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British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

bbc.com

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Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#281

Post by t0mpr1c3 »

nradov wrote: post #271
t0mpr1c3 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain's last two territorial conflicts involved the Falklands, and Icelandic fishing ships in the neighborhood of Rockall. I don't recall that third party assistance was required in either dispute, thank you very much. The US the other hand is always asking for other countries to bail it out of some mess or other.

Did you miss the word "large"? And the UK required significant US assistance during the Falkland Islands war, so apparently you're quite ignorant about history. https://time.com/archive/6882618/just-how-much-did-the-u-s-h...

When bald men fight over a comb, you need teeth.

That's right: the bald man with nuclear weapons won it back.

And as combs go, it was one with considerable geopolitical significance.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#282

Post by dukeyukey »

t0mpr1c3 wrote: post #261
jarym wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, same can be said of manufacturing capability in general. If you don't have a manufacturing base then inevitably when there's a war you may find yourself unable to build defense components.

Supply chains are so diversified that self sufficiency is only feasible for countries the size of US and China. Russia has been forced to cannibalize jet planes because sanctions have starved it of spare parts. Even the US Navy gets its ships built in South Korea now. Britain's remaining industries are very niche. With a small domestic market, you can't get economies of scale. You have to specialize.

The UK is still the world's 5th largest economy. It's a large domestic market, just not a hyperscale one.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#283

Post by ksec »

dukeyukey wrote: post #282
t0mpr1c3 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply chains are so diversified that self sufficiency is only feasible for countries the size of US and China. Russia has been forced to cannibalize jet planes because sanctions have starved it of spare parts. Even the US Navy gets its ships built in South Korea now. Britain's remaining industries are very niche. With a small domestic market, you can't get economies of scale. You have to specialize.

The UK is still the world's 5th largest economy. It's a large domestic market, just not a hyperscale one.

Except out of the top 5, UK has the lowest manufacturing basis while 80%+ of GDP are service based.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#284

Post by mrguyorama »

t0mpr1c3 wrote: post #280
illliillll wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere under the sea at this very moment there is a British submarine captain who could nuke Moscow tonight if he (and his crew) wanted to. There’s absolutely nothing the Americans could do about it.

NATO can and probably would shoot them out of the sky using ballistic missile defence. IIRC Britain has a total of 8 missiles. Britain's obsolete Trident subs are manufactured by Lockheed, so if they fall out with Trump they will lose access to spare parts. The replacements aren't due until 2028.

Are you under some absurd notion that NATO has ballistic missile defense in Russia? Or can magically reach out and intercept a ballistic missile anywhere on the globe?

If there was the right Arleigh Burke right next to the submarine (which there wont be), and the captain was insanely paranoid enough to contravene standing rules of engagement to already be prepared for a surprise ally launching a weapon, there's about a 50% chance they could intercept each missile.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#285

Post by 10000truths »

mr_toad wrote: post #39

The government is forced to sell steel at a loss, because all the buyers for whom this is a such a vital supply would otherwise buy cheaper imported steel, every single one of them . And ultimately all the ore and coke used to make the steel are imported anyway.

Isn't this exactly the kind of problem that tariffs are meant to address?

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#286

Post by defrost »

nikau wrote: post #220
defrost wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't economically feasible, the owners wanted out, no buyers stepped up. Numbers wise it was ~ 1.6 million tonne per annum in a global market that demands ~ 20 million tonne per annum, as a smaller producer in Tasmania with other factors dragging down it wasn't competitive with South Africa, Gabon, and Ghana. Australia’s only manganese smelter to close, administrators say - https://www.mining.com/web/australias-…

right - but in the context of this thread, manganese is a vital ingredient to smelting iron - so Australia seems it is no longer self sufficient.

