Steel: One tough industry, one cloudy future

The Plain Dealer
November 11, 2007
by Peter Krouse
Plain Dealer Reporter

Steel remains one of Northeast Ohio`s most important industries, employing thousands even after decades of decline. But how long will that last? Competition from overseas has already made local mills do more with less. And now comes the specter of global warming. In our quest to keep the polar ice caps from melting, might we force some of our older steel plants, like those in Cleveland, Lorain and Warren, to close?

That`s a concern.
The recipe for making steel provides an explanation.
Made from scratch, steel`s main ingredients are iron ore and coke.

In North America, the iron ore comes primarily from mines in northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It`s pressed into reddish-gray pellets and carted off by train or boat to steel-making locales like Cleveland or northern Indiana.

After arriving at the mills, the iron ore is hoisted to the top of a giant, brick-lined chimney called a blast furnace and dumped into the top. It`s then mixed with the coke, a spongy gray derivative of coal, and limestone to create a fiery parfait.

The limestone serves as a flux, extracting impurities from the iron ore, while the coke is the fuel. It burns at extreme heat, fed by oxygen blasted into the bottom of the furnace. That`s how the vessel got its name.

The raging inferno melts the ore while extracting oxygen from it at the same time. The result is a pool of molten iron metal at the bottom of the furnace that is tapped like a keg. It`s then taken to another furnace and converted to steel.

In the process, the furnaces vent carbon dioxide – as in CO2, the most prevalent of greenhouse gases and the bugaboo of global warming.

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