[Reason077]

Correct. There are two major steel producers still operating in the UK: British Steel's Scunthorpe steelworks in the North East of England, and Tata Steel's Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales.

Both have announced plans to convert from blast furnaces to modern electric arc furnaces. This will greatly reduce emissions - they are among the largest industrial polluters in the UK (along with the Drax wood-burning power station). But conversion to arc furnaces also means that fewer workers will be required.

[musiciangames]

As I understand it, Britain will no longer be able to produce steel from iron ore, only from scrap. Which doesn’t sound good strategically.

[Reason077]

It actually makes sense strategically. Britain already has more steel than it will likely ever need, in fact it's one of the world's major exporters of scrap metals. But it depends on imports for iron ore. Why import iron ore (and coking coal, for that matter) when the resource you need to make better, more valuable steels more efficiently is already here?

[leg100]

Because it's questionable whether that's even possible.

[Reason077]

Of course it is possible! Around 25% of the world's steel is already produced by electric arc furnaces. 100% in some countries, and over 70% in the USA.

The UK exports 7-8 million tonnes of scrap steel every year, while producing about 5 million tonnes in blast furnaces. There's more than enough feedstock to replace all the UK blast furnace steel production with EAFs and still have some left over.

[musiciangames]

Does that apply in the case of war, which was intended by ‘strategic’? I’m reminded of Australia’s supply of iron to Japan before WWII. Which earned future prime minister Robert Menzies the nickname ‘Pig Iron Bob’.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Dalfram_dispute

[aembleton]

In the case of war we'd need to import iron ore anyway so, with this we can import scrap steel.