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Trade Wars
Cleveland-Cliffs Announces $1B Project In Ohio, Dropping Original Hydrogen-Based Plan
Cleveland-Cliffs will invest $1 billion upgrading its blast furnace and other steel infrastructure in Middletown, Ohio, over the next four years, the company said Friday. Half of the funding is supported by a reworked U.S. Department of Energy grant awarded during the Biden administration. The Middletown investment originally focused on implementing low-emissions technologies. Instead, it now includes a blast furnace relining, as well as upgrades to the facility’s advanced material handling infrastructure and artificial intelligence-powered control technologies, according to a news release. Construction is expected to begin in the coming weeks.
The project also includes an advanced cogeneration facility designed to capture blast furnace gas to generate electricity and steam for on-site consumption, which Cleveland-Cliffs said will improve overall energy efficiency. Environmental groups are pushing back on the reworked plan.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
The Gas Turbine Shortage Just Became AI’s Biggest Constraint
Order a heavy-duty gas turbine from GE Vernova today and it won't arrive until 2031. That's the company's actual production schedule, confirmed on its July 22 earnings call, and it's the fact sitting underneath every AI data center power plan announced in the last two years. It comes up far less often than the announcements do. Goldman Sachs put hard numbers on the demand side in May. U.S. data center power demand climbs from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 41 GW this year and 66 GW in 2027. Year-over-year capacity additions accelerate from 8.5 GW actually realized last year to 13.6 GW scheduled for 2026 and 36.3 GW scheduled for 2027. By then data centers would take 8.5% of total U.S. peak summer demand, up from 4.1% today.
- GE Vernova closed the second quarter with 116 GW of gas power equipment backlog and slot reservation agreements, up from 100 GW three months earlier and 83 GW at the end of 2025. It expects at least 125 GW under contract by December. CEO Scott Strazik told analysts the company is taking reservations for 2031 delivery and should be more than halfway contracted for that year by the end of 2026. Its production plan: roughly 20 GW annualized this quarter, 24 GW by 2028, and a push toward 30 GW by 2030.
- Siemens Energy ended its fiscal third quarter on June 30 with a 69 GW gas turbine backlog after booking 15 GW and shipping six. Lead times run three years or more. CEO Christian Bruch told analysts the addressable market could reach 120 GW a year, roughly half of it American.
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries reported a 35 GW large-frame backlog on Aug. 6, up from 23 GW a year earlier. That figure covers Mitsubishi's fiscal first quarter, which runs March through June, so it lags roughly a month behind the calendar-quarter numbers above. CFO Hiroshi Nishio said orders booked during the quarter are scheduled for delivery between 2028 and 2030, and that the company is "being selective in the projects we contract."
Read more at Yahoo Finance
Trane, Eaton Aim To Improve Data Center Efficiency As Regulations Slam Power Usage
Trane Technologies and Eaton announced a collaboration to integrate advanced thermal management and electrical system architectures to help accelerate AI-factory deployment, specifically built for the NVIDIA AI factory blueprint. The companies developed a reference design that aims to replace the manual design process with a unified system for power and cooling for data centers, which they said can achieve energy efficiency gains, cut copper use, and reduce installation costs. The collaboration is announced as data centers are shrouded in controversy, with regulations varying state-by-state as lawmakers question how to accommodate them and other large compute facilities, including those handling industrial AI demands, when public opinion is souring on them.
The new reference design involves using medium-voltage designs for higher-power density AI factories instead of low-voltage designs. The design is included in both the Trane Continuum Rubin DSX and Eaton Beam Rubin DSX platforms, built in alignment with the NVIDIA DSX platforms, with Eaton’s technology helping provide power distribution for the Trane platform, according to the companies. This is a departure from the current siloed infrastructure of data centers into a unified architecture to prioritize power distribution and cooling systems. The companies said that the design can help data center customers accelerate development cycles through pre-coordinated thermal and electrical power systems from grid to chip.
Read more at Smart Industry
Boeing Lands $131B Federal Contract For F-15 Work In St. Louis
The Boeing Co. has landed a federal contracting vehicle worth up to $131.23 billion for F-15 fighter jet production, modernization and support work in St. Louis. The Department of War announced the sole-source, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract Monday. The ceiling represents the maximum value of orders that can be placed under the contract, rather than money guaranteed to Boeing.
Known as F-15 Eagle Crest, the contract covers aircraft production, systems integration, modernization, upgrades, retrofits and sustainment. It also calls for Boeing to help establish military-operated depot maintenance capabilities for the F-15 weapon system. The work will support the Air Force, Air National Guard and other Department of War customers. The initial ordering period runs through Aug. 24, 2031. The government has an option to extend that period through Aug. 24, 2036, with work potentially continuing through August 2037.
