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Port talbot steelworks to close and be remodelled as an electric arc furnace, so recycled products only. This puts the UK in a very exposed position as I believe it would mean importing products like rail and structural steel. Anybody else care about this?
As someone brought up in Motherwell I have some sympathy but this has been the way of things for decades so it shouldn't come as a surprise. As for whether people should care about steel manufacture, we've probably been importing all the raw materials for decades too so it doesn't make that much difference.
You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs. The job losses and loss of steel making capacity is a necessary evil in pursuit of the goal of net zero supported by all the major parties. Whether the electric furnace will be viable long term with high UK electricity prices is another question. And of course the savings in UK CO2 output are partly just transferred to wherever we import our steel from.
Going to devastate Port Talbot, 3000 job losses...
finephilly
Free MemberPort talbot steelworks to close and be remodelled as an electric arc furnace, so recycled products only. This puts the UK in a very exposed position as I believe it would mean importing products like rail and structural steel. Anybody else care about this?
We've already outsourced our skilled labour in every other sector, why not steelmaking?
Not many, apparently. I grew up within earshot of the blast furnaces of Teesside (as did everyone from Middlesbrough eastwards) and it's weird to see how quickly the Redcar plant is disappearing. I heard about Port Talbot a couple of weeks ago from my BIL who is a fairly big cheese in recycling steel in USA, he was over visiting Scunny to sort a deal.
Where does the raw ore and coal come from for Port Talbot currently?
Prob Asia and S America
Going to devastate Port Talbot, 3000 job losses…
And how would you notice? It's been a dump my whole life, no more so now than when it had many thousands more working there in the 80s.
There was some bickering discussion on R4 about this morning between various workers, experts and politicians. About how long into the future you need to look before arc furnaces can do all steel production. As a listener I came away none the wiser as to what the truth was.
From a global perspective there has to be an argument that the best place to produce steel surely has to be close to the source of the ore, but with good access to a bountiful energy supply - be that electricity or coal. Or if the energy source is stupidly cheap or plentiful like Iceland - take the ore to the energy. With the closing of the welsh coal mines I can't imagine Port Talbot makes a huge amount of sense as a production location. Obviously no consolation for the population/economy that has developed dependant on it.
It strikes me as a missed opportunity for 'Green' steelmaking using hydrogen. If we had invested into the R&D (which is surely available at UK Universities + industry) say 20-30 yrs ago, we could be as far along as Sweden.
I'm sure the people of Port Talbot want a future, not charity.
Greater reliance on imports further weakens the UK's 'bargaining' position. I'm not trying to recreate the past, but this option just seems to suit TATA.
The stockholders I use, generally import sections and plates from Europe. There are ships full of steel waiting in the channel to be offloaded.
I guess this will give the suppliers the opportunity to increase their prices yet again ( which they seem to do on a monthly basis anyway) so more VAT in the coffers for the Government so its a winner for them 😉
We've recently done a job at a cast iron foundry where they are switching to electric furnaces. At the moment the guys working in there come out looking like a coal miner. Just being in there for 10 mins taking some measurements resulted in black bogeys for a week. So, on the plus side, it should be a better working environment for the lucky ones who still have a job at Port Talbot
convert
Full MemberThere was some bickering discussion on R4 about this morning between various workers, experts and politicians. About how long into the future you need to look before arc furnaces can do all steel production. As a listener I came away none the wiser as to what the truth was.
From a global perspective there has to be an argument that the best place to produce steel surely has to be close to the source of the ore, but with good access to a bountiful energy supply – be that electricity or coal. With the closing of the welsh coal mines I can’t imagine Port Talbot makes a huge amount of sense as a production location. Obviously no consolation for the population/economy that has developed dependant on it.
Didn't Gove just approve a coal mine specifically to boost UK steel production or did I imagine that?
I'm no expert, but there isn't a fundamental reason not to do primary production from ore to steel without coal/coke. You need heat and hydrogen and carbon to make it happen, and coal made that convenient, but the carbon in the steel is a small percentage and could be from almost any source, even a renewable charcoal. Still takes a lot of windmils or a big lake up a hill to run a sizeable arc furnace, but it can be done, and I guess needs to be as steelmaking is a big chunk of greenhouse gasses currently.
Don't worry, it'll all be fine
We've been assured by the Brexiteers that the future of UK steel production is exactly the kind of 'Brexit Dividend' that we'd all be enjoying once free from the shackles of the EU
Oh....
Obviously no consolation for the population/economy that has developed dependant on it.
