Canada once had an ‘at the time’ super-modern steel industry. Stelco and Dofasco were on the leading edge of steel making tech, using the most advanced for-the-time automated systems. But they fell behind European and Asian technology, became inefficient, and essentially closed up shop. If Canada us to be competitive, we need to completely rethink how we do things. For instance, here is an example of the newest steel making technology that is carbon-friendly, and Canada needs to take a serious look at it.
This is the type of investment needed in Canada.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/sweden-green-hydrogen-powered-steel
In Regina there’s currently a Russian owned steel plant that could easily be converted to green power as it’s already running an electric smelter. In the 1970s it was employed owned. In my opinion there are options.
Hydrogen is absolutely key to a sustainable planet. It is only path to have 100% renewable power so that surpluses, can be monetized, on most days needed to have reliable power every day.
Unfortunately, prioritizing human/national sustainability seems impossible whenever a war or any other crisis needs attention.
As an American, cutting edge tech manufacturing isn’t something we do much of. In semiconductors for example, Intel is currently still working on their new node (probably made in the US and Isreal), but new Intel CPUs you buy are going to be tsmc made until then. And AMD and Nvidia, apple, etc are all making their chips at TSMC as well
A lot of tech companies are US based, but very little of the actual production process is done in the US. I guess that doesn’t matter if you just care about the money going to the US though, since buying an Nvidia made chip will still give money to the (us-based) company.
Actually, IBM is doing a LOT of research into chip assembly - in its huge mega-plant in Quebec. Also employing Canadian engineering graduated from Canadian universities to do the research. American universities just can not produce the quality of graduates Waterloo can. Even at MIT, around half of the graduate students are non-American born and educated.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trump-universities-war-america-coming-brain-drain
Maybe companies like TerraNova Steel will shoot forward!!
Dofasco
Closed up shop
It may suck ass to work at these days so I hear, but they’re far from closing up shop, they were talking about DRI for a long time and have announced building that capacity ~3 Years Ago. They’re already well underway to going DRI+EAF, the steel that comes out of that process is apparently extremely clean metallurgically.
So yes, we already do this investment…
I am from Hamilton. I am well aware of what happened to Dofasco. Once a proud and mighty company, now a branch plant.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/arcelormittal-dofasco-decarbonization-update-1.7309360
ArcelorMital is NOT Dofasco. Same building, different company, different management, different decision makers. No loyalty or commitment to Hamilton. While Europe does, Canada just dithers. Now the big decisions are all made off shore. The original Dofasco, in its heyday, would have made the investment sooner. That company was a world leader.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64538296
Will we ever see headlines like the above?THAT would ensure Canada’s future.
