Steel Yourselves.
According to British media the only way for the UK steel industry to survive is to buy out Tata Steel. A sensible purchaser would know that the price must be rock bottom. If the Chinese cannot cut back on over production then dumping must remain in place. The only reasonable cash flow option is for a US buy out/giveaway. US steel is protected by tariff whereas European steel isn't. One thing is for sure: large scale Chinese investment must be no go. The Chinese way is to undercut; establish a monopoly and then bang the prices through the purlins. Mainland Europe beware!
British steel plants changed hands at alarming frequency. Stewarts & lloyds, Margham Abbey, Briton Ferry and Richards Thomas and Baldwins were on their last legs before they were re-privatised in the 70's. A well known 'society with secrets' has kept the business afloat for decades and it is time that it realised that it is doing nobody any favours. If the Chinese will sell steel below cost importers should be thankful. An upside to the scenario is that pollution becomes confined to Asia...perhaps where it feels at home. I suggest that large scale steel production will become consigned to a 'developing world' activity.
Remember that a fair share of earlier Western steel production was sunk to the bottom in various wars. Europe has largely abandoned shipbuilding so a large chunk of steel demand has been quietly binned anyway.
What thinks the team? ■
John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com
Going Forward
Coal will shrink, and does so. But remain a source at least to those countries, where energy transmission infrastructure is not sufficiently fanned out. Wind and Solar source energy needs to be transmitted to the location of the energy demand, that's the technical issue and challenge.
Nuclear, at whatever "safety level", has this one deciding drawback (to everything it touches) called half-life. It's less than a life for humans where deserted nuke locations (ample supply in US & Russia) are dwindling away behind rotting wire fences.
As what concerns selling production under cost, the cost remains there for the whole of society but is put on other shoulders to bear (which might well be too weak to support such load). A "government" can always decide to dispense with years of lifetime and with the health of a part of its subjects, and tell them it's the right way. But wouldn't it be better to make pollution prevention a business of technology rather than of hospitals (or worse)? ■
Re: Regicide Is Always Inevitable
Energy from water :
Long back read in a newspaper that water is split into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is used as fuel and oxygen helps in burning. No pollution. Bike was invented some where in Brazil and milage was said to be 350 km/litre of water.
If developed in large scale, above can be an alternative to coal in steel and power industries. Hydrogen may be used as reducing agent, to reduce ferrous oxide to ferrous.
Thanks and regards,
S.Ganesh
+91 9033481676 ■
Mechanisms Of Conversion
Nobody really explains how water is economically dissociated into its main components in the first place.
There is so much male bovine manure around perhaps we could use that. In one corner of the world countries are being criticised for deforesting and in other parts of the world, where the critics abound, bio-mass is praised as environmentally friendly.
As Maurice Chevalier sang "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore." ■
John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com
Some Philosophy (Or Other)
As the bulk world seems to have gone into hibernation & quite little fresh input arrives on these here pages, perhaps it's time to look at a bigger picture?
Digging in & hope for the best has never worked. If the bmh engineers close down their ability to contact their peers on a personal & free (as in freedom) base of independing decisionmaking, the Northern Fjord population effect will take care to impose Evolution.
So YES to any new ideas & rather YES to "support for zeal" and rather NO to "braking the willing".
;-) As for being old & out of the game, there's these people who propose that "What goes around comes around" (Western thinking) may be re-read into "Reincarnation circle" (Eastern thinking), and be it in children, nieces and nephews, ...
Isn't it that "seeing it through" has rather been a positive distinction of The Seafaring Nation in the West? And anyhow, why M.C. would have said that, like that, ... It's about a girl, and who if not he could have dared to approach anyone female (at that time). So it was maybe just the taking in of breath before hauling off at full speed ;-)
Kind regards
R. ■
Regicide is Always Inevitable
Renewable energy is a bit farcical. If it is anything like reliable or economic it must be located where nobody really wants to live. Deserts for solar and near polar for wind and wave: give over!
Rolls Royce proposes to market power plants based on units already used to drive submarines and aircraft carriers. This development is long overdue and probably has resulted from uncertainty over the purchase of such power units for naval application. Safety, compactness and trouble free decommissioning are proven benefactors of the technology. Packages will be available in remote areas and conurbations alike. When people quote nuclear disasters the many thousands of murdered coal miners are conveniently forgotten. This new generation of power plants is quite safe. Ask any submariner!
Surely it is time to leave King Coal dead and buried. In this business we should be prepared to make some amends and devote our attention to cleaner activities. Nobody misses coal. Bulkaholics can find better things to do than persist in coaling activities: or what? ■
John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com