I’m sure the people of Port Talbot want a future, not charity.
I'm not convinced that huge numbers of the workers even live in PT any longer. PT has been gradually getting bigger and spreading towards Margam for the last few decades because it has good access to the M4 and is a cheap place to live, which makes it a useful commuter town, NOT because of the ever-diminishing works. And the irony is that the steelworks pumps its pollution over those houses.
Didn’t Gove just approve a coal mine specifically to boost UK steel production or did I imagine that?
I think that was for 'coking coal' which is an ingredient (the carbon) in the steel, rather than source of energy for the heat. Regardless, if we no longer make steel, do we need coke.....
It strikes me as a missed opportunity for ‘Green’ steelmaking using hydrogen. If we had invested into the R&D (which is surely available at UK Universities + industry) say 20-30 yrs ago, we could be as far along as Sweden.
There is a lot wrong with this comment, in particular:
- “Green” steelmaking means converting to electric based processes. That’s what they ARE doing in Port Talbot.
- “ Green Hydrogen” is little more the vapourware today: a tiny fraction of the world’s H2 production is Green (ie from non CO2 electricity), whatever the industry hopes about the long term.
- North Sweden has huge advantages as a place to develop electricity based steelmaking, namely a good combination of nuclear, hydro and wind power. So it is not a simple matter of just “the UK did not invest in the R&D” but Sweden did”.
Decarbonising the world’s big heavy industries is a massive and difficult endeavour, not a just a simple matter of “using green Hydrogen”. The political and social impacts, like the job losses in Port Talbot, are just one of the barriers.
Green” steelmaking means converting to electric based processes. That’s what they ARE doing in Port Talbot.
My understanding was that the electric arc process would only deal with recycled steel. Hydrogen would be required (replacing coal as the feedstock and energy source) to produce primary steel. Is that not correct?
Is there an argument to be made for retaining the ability to make “virgin” steel a national security issue?
Bit tricky when you've privatised everything, run the economy into the ground for 13+ years and praying that slashing public expenditure in the spring budget will get you elected for another 5 years....
Anyway, on the bright side we can serve wine by the pint....
Coke can be used as fuel and as a reducing agent to convert iron ore into pig iron (by removing the oxygen). That creates CO2. But, by using hydrogen instead of Coke, you get H20. We all know this as water. There are a lot more steps involved, but that's the fundamental principle.
Electric arc furnaces (EAF) can't handle iron ore AFAIK. But, they can use DRI, which is an intermediate product between Iron ore and steel. However, the DRI has historically been made using coke. What is being achieved in Sweden is industrial scale production of DRI, using Hydrogen.
And how would you notice? It’s been a dump my whole life, no more so now than when it had many thousands more working there in the 80s.
Well I didn't want to say, but my impression of it wasn't very favourable when I last drove past...
Rather than throw any more money at Sunak’s mate who own the plant give the money to the workers to open/start their own businesses
Well I didn’t want to say, but my impression of it wasn’t very favourable when I last drove past…
What do you expect...it's a steel town not effing Disneyland. And right now, the 2,800 people who are directly losing their jobs (which excludes the 100s in indirect employers) are probably more concerned about how they're going to live than they are about how ugly Port Talbot is
Rather than throw any more money at Sunak’s mate who own the plant give the money to the workers to open/start their own businesses
Doing what? Making what and selling it to who?!
I grew up in the town and used to work there in the late 90s, writing was on the wall even back then so I retrained and got out. Tata wanted to sell the place back in 2016 so shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.
Yep, town centre is shockingly bad. Can't see any of the well paid Tata people doing much shopping there.
Town has got great transport links compared to the valleys so that's a positive.
As you probably know from Afan etc, place has some really beautiful areas and the beach.
Flash looking Train Station too 🙂
Rather than throw any more money at Sunak’s mate who own the plant give the money to the workers to open/start their own businesses
<br />Doing what? Making what and selling it to who?!
I dunno?, I haven’t spoke to any of the workers.
Do people still believe in all that CO2 stuff then?
One stat that jumped out for me was that it's 0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution, if that is correct then it is surely an unsustainable approach, or as I suspect, is that a massively simplistic way of looking at it?
0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution
I suspect that is because we have already outsourced most of our heavy industry, and so much of our pollution, to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India and China.
The UK will be, apparently, the only major economy with no capacity to produce virgin steel....whether you think that is a bad thing or not...