It still has shuttered plants to do all manner of things - in the event of an actual need to boot these up again, it can be done.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#287

Post by somenameforme »

mrguyorama wrote: post #278
somenameforme wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say that Austria-Hungary choosing to outright invade Serbia because the assassin was a Bosnian Serb who might have had some backing from the government, was reasonable? Or was that a land grab? And when when Russia joins Serbia was it solely an action of obligation or because they thought they might be able to get a piece of Austria-Hungary? And similarly when Germany jumps in seeing they can now shift the…

>In the modern war Russia claimed that their motivation for the war was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. If Russia is so terrified of NATO invasion, why do they keep taking defenses off the boarder with Finland which just became a NATO member as a part of this war? Why does Russian state TV insist they should nuke Britain? Why didn't Russia invade any of the NATO members already on their border? >Ukraine chose t…

The rhetoric about Ukraine falling in 3 days came from the West, not Russia. [1] And it's highly improbable that "we" actually even believed that. Wars don't ever end in 3 days, and Ukraine had been pumped full of arms for years, had multiple cities that been heavily fortified for war, and an army approaching a million men, large numbers of of "ultra nationalists" itching for a fight, and all of this before all men of "fighting age" (up to 60) were locked in the country and started being forced into the military. Why we were putting out nonsensical rhetoric that could serve no viable purpose other than to try to entice an invasion (and as such would normally be classified) is a question with only one apparent answer.

The only other NATO members that bordered Russia before the Ukraine War were were the Baltics. They have poor geography for an invasion and would also be immediately cut off from mainland Europe in the case of a war by the Suwalki Corridor - a tiny stretch of about 40 miles that is the Baltics only connection to Europe outside of Russia/Belarus. By contrast Ukraine has ideal geography for an invasion. Kursk is also the path the Nazis ended up taking when trying to press into Russia during WW2, and also where they suffered a very costly defeat.

I do fully agree that Russia expected their negotiations with Ukraine to be successful, and had the West not intervened they likely would have been right.

[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/even-russian-propaganda-was-hesitan...

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#288

Post by nikau »

defrost wrote: post #286
nikau wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right - but in the context of this thread, manganese is a vital ingredient to smelting iron - so Australia seems it is no longer self sufficient.

It still has shuttered plants to do all manner of things - in the event of an actual need to boot these up again, it can be done.

I wouldn't be so sure about that - as an example, I know at least one Victorian refinery is being torn down and scrapped as seen by my own eyes.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#289

Post by defrost »

nikau wrote: post #288
defrost wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still has shuttered plants to do all manner of things - in the event of an actual need to boot these up again, it can be done.

I wouldn't be so sure about that - as an example, I know at least one Victorian refinery is being torn down and scrapped as seen by my own eyes.

I can reel off a list of plants being torn down for scrap also.

The question is, does that actually mean there is no way to get a smelter up and running in the event of a critical need within a useful timeframe.

Bear in mind, right now today, Australia has multiple shuttered lithium production sites that went up in anticipation of a much greater battery demand than actually occurred, and have since been shuttered. In a similar manner the same is true for other mineral supply chains.

The link to mining.com was a nod to the historic ebb and flow of Australian exploration / production and the kinds of things that get hashed out at the Diggers and Dealers mining forums.

In terms of "critical resources" - we have them in the ground, and we have a lot of smelting technology that we can draw on / repurpose.

What Australia does lack, for now, is next level up processing - eg: hard rock lithium spodumene concentrate processing, currently outsourced to China and Malaysia, only recently barely begun here.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#290

Post by nikau »

defrost wrote: post #289
nikau wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure about that - as an example, I know at least one Victorian refinery is being torn down and scrapped as seen by my own eyes.

I can reel off a list of plants being torn down for scrap also. The question is, does that actually mean there is no way to get a smelter up and running in the event of a critical need within a useful timeframe . Bear in mind, right now today, Australia has multiple shuttered lithium production sites that went up in anticipation of a much greater battery demand than actually occurred, and have since been shuttered. I…

I guess that's the question - how fast can you build required plants during war time?

How do you get the very bespoke equipment from overseas if supply chains are being attacked?

Where do you get the designers and operational staff, bearing in mind the industry might have been closed for a while and all prior talent has retired or died?

What's the risk of above vs the government subsidising a plant to keep it operational and known good state?

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