Read at KDSK St. Louis
Anduril Industries Opens Fury Autonomous Aircraft Manufacturing Facility In Ohio
Anduril Industries has opened a Fury aircraft manufacturing facility, named Arsenal-1 in Columbus, Ohio. The company, which develops autonomous systems including Fury, has committed $910.5 million in capital investment and 4,008 new production and service jobs by 2035. Anduril began Fury production work at Arsenal-1 in March, three months ahead of its original target to begin manufacturing in July. The first Ohio-built Fury rolled off the production line July 27, 557 days after Anduril announced plans for the project.
The Fury production line is capable of producing up to 150 aircraft annually in its current configuration. In June, the U.S. Air Force selected Anduril to move the FQ-44 into production. At full buildout, Arsenal-1 is planned as a five-million-square-foot advanced manufacturing campus on 500 acres near Rickenbacker International Airport. The facility will have runway access for testing and development. Arsenal-1 is designed to manufacture multiple autonomous systems at high volume for the U.S. and its allies. Once completed, the campus is expected to have the capacity to produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems. The project represents the largest single job creation project in Ohio history with 2035 projected completion date.
Read more at Plant Services
UAW Workers Reject Deere’s Contract Extension Offer, Setting Up 2027 Battle
Members of the United Auto Workers voted down an offer from Deere DE to extend its contract with the union by two years, setting up what will likely be a contentious negotiation for a new contract next year. The farm-equipment maker last month offered union members two years of 4% wage increases and $3,000 bonuses if they accepted the offer by the end of August. The proposal would have extended the current contract from 2027, when it is set to expire, to 2029.
The company said pensions, healthcare coverage, cost-of-living wage adjustments and other benefits in the 2021 contract would have remained unchanged under the extension. UAW President Shawn Fain derided the unprecedented offer, calling it an effort to avoid the regular collective bargaining process. He said the offer failed to address the outsourcing of work from unionized Deere plants and didn’t include a plan to call 1,600 laid-off employees back to work.
Read more at the WSJ
Boeing Tech Workers Reject Contract
About 17,000 Boeing engineers and technicians have rejected a new contract offer from the aircraft builder, pointing to the possibility of a strike once the current contract expires on October 6. The rejection vote also authorized the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) negotiators to initiate a strike if a new agreement is not reached by the expiration date. No further negotiations are scheduled between Boeing and SPEEA.
Boeing’s West Coast manufacturing workers initiated a seven-week strike in September and October 2024 once their contract expired. And Boeing Defense workers staged a 14-week strike in 2025. Reportedly, Boeing offered the engineers and technicians a four-year contract with a 29.4% compounded wage increase. This was rejected according to the union because it limited inflation-linked raises at 3%, which voters believed is insufficient compared to cost-of-living increases. SPEEA members at Boeing comprise two separate voting units. The Professional Unit (engineers and scientists) rejected the contract by 64.3%, and authorized a strike by 87.9%. The Technical Unit (analysts/technicians) rejected the contract by 71.9%, and authorized a strike by 89.7%.
Read more at American Machinist
OSHA Cites NaturPak for Three Deaths, Two Serious Injuries
OSHA cited IPMF LLC, operating as NaturPak, a Wisconsin-based food products manufacturer, after two incidents involving industrial kettles releasing hot steam and liquid, causing three worker deaths and two serious injuries. Investigators from OSHA responded to the first incident on Feb. 12, 2026, which involved the lid of an industrial kettle unexpectedly opening after a clogged vent line led to pressure building up, and then releasing steam, liquid, and organic material onto two employees nearby. A month later, OSHA investigators responded to another incident involving multiple worker hospitalizations on March 18, when a kettle lid opened while under pressure, releasing steam, hot liquid, and organic material, burning three workers. Two workers were fatally injured and another hospitalized.
OSHA issued the employer one serious citation for the design and usage of kettles leading to pressure and thermal burn hazards; a repeat citation for exposing workers to falls to lower levels; and an other-than-serious citation for failing to notify employees working adjacent to permit-required confined spaces. OSHA also issued serious citations for exposing workers to thermal hazards without quick access to emergency water. The agency issued citations with $115,850 in penalties related to the inspection opened on Feb. 12 and $248,250 in penalties for the inspection opened on March 18.
Read more at EHS Today
Shell Reportedly Weighs Selling US Chemicals Assets for $8 Billion
Shell plc is reportedly weighing the sale of part of its chemicals business in the United States, according to a Financial Times report published on August 24, 2026. The deal, still at a preliminary stage, has reportedly already drawn interest from several buyers with different profiles. The valuation floated could reach $8 billion. The pool of potential buyers combines distinct industrial and financial logics. ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell, two established petrochemical groups whose business directly overlaps with the assets in question, would see an opportunity for industrial consolidation.
Shell's US chemicals business rests on a limited number of industrial sites, spread across Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. These facilities feed production chains upstream of plastics, detergents and certain pharmaceutical inputs. The footprint is built around large, long-established petrochemical complexes and a more recent site dedicated to polyethylene. This is the set of assets reportedly under discussion.
Read more at EnergyNews
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