The British government and the Indian conglomerate Tata said on Wednesday that they would jointly invest 1.25 billion pounds, or about $1.6 billion, in the country’s largest steel mill, in Port Talbot, Wales, to make operations there less polluting.
As part of the overhaul, about 2,800 of the company’s 8,000 steel jobs in Britain will be lost over time, a spokesman for Tata said, in part because the electric technology will require fewer workers.
Still, the plan was, from the point of view of employees, an improvement on a proposal announced last year when Britain’s Conservative government was in power. Both deals include the same £500 million in government support, but workers facing layoffs will now be offered the option for paid retraining for other occupations.
The government says this project will cut overall emissions in Britain 1.5 percent byshifting steel production to a process of melting down scrap metal — an operation that depends on the availability of this raw material and, some critics say, cannot be used for producing the highest-quality grades of steel.
It has not been easy to preserve Britain’s steel-making industry, which has been in decline for decades. The governing Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is promoting clean energy investment as a pillar of its strategy for reviving a stagnant economy. It has argued that it is important to maintain the country’s ability to produce steel and said it would allocate £2.5 billion in additional funding “to rebuild the industry and help it decarbonize.”
Looks and sounds like the UK Taxpayer is getting shafted ones more ...
