(In which Tim opines about steel production, decarbonisation, scrap yards. It’s a good read and I’ll try to distinguish this version from the official LinkedIn version by adding some poor attempts at humour. Maybe some swearing. Who knows?)

In an unlikely alliance that unites the practical with the theoretical, UK scrap yards find themselves at the forefront of a movement that is potentially both virtuous and commercial.

We’ve long known that scrap yards are one of the best exemplars of the circular economy. They take what has been mined, produced, and become obsolete, strip it down and then return it to be used again.

Your old car, for instance.

Cars are full of various metals like steel or copper that can be reused once they go through the scrapping process. (1) Clearly recycling is infinitely better, not to say cheaper, than mining fresh iron and coal to create new steel and, crucially, much cleaner and better for the environment.

By volume, one of the world’s more polluting industries is traditional blast furnace steel production which - whilst necessary for a steel hungry world - also leaves a very heavy environmental footprint (approx 7% of all global greenhouse emissions). We all use steel. We all need steel. How we ‘create’ it though should be of interest.

Reducing the heavy environmental cost of primary steel production would be a clear win in cutting down pollution in our world. Luckily, there is however another steel making method which utilises electric arc furnace (EAF) technology. EAF has only one third of the environmental impact of blast steel production and - crucially - uses recycled steel as its major input.

EAF has been around for years. Centuries even. But as we always tended to worship the new; new steel, mined and belched out by blast furnaces, was the predominant method. And produced better steel than recycled steel which could have all sorts of other metals and oxides lurking within. But EAF tech has moved on and will continue to do so.

Earlier this year there was a blast furnace of publicity in the UK (see what I did there?) when Tata Steel in South Wales decided to close its last remaining blast furnace and move to Electric Arc Furnace technology. British Steel is also changing its processes to EAF technology at its plants in Teesside and Scunthorpe.

This will be a great step ahead for sustainability and one concomitant effect is that there will be a domestic market for UK recycled steel, 80% of which is currently exported to destinations such as Turkey, India and Egypt. (2)

If the UK can grow its EAF steel making capacity, then scrap yards will be at the forefront of providing the raw materials. Instead of exporting scrap steel, the impetus could switch to domestic sales which also reduces the overall carbon footprint of the industry as less is shipped abroad.

A few caveats thropwn in to provide a spurious balance to my advocacy.

Price

The price has to be right, of course. But with fresh demand being created locally, UK scrap yards are in the ideal place to take advantage of this new market. (3)

Quality

Previously there have been arguments about the quality of reclaimed steel and thus limitations on its usage. However, with more advanced processes to clean the scrapped metals, and the ability to vary the components within an electric arc furnace, this gap could potentially be closed.

Job Losses

EAF technology employs less people than traditional blast furnaces. Workers in the steel industry will be displaced. It’s always the way. ‘Learn to code’ doesn’t cover it (thanks Joe Biden) but old industries do die away as technology - or environmental imperatives - dictate changes. I heard somewhere thy’ll be millions of jobs in the green economy. Time to prove it.

So, the EAF conversion is a challenge to UK plc and both a challenge and opportunity for UK scrap yards. I’m interested to see how this plays out. Instinctively, it seems we have demand (EAF steel producers in the UK) and supply (10M tons of recycled steel). Surely the two can match up so we’re all a winner.

I like practical steps and realistic solutions. I like the way technology can improve lives and I desire the world to be less polluted. Those morons who destroy stuff, annoy others and bleat about climate change have no solutions other than living in a cave and keeping warm by burning dung. Not a great future. But incremental steps - new, less polluting processes, recycling and human ingenuity will win every time.

The big winner for the UK adopting EAF technology in steel production should be the environment. And that, is of course, a good thing.

Talking of good things… I’m working on my next century of Roman battles. This time it’s the 2nd century BC and so I’ll be discussing in the article the fall of Corinth and Carthage in 146BC as well as Marius handing the Teutones their ass with his new model legions in 101BC.

PRETENTIOUS NOTES

The car scrapping process is described here by Hill Metals
Value of UK iron scrap exports in 2022 was $3.9B equating to around 8M tonnes or 80% of the total scrap
Compulsory / legislative bans on exporting scrap metal should be avoided. The domestic market participation should be voluntary.
I like to use the word concomitant. It’s both big and clever.

