tata to invest £500m of taxpayer funds in the Port Talbot plant to help fund construction on the EAF. The deal helped to keep the loss-making plant open, with the firm saying it was losing £1.7m a day – a figure that was disputed by unions at the time.
EAFs use an electric current to melt scrap steel or iron to produce new high-quality steel, whereas traditional blast furnaces use coke – a carbon-intensive fuel made from coal. The technology could allow carbon emissions at Port Talbot to be reduced by 90%, as long as the energy is generated by renewable sources.
The government said that construction of the EAF would allow 5,000 steel jobs to be secured in an area that has some of the highest levels of poverty and deprivation in Wales. The closure of the plant’s blast furnaces...