One stat that jumped out for me was that it’s 0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution, if that is correct then it is surely an unsustainable approach, or as I suspect, is that a massively simplistic way of looking at it?
As we slowly migrate things to greener fuel sources, the ones which are hard / not cost effective etc will become a bigger and bigger percentage of our overall greenhouse gas emissions. There may be some things we simply can't migrate, in which case they end up being 100% of our greenhouse gas emissions even if they're quite small in GDP terms.
One stat that jumped out for me was that it’s 0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution, if that is correct then it is surely an unsustainable approach, or as I suspect, is that a massively simplistic way of looking at it?
Yeah, as a nation that mostly gets by financially by cutting each other's hair, making each other coffee and selling insurance to hair and coffee businesses, the actual industries that make actual stuff will rather stand out in terms of CO2 emissions.
no capacity to produce virgin steel
Bet Branson's proper pissed about that 😉
Where does the raw ore and coal come from for Port Talbot currently?
Trying to remember what I was told when I had a tour when I worked for Corus, I think it was Brazil, but the different colours on the dockside were a reflection of the different mines that supplied ore. You have to keep in mind Port Talbot existed because ore could be imported. Unlike say Shotton which being more inland was doomed.
Tata will just move more production to iJmuden, the slabs can be imported if needed for processing in the UK.
Is it important for a country to be able to produce steel? Are we going to suggest that steel should be renationalised? Because that worked so well last time.
Maybe the way forward is for the UK to be a part of a trading block with the ability to supply goods without relying on the Suez Canal. the cape etc.
My nephew is / was doing a masters placement there for chem.eng. I guess he better get up to speed with arc technology very quickly before he gets his b f h .
I still think it's useful for an economy like the UK to have steel-making ability. Certainly for the next 50 years, unless a new material can be developed.
The way I see it, Hydrogen-steel is the future, but the UK govt did not mandate this (making DRI with H2) was included in the $500m subsidy it is giving to TATA.
I am always reminded of my last job in denmark before moving over here, when i read about the Steel plants.
Making a big steel chimney with swedish or finish steel in Denmark, that chimney was for Corus redcar and it got shipped over here from Esbjerg
the UK govt did not mandate this (making DRI with H2) was included in the $500m subsidy it is giving to TATA
for a H2 DRI steel plant in Wales a $500m subsidy would not have
touched the sides.
Well, yea. I posted that before reading about the costs of H2 production and how far away we are. Still, it's something to aim for in the future.
TBF, I never suggested the $500m would cover it. (they could've said something like ' here's $500m for an EAF, contingent on a commitment to move developing H2 production in future...') But this is still the direction we should be heading
costs of H2 production and how far away we are.
Yes - that’s why I said it: I worked in the industrial gas industry.
Still, it’s something to aim for in the future.
Yes, but realistically we will do well to have 10% of global capacity from renewable H2 DRI by 2050 - not a practical solution to replace the current plant in Wales during the mid 2020s.
The UK will be, apparently, the only major economy with no capacity to produce virgin steel….whether you think that is a bad thing or not…
I’m sure all we need to do is consult the government’s extensive and detailed industrial strategy to find the answer to that
Oh….
If you can't make all the ingredients of steel without importing a bunch of stuff, is it really any different from just importing the steel? You'd have to piss off a whole load of countries before no one was willing to sell it to us, and even then there's a bunch of countries who would be happy to buy it and resell it to us. I can't see it as a national security issue at all
A lot of the discussion of hydrogen as an alternative fuel makes the mistake of going "yes it's energy intensive but we can just do it with renewables so it's clean". But we're in a scarcity environment for renewable power, and will be for a long time- so every watt that we use to create hydrogen, means that we're burning carbon for another watt somewhere else. It ends up being one of those daft budget things where you ignore costs because they're coming out of a different column in the spreadsheet.
Which is after all how the carbon burning economy has always worked to be fair
Some facts and figures on steel in the UK:
The UK currently consumes about 12 million tonnes of steel per year and makes about 6 million. The country also exports about 6 million tonnes of scrap (of varying quality from good to poor).
Port Talbot currently has a capacity of about 3 million tonnes per year and when rebuilt will only produce about 2.5 million tonnes so the production gap will grow further.
What is happening at Port Talbot is different to British Steel in that the works will all but close for 4 years before restarting and hoping to regain their market. British Steel will continue to make steel at a similar rate throughout their transition (N.B. there will still be significant job losses particularly in S****horpe and they will end up employing fewer people).