FURTHER READING (yeah, go on, read up. It’s a fun ride)

Scrap Local - good summary of the pros and cons of the shift to EAF technology: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-era-steel-recycling-tata-steels-eaf-green-transition-scraplocal-ylnae/

TATA announcement: https://eurometal.net/eaf-innovation-scrap-management-guarantee-steelmaking-uk-steel/

Good overview from ING : https://think.ing.com/articles/why-is-ferrous-scrap-a-strategic-raw-material/

BMRA on potential restrictions in recycled steel exports in the UK: https://www.mrw.co.uk/news/restricting-scrap-steel-exports-would-be-catastrophic-says-bmra-08-01-2024/

Years ago, I went on a tour of Costa Rica. Coast to coast. San Jose, Arenal, Quepos, Tortuguero; the Caribbean & Pacific. Rain forests, cloud forests, sandy beaches, tropical rain storms, volcanos and turtles.

I bought a rough-hewn notebook made from the byproduct of the coffee harvesting process complete with a turtle pictured on the front. Nightly, as I traversed this wonderful country, I would muse, at length, on the nature of eco tourism, sustainability, mass tourism, how to protect the rainforests from encroaching farmland and the dangers of indigenous poverty.

I was drawn to Costa Rica because of their advanced rainforest protection policies, reforestation, eco-friendly tourism and their lack of a standing army. An all round good place!

I suspect by this time in my life I’d stopped reading The Guardian and drifted to the slightly more centralist - though Blair supporting - Times (that’s the London Times to you Americans). However, my notebook was still redolent with ‘on the one hand, but on the other’ equivocations beloved of Guardian editorials of old. Basically, I wanted my cake but I also wanted to lecture people about obesity.

My arguments, written from rain drenched huts high in the hills or under siege from ferocious armies of ants, went something like this (I’m summarising a more nuanced argument, but not by much):

Eco tourism good, mass tourism bad. There needs to be some infrastructure in order to shepherd tourists to certain places, to bring in the money to enable the other, more untouched areas to be protected and remain untouched. The tourism paradox.

Noble thoughts. Very 90’s third way. A practical solution to a growing problem. This was before Al Gore started jetting around the world telling us not to fly and before global warming was relabelled to the more research grant friendly catch all, ‘climate change’. However, environmentalism and sustainability (dare one use the word conservation?), is something that should rise above partisan agendas so I’ll not mention the climate lobby again.

Some Early Thoughts

An interesting aside from the 70’s… There was no domestic recycling bin in those days and only cranks and weirdy-beardies out in Hebdon Bridge used to fill up the sparse bottle banks. Not so the Robson household. We’d store all the empty wine bottles in the garage until there were so many we couldn’t access the chest freezer at the back to get out the Sunday roast. At that point we’d pack them all up into the boot of the Lada and drive them down to - seemingly - Rochdale’s only bottle bank and guiltily plop them in one by one (such alcoholics). Ben Shaws pop bottles I used to return to the local shop myself for the 1p fee. The 1p was quickly handed back for 4 Black Jacks or Fruit Salads. (1)

Small example number two: I was taught never to litter and still don’t and neither do my children. There’s nothing so dispiriting than the environment being strewn with rubbish. It ruins urban communities and beauty spots alike. Some preventions are easy to do and so - it seems - as easy to ignore. Throw your rubbish away properly, eh?

As regular readers of this blog will know (hi Tim!) I’ve long been interested in the interplay between the environment, incentives and regulation. It will not surprise anyone that I come down, often - though not exclusively - on the side of enlightened incentives (see Costa Rica example above).

Corporate… Keep it Local

But back to supporting the environment… We’re all aware of green washing, aren’t we? Where corporates extol how very green they are in order to attract investors and customers. It seems very cynical. There’s an element of Danegeld about it; adopt these policies or face the wrath of the social media vikings or ESG hunting mega-funds. But, if there’s a positive impact, then do the ends justify the means?

In a word, no. Or, at least, not to virtue signal.

So, here’s some environmental ideas.

Keep it local and tangible. Benefit the community you work in.
Keep it non political. If it’s perceived to be political you will lose goodwill but you probably won’t know it.
Keep your goals realistic
Involve the stakeholders
- The staff should buy in. Local. Tangible. (2)
- The company should think through the ends - what objective are they trying to achieve? It shouldn’t be abstract nor a box ticking exercise. (3)
- Customers should understand what the company is doing.
Combining these… I believe once a goal, project is adopted, the staff should be involve with their time, talent and treasure. If a voluntary way of customers also helping can be found, then this should be adopted. Regular website updates can be shown to promote the enterprise and the practical nature of the project.

But what about sustainability? Well, let’s start with Reuse, Recycle, Reduce. More to come on this…

Some Notes

1) We may have gained many things over the last few decades but we’ve also lost some. Walking. Kids being responsible. A fully functional system to return glass from whence it came.

2) Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.. – 2 Corinthians 9:7

3) Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.– Matthew 6:2

Where there's muck, there's Brass

Sustaining the unsustainable