Interesting Links for 12-09-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon

(tags:life prehistory carbon )

2. Port Talbot steel goes green with electric blast furnaces - but at a huge cost in jobs

(tags:UK materials jobs environment co2 )

Comments

[greenwoodside]

I see Port Talbot every day across the bay from where I work. I'm worried about what will happen to the inhabitants since it's not a wealthy town anyway. In one way, it's a bit of a fossil – with so much of its economy resting on one particular branch of heavy industry, the last Welsh member of dwindling rearguard from the cutting edge of the 19th century.

At least the Tories aren't still in power in Westminster, where the government would be thinking about bulldozers and managed decline, and otherwise ignoring the place. Not that Labour is likely to be hugely better. Port Talbot needs huge and consistent investment like the Ruhrpott cities of Germany after their mines closed. The Welsh Parliament doesn't have the cash for it. Westminster won't stump up for it.

I like the sound of the new electric technology that being used to reuse old scrap steel. At the same time, I did wonder if there would be implications for national security in losing the last places in the country (Port Talbot and South Shields) capable of creating new steel, plus the associated knowledge and experience. But since the plant currently has to import millions of pounds of raw materials to function, and the new furnace might actually be using some scrap steel from the UK, that could be a non-issue.