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Coal production is set to hit an all-time high according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) despite the curbing of production across several countries and aims for decarbonization following COP26. Coal demand has continued to increase through 2021 mainly due to the needs of large Asian countries that still rely on the fossil fuel, as well as gas shortages forcing European states to shift back to coal. Coal has experienced a dramatic rebound this year, with production levels set to hit an all-time high in 2021 and demand levels to peak in 2022. Even after worldwide power generation from coal...

Supply-chain problems, especially related to steel, are beginning to affect road and bridge projects that contractors are doing in this area for the state Department of Transportation. In a year-end wrap-up of the construction season Wednesday, District 11 Executive Cheryl Moon-Siriani and Jason Zang, assistant executive who oversees construction, said some contractors are having problems obtaining materials they need. The district includes Allegheny, Lawrence and Beaver counties. They didn’t want to identify specific projects, but they said in some instances contractors have changed how work is scheduled to do work in areas where they have the materials they need. In...

On Tuesday, ESPN released a video trailer for their upcoming E:60 special Fistful of Steel on the Bubba Wallace noose incident last year. However, at no point during the video do they mention that the FBI determined that the “noose” was a garage pull and Wallace was not a victim of a hate crime at all. In June of 2020, NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace claimed a rope fastened to the front of his garage stall was a noose. An uproar ensued, in which the NASCAR world rallied around Wallace. However, a detachment of FBI investigators concluded, based on the fact...

A truck driver plowed into a group of bicyclists during a race event in eastern Arizona, and police said Saturday that an officer shot the suspected driver, who had fled the scene in their vehicle. The Show Low Police Department said that at approximately 7:25 a.m., a black Super Duty Ford F150 struck multiple bicyclists during a "Bike the Bluff" race event. Six victims were taken to the hospital with with injuries — four of whom were in critical condition, while two were "critical but stable," police said. Police said at least two other "walk-in" victims at Summit Healthcare were...

SEATTLE A metallurgist in Washington state pleaded guilty to fraud Monday after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make U.S. Navy submarines. Elaine Marie Thomas, 67, of Auburn, Washington, was the director of metallurgy at a foundry in Tacoma that supplied steel castings used by Navy contractors Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding to make submarine hulls. From 1985 through 2017, Thomas falsified the results of strength and toughness tests for at least 240 productions of steel — about half the steel the foundry produced for the Navy, according to...

The US and EU have agreed to end a festering dispute over US steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by former president Donald Trump in 2018, removing an irritant in transatlantic relations and averting a spike in EU retaliatory tariffs, US officials have said. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on Saturday that the deal would maintain US section 232 tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% aluminium, while allowing “limited volumes” of EU-produced metals into the US duty free.... ...EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed the deal, writing on Twitter that “we have agreed with US to pause” the trade...

More industry leaders have warned that factories could close this winter as soaring energy costs eat into profitability. They said the production of items and materials ranging from toys, clothes, chocolate, paper, glass, lime, cement, ceramics and chemicals is on the line. A worst-case scenario could see steel plants close for good. The business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng met with representatives of energy-intensive trades who said electricity costs were up five times on normal levels. Taking aim afterwards, UK Steel’s Gareth Stace said the government has done ‘nothing’ to alleviate the crisis. By contrast, he claimed several European governments were investing...

LONDON (Reuters) -The British steel industry's lobby group warned on Monday of an impending crisis due to soaring wholesale energy prices which could force plants into expensive shutdowns, stoke emissions and sow chaos through supply chains. A shortage of natural gas in Europe had sent prices for electricity and gas soaring, triggering sharp rises in the prices paid by people heating their homes or for major heavy industrial plants smelting steel. "These extraordinary electricity prices are leading to smaller or wiped-out profits and thus to less reinvestment," UK Steel, which lobbies on behalf of the British steel industry, said in...