Unite the Union had a costed plan showing that investment to increase UK steel production to 12 million tonnes per Year was a net benefit to the economy with capital payback of 10 years. GMB and Community Unions had a plan to maintain production and jobs in Port Talbot throughout and could show net benefit to the economy. It appears both plans have been rejected outright by the shareholders (mainly banks and investors in India).
Also hydrogen ironmaking uses less energy than using coal. Hydrogen is the reductant not the energy source. The process is different as reduction is done in the solid phase not the liquid. Most large European steelmakers are moving towards this technology, often via natural gas reduction which is a good intermediate stage. No one in the UK is investing in this and it will result is a huge net loss to the economy long term.
This plan seems to favour a scrap magnate from India looking to export used material to the UK in 10 years time. Thanks for your help, Rishi.
Surely they should just be using heat pumps? Cheaper and no CO2!
Tata will just move more production to iJmuden, the slabs can be imported if needed for processing in the UK.
One of the reasons for this - and other companies closing in the UK but not in thr EU is its very cheap to lay off workers here, very expensive in most EU countries - so the company wants to close a plant - its far cheaper for them to close the UK one
5lab
Full MemberIf you can’t make all the ingredients of steel without importing a bunch of stuff, is it really any different from just importing the steel? You’d have to piss off a whole load of countries before no one was willing to sell it to us, and even then there’s a bunch of countries who would be happy to buy it and resell it to us. I can’t see it as a national security issue at all
I thought we actually had all the raw materials in abundance, one aspect of our headstart on the industrial revolution.
The coal, yes. Expect to pay a lot more for quality steel in future, folks. And when your train is late, this will be why.
I’m sure all we need to do is consult the government’s extensive and detailed industrial strategy to find the answer to that
<br />Hmm remove all the protections(?) and put some carbon offset import taxes a year later than the eu.<br /><br />
Anyway what is it British steel -> corus -> ta ta .
Not sure it’s ever recently been anything other than something a bit shaky.<br /><br />Perhaps it a touch of Brexit, a dash of green and a dash of over paying(wasn’t corus 5 x tata size so into the bank for shedloads of debt on the acquisition.)
Tata acquire corus
Bulk steel? Whatever.
Specialized steel? Without that there is no arms industry. And without that?
I suppose another industry we will be depending on China for?
"One stat that jumped out for me was that it’s 0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution, if that is correct then it is surely an unsustainable approach"
Unless we all stop using steel (and that's not going to happen - steel concrete and glass are what nearly everything not plastic is made from) then we just unsustainably shift the same pollution (or worse if they burn more coal and shittier coal or worse still, lignite ) to other countries when they make the steel. Except with more industrial deaths due to lower safety regulation and the extra pollution of shipping the steel 10 thousand of miles to Blighty from China rather than a couple of hundred miles by rail in Britain.
Funny you mention Redcar steelworks as they are planning on building a hydrogen production reactor next door to Hartlepool power station.
Joined up thinking, as always.
Rather than throw any more money at Sunak’s mate who own the plant give the money to the workers to open/start their own businesses
About the second part, where is the demand going to come from for those all businesses to serve? Genuinely curious. Sounds like it would keep a lot of new businesses going for a year or two, and a boon for training companies.
One stat that jumped out for me was that it’s 0.1% of GDP but 2% of our annual pollution, if that is correct then it is surely an unsustainable approach, or as I suspect, is that a massively simplistic way of looking at it?
20% of Wales' emissions. These figures will look good on the chart a the next COP.
Unite the Union had a costed plan showing that investment to increase UK steel production to 12 million tonnes per Year was a net benefit to the economy with capital payback of 10 years. GMB and Community Unions had a plan to maintain production and jobs in Port Talbot throughout and could show net benefit to the economy. It appears both plans have been rejected outright by the shareholders (mainly banks and investors in India).
Devil's advocate, but they would say that wouldn't they? The investors and the gov won't trust them. And anyway investors don't care about the economy, the gov is ideologically opposed to that sort of thing.
About the second part, where is the demand going to come from for those all businesses to serve?
UK steel demand is about 12 million tonnes per year, approximately twice UK production. The demand is there.
A lot of Port Talbot products go into the car industry which is still a major employer. They will now likely import a greater proportion from Europe.
Also China is now effectively 'offshoring' a load of it's emissions by building steel plants in Indonesia and other parts of SE Asia as these countries have less scrutiny on their emissions than China.
I wasn't referring to steel demand, rather the demand for whatever the ex-staff's new grant funded businesses would do.