UK steel industry is reaching a history milestone

Outside The Beltway
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Based on recent announcements, production of steel from iron ore will end in UK within a few months. Britain was the world leader in developing commercial steel production in the 19th century. This will be first time in over 150 years that Britain will be without commercial blast furnaces.

The foreign owners of the plants plan to shut down the last remaining UK facilities that convert iron ore into steel. The only thing left will be smaller plants with electric furnaces to melt scrap steel. High costs and restrictive environmental regulations have been factors in the closures.

World steel product is now centered in Asia with China producing over half of the world’s steel. India’s steel production is about equal to that of the EU.

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What are the implications of abandonment of basic industries in the UK and other western countries?

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The west better hope it never ends up in Germany’s situation in a future world war.

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Yes, we are screwed if we get into a war of attrition with China.

There seems to be a fallacy that GDP provides a good estimate of the strength of an economy in a war, but a $1000 of Taylor Swift tickets is not the same as a $1000 of steel.

The reality is that the production of basic commodities and a large industrial capacity are much more important.

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Trust me I’m not happy about our current overreliance on foreign suppliers for our industrial economies.

In a future war with China we would probably lose the war. Mainly because chances are we can sink each others navies very fast. But the Chinese have proven they can build modern warships very fast. By comparison, it takes us five years to build a ■■■■■■■ destroyer.