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"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

construction-physics.com

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Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#41

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #34
pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel? Maybe this would also be an effective way of clearing out NIMBYs blocking the routes for high-speed rail lines?

> Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel?

Plenty of places are bombed into oblivion. What makes the rebirth is the rebuilding. The marshalling of public resources. You can replicate that without the bombs with a public-spending initiative.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#42

Post by SoftTalker »

legitster wrote: post #9

My grandfather worked in a metal shop for 30 years after he served in Korea. I remember him telling me they switched to Chinese made steel in the 70s because of the quality problems they were having with American made steel. Being out West, they were somewhat more free from the political/social/union pressure to use American commodities.

Probably meant Japanese, I don't think China had much of a steel industry in the 1970s and given the politics of the time I don't think it would have been imported in the USA even if available.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#44

Post by pfdietz »

Something like 70% of US steel production is now from scrap. Part of this was moderation of growth. In steady state, nearly all steel could come from scrap (limited by contaminants, I guess.)

I expect aluminum to displace more steel in the future. Witness what's happening with "gigacasting" at Tesla and elsewhere.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#45

Post by Fatnino »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel? Maybe this would also be an effective way of clearing out NIMBYs blocking the routes for high-speed rail lines?

> Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel? Plenty of places are bombed into oblivion. What makes the rebirth is the rebuilding. The marshalling of public resources. You can replicate that without the bombs with a public-spending initiative.

How do you spend away a bunch of NIMBYs? Their whole thing is that they refuse to cooperate with that.

Bombs would solve that, but come with a host of other... issues.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#47

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel? Maybe this would also be an effective way of clearing out NIMBYs blocking the routes for high-speed rail lines?

> Solution for the future of American industry: Bomb US Steel? Plenty of places are bombed into oblivion. What makes the rebirth is the rebuilding. The marshalling of public resources. You can replicate that without the bombs with a public-spending initiative.

The OP's contention was that Japan and Germany had an advantage due to their steel industry being bombed, which is apparently easier than upgrading legacy production facilities that haven't been blown to rubble.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#48

Post by mkoubaa »

ganzuul wrote: post #12

Steel remains a technology with huge potential for future development. Some keywords: eutectic solution, bulk metallic glass, and boron steel. It seems crazy to me that any first world nation would let it's steel production fall into foreign hands. As a machinist for 5 years in my country I would have been excempt from military service even in total war. If US steel is unable to innovate and foreign ownership is some…

US steel and steel production in the USA are not the same thing. The company's name is that of a legal entity, not an accurate description of what it is.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#49

Post by rhapsodic »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #38

I'm not sure innovation is really the issue, this article never actually goes into the alloys US Steel developed (of which there are many), and alloys are what makes steel steel really. It's always been fascinating to me how the just a tiny percent of another element in a metal can have an absolutely dramatic affect on the strength/resilience of the material. And they tried more complicated alloys, for instance they…

>And they tried more complicated alloys, for instance they developed Corten steel, the biggest example of which is probably the US Steel building in Pittsburgh. It's a steel where it's 'rust' essentially works as a protective layer.

Also worthy of mention is the New River Gorge Bridge. [1]

And the recently-collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_River_Gorge_Bridge

[2] https://www.carboline.com/solution-spot/posts/pittsburgh-bri...

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#50

Post by KMag »

pomian wrote: post #30

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past…

See the movie "The Mouse That Roared". Having seen the results of Germany and Japan being bombed and rebuilt by the US, a small fictional country comes up with the brilliant development plan of intentionally starting and losing a war with the US. Spoiler alert: they end up having to deal with the tragedy of accidentally winning the war. As I recall, part of it was they just assumed their generals would lose, so the generals weren't in on the plan.
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