I'm looking to repaint a small steel toy. It's nearly 50 years old, and some of the paint separated while in storage and fell off. I'd like to repaint it, and thought of brushed-on model paint as the best solution. However, model paint is usually sold near plastic models. So, the question for model builders: can these paints (like Testor enamel) be used for steel parts, or is there something more suited? Thanks :)

There is much agitation in the climatosphere about the amount of “coking coal” used in making steel. A number of allegedly smart folks are working on ways to replace that coal with hydrogen to reduce the amount of eeevil CO2 produced in steelmaking. There’s a very recent post on the subject here on WUWT, describing a “green steel” method developed in Sweden. So I thought I’d take a look at the numbers for steel for the European Union. If you know me, you know I like to run the numbers myself. From “Hydrogen In Steel Production“, I find: The steel...

Future prices for hot-rolled steel, commonly used in producing frames for trucks and heavy machinery, hit a record high Monday on the prospects of an infrastructure deal nears. July Nymex Midwest Domestic Hot-Rolled Coil Steel Futures hit a record high of $1,801 Monday, rising nearly 1%, after more than doubling from the virus pandemic low in 1Q20. Hot rolled steel is used in agriculture and heavy machinery equipment because of its high strength and formability. With the Biden team in damage control last weekend, admitting they will sign the roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure, prices have been on a tear....

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Driving along the Great Northern Highway through Western Australia's remote Pilbara region at sunrise is a unique experience. A landscape of gold, red and green surrounds you, the sky glows with a pink hue and the air is crisp. Underneath all that natural beauty lies the single most valuable thing to Australia — iron ore. Rio Tinto's iron ore trains stretch up to 2.4 kilometres and carry as much as 28,000 tonnes of iron ore in a single trip.(ABC News: Rachel Pupazzoni) The commodity helped shave $50 billion off the recently revealed budget deficit, it's what Western Australian Premier Mark...

BRADDOCK, Pennsylvania -- Exactly two years ago, U.S. Steel Corporation announced that the company would turn its Mon Valley Works operations into a key source of lightweight steel for the automotive industry. At the time, local leaders and company officials called the investment "transformational." It involved a whopping $1.5 billion upgrade to the three Mon Valley Works plants, all in Pennsylvania -- the Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, the Irvin Plant in West Mifflin and the Clairton Coke Works in Clairton -- with technology and improvements that would have resulted in cleaner air for all three communities as well as...

Speaking to Berkshire’s millions of shareholders on Saturday, Buffett warned the company was being hit by inflationary pressures: “We’re seeing very substantial inflation – it’s very interesting. I mean, we’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us. And it’s being accepted.” “The costs are just up, up, up. Steel costs, you know, just every day, they’re going up.” “And it just won’t stop! People have money in their pocket, and they pay the higher prices… There’s more inflation going on that people would have anticipated six months ago or thereabouts.” -VIDEO

We are seeing substantial inflation," Buffett said at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting broadcast exclusively by Yahoo Finance. "We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us, and it's being accepted." Buffett called out much higher steel costs impacting Berkshire's housing and furniture businesses. Subramanian thinks investors could see a "robust" rebound in inflation in coming months in the wake of the latest round of C-suite commentary. "Inflation is arguably the biggest topic during this earnings season, with a broad array of sectors (Consumer/Industrials/Materials, etc.) citing inflation pressures," Subramanian notes. Proctor & Gamble said recently it would begin...

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas.

The $2 trillion infrastructure plan may be the mother of all spending bills. And without changes, the major winner is set to be China. China has huge market shares of the raw materials we will need to repair and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, from bridges to pipes. China had a 51 percent share of the global steel market in 2018. The US, Canada, and Mexico combined only produced 6 percent. China also controls more than half of the global cement market. As things stand, much of the $2 trillion in U.S. taxpayer dollars will wind up lining the pockets of...

For three principal reasons, his [Biden's] jobs plan will create full employment in China. First, Biden will create substantially more demand for Chinese materials to go into America's planned physical infrastructure improvements. Second, the large corporate tax increases he proposes will drive even more businesses out of the U.S. -- and across the Pacific. Third, Biden's "green energy" ideas will eliminate one of the crucial advantages American manufacturers now have: cheap energy."Unless we invest in the capacity to make the steel, cement, and the other materials that go into our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, we will always be at...

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas.