Chinese steel is top quality, huh

[James Curry]

Port Talbot closed down yesterday putting more 3000 jobs at risk.
The steelworks in Port Talbot have been owned by Tata Steel since April 2007. Tata's UK plants were put up for sale in March 2016, leading to months of uncertainty, but the move was eventually put on hold and a 10-year £1bn investment plan announced for the site.

Port Talbot's steelworks will be given up to £500m by the UK government in a bid to keep the plant open and produce steel in a greener way, but it could see thousands lose their jobs.
Tata Steel will add £700m of its own as it invests in cutting emissions. It had asked ministers to provide a bigger chunk of the cost.
But the package could mean as many as 3,000 job losses across the UK.
The site in south Wales is home to Britain's biggest steelworks.
The steelworks features two blast furnaces working around the clock to produce steel used in everything from tin cans to cars.
But it is also one of the UK's largest polluters.

The UK government has agreed to fund the installation of new electric arc furnaces for steelmaking.
The £1.25bn furnaces are expected to be up and running within three years of getting regulatory and planning approvals.
The company warned there would be a "transition period including potential deep restructuring" at the plant.
The UK government said the deal "has the potential to safeguard over 5,000 jobs across the UK".
Tata Steel employs about 8,000 people in the UK, 4,000 of those in Port Talbot.

This rubbish from the Daily Mail
Coal may have been the lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution, a phenomenon that transformed the world, but today Labour, in a mad rush to achieve net zero carbon emissions, is presiding over a deindustrialisation of Britain that will leave our country poorer, more vulnerable and won't even do anything to protect the environment.

I think Mr Ross Clark needs a history lesson seeing as he was born in 1966. He needs to look back further to see who actually started the deindustrialisation of UK heavy industry. Perhaps 1966 would be a good starting point for him?

#20 It would appear that coking coal is not required for steel making if they use Electric Arc Furnaces?

[vic mcclymont]

So you admit you read the Daily Mail.
Enlighten us, who and when deindustrialilation of the UK begin.?

[happy daze john in oz]

True coal is not needed with the Arec system, but it is very expensive and there is still a need for carbon as without it all you have is cast iron. the

[James Curry]

Electric arc furnances according to what I have read are more economical to operate than the the Blast Furnance.
Nearly all steel these days is made from scrap/recycled steel so no need for coke.
Sadly though with the introduction of Electric arc furnances fewer work force required.
A benefit from not burning coke is a cleaner environment which if one lived anywhere near a steel plant will be most welcome.
When at sea if you were heading for Middlesbourgh / Teesport best aid to navigation was just look for the big black cloud as Middlesborough was underneath it.

[John Cassels]

No comfort to Port Talbot but the huge Tata steel complex over here in Ijmuiden has been given the latest of many ticks on the fingers
due to exceeding the pollution norms. Local residents are calling for it's closure.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

We had a big steel and two tinplate works in our local town, I worked in one of the tinplate works from age 14 to 15 and a half, all closed years ago, they where replaced by a Jap factory, just like the Govt closed the coal mines, but when I see films of the countryside in Wales I think, How Green is my Valley.
Des