The British government intends to allocate £250 million of a planned £390 million program to reduce industry carbon emissions to the domestic steel industry, which it said accounts for 15% of the country's industry emissions.
Investment in hydrogen and low carbon technology could help cut industry emissions and meet the country's 2050 zero-emission target, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a release on Aug. 29.
The government issued a call for contributions to help it design the Clean Steel Fund in an Aug. 29 release, with the process scheduled to conclude on Nov. 21.
In addition to the steel initiative, the government has allocated £100 million to a Low Carbon Hydrogen Production Fund to assist the deployment of hydrogen production capacity and to encourage private sector investment in low carbon hydrogen, as well as a £40 million Hydrogen and Fuel Switching Innovation Fund to explore how technology can be rolled out across the U.K. to cut emissions.
The government said the switch to low carbon fuels would need to substantially increase in scale to meet emission targets and hydrogen could be used to power factories, fuel engines and heat homes. "Developing hydrogen technology has the potential to not only reduce emissions from industry, but could also help us seize the opportunities of the global shift to cleaner economies," Climate Change Minister Ian Duncan said in a statement, according to a Reuters report.
