Final Environmental Assessment for the Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. Waste Energy Project at the AK Steel Corporation Middletown Works, Middletown,

The Department of Energy (DOE) prepared this Environmental Assessment (EA) to evaluate the potential environmental consequences of providing an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act; Public Law 111-5, 123 Stat. 115) financial assistance grant to Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Air Products) to facilitate construction and operation of a plant to recover waste energy at the AK Steel Corporation (AK Steel) Middletown Works in Middletown, Ohio. DOE's Proposed Action would provide $30 million in financial assistance in a cost-sharing arrangement with the project proponent, Air Products. The total cost of the proposed project would be about $315 million. Air Products' proposed project would construct and operate a combined-cycle power generation plant that would capture and process blast furnace gas to produce electricity and process steam. Air Products would build the plant on AK Steel's existing Middletown Works site, which manufactures cold-rolled steel products. This EA evaluates 14 resource areas and identifies no significant adverse environmental impacts for the proposed project. The proposed project could result in beneficial impacts to the nation's energy efficiency and the local economy and air quality. In addition to adding and retaining jobs in the Middletown area, the project would convert waste energy from blast furnace gas, half of which is currently burned and released to the atmosphere, to generate electricity and process steam. The generated electricity could replace the same amount of electricity AK Steel purchases from conventional power generating sources such as coal-fired power plants.