“The real challenge is going to be how to produce the hydrogen and how to produce it economically,” Midrex Technologies Inc. president and chief executive officer Stephen Montague said during an industry event on Monday.   

Montague, who spoke during the annual Steel Success Strategies conference in New York City, said that the hydrogen-based process, in and of itself, has been shown to work. But for hydrogen steelmaking to be a feasible solution to carbon reduction, the industry needs to figure out how to produce hydrogen without creating additional carbon dioxide.

He added that U.S. steelmakers appear to be lagging behind their European counterparts in the effort, noting that some overseas producers have been taking advantage of public funding meant to encourage those types of investments.

He said that similar domestic programs could help spur similar investments in the U.S.