With most builders exhibiting a “Lincoln Log” vs. an “Erector Set” mentality, steel framing seems destined to remain only a small fraction of the U.S. residential construction market.
The perils of living in a harsh climate remain the strongest motivation to make the switch to steel from traditional wood framing, according to home builders specializing in steel-framed construction, with more than one noting growing export opportunities.
Steel-framed houses beat their wood-framed competitors hands down in terms of durability, among other factors, but steel framing has been unable to make significant inroads in the housing sector, in part because there just aren’t enough trained workers to go around.
North American ferrous and nonferrous metal producers—individually and on a collaborative basis—have made concerted efforts to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are looking to continue doing so. The answer to whether these efforts are paying off might well be rooted in how you define paying off.
Having made major strides in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, U.S. metal producers—particularly those in the steel and aluminum industries—are reaching out to researchers at private companies as well as universities to provide the inventive thinking and technological know-how to significantly shrink their carbon footprint. While the ultimate objective is developing a breakthrough technology to tame GHG emission, evolutionary interim approaches delivering steady improvements would help bridge the GHG gap until step-change technologies are commercialized
Long before the frenzy to “go green,” the ferrous and nonferrous metal industries had made significant strides in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The question today is how much further they can cut emissions without the benefit of a step change in production technologies.
TORONTO: There’s nothing quite like staring into an economic abyss to shake up a country’s perception of its place in the world and where it may have to look for a lifeline once in a while.
SAO PAULO, Brazil: The nationalization of Venezuela’s hot-briquetted iron (HBI) producers was supposed to take only 60 days, according to a presidential decree issued in mid-July, but by early October nothing had been said about the status of negotiations with the country’s privately owned companies. Even the manufacturers weren’t talking.
Could we be heading for a battle between domestic mills and foreign steelmakers for ferrous scrap and other steelmaking raw materials? It’s a definite possibility.
Recycling electronic discards can be daunting, involving both hazardous substances and materials theoretically recyclable but not really marketable. Such hurdles can lead to shortcuts that are sleazy or downright illegal.
Subscribers to AMM have read for years of mergers and acquisitions in metals, efforts to consolidate the steel industry and the motives of industry magnates like Lakshmi Mittal, Alexei Mordashov, Wilbur Ross and others.
‘In this industry, gender clearly was a hindrance. I am surrounded by men. And you have to figure out how to be taken seriously. That isn’t always assumed.'
The ’91 Ford Explorer you turned in for a $4,500 downpayment on a new vehicle is headed for its last ride—to the shredder. The federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” incentive program is now history, but the work of taking apart the cars and trucks and turning them into shredded scrap is far from over.
As the U.S. metal shredding industry continues to expand, shredder plant builders and operators alike are growing increasingly aware of the importance of setting benchmarks to maximize return on such significant investments.
Getting rid of a pollutant before it has contaminated anything has the virtue of simplicity. That was one motive for the 2006 coalition that backed the nationwide vehicle mercury switch removal program, now endangered from reduced funding.
The final accounting on the “Cash for Clunkers” incentive program is a fascinating illustration of what will certainly become a classic study of the impact of “policy wonk” legislation passed in haste and producing unintended consequences.
There is a thaw in the air. The tectonic plates of a sea change are beginning to shift, and I suspect we are going to begin once again to see the frozen-in-its-tracks steel industry melt and march along its Darwinian destiny. We’ve seen it before, when economic forces erupt like Vesuvius on Pompeii .?.?. a kind of global timeout.
Chances are that when the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” incentive program was implemented in the summer, questions of its impact on the scrap industry was pretty low on the administration’s list of priorities.
Every month American Metal Market takes a statistical look inside the marketplace.
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