Carbon Sequestration Efforts Advance

Tag : liquid carbon dioxide

Instead, the industry remains highly profitable and is operating ataround 90 percent of its annual production capacity of about 110million tons. What’s more, the U.S. steel industry iscurrently one of the world’s lowest-cost producers, afunction of readily available metallics and transportation.Efficiency improvements in recent decades have “de-engineeredlabor out of the equation” meaning that labor costs are lowerthan they were 30 years ago. In the 1970s, for example, productionrequired 12 man-hours per ton of steel. In 2008, the requirement isless than two man-hours per ton.

But recent price explosions for steel and other commoditiesthreaten to make heavy construction all but unaffordable in theUnited States, said Fred Lyon, an attorney who quoted Ken Simonson,chief economist for the Associated General Contractors for America.Steel is a major component in power plants, used for everythingfrom boilers to structures.
Danjczek said his organization’s biggest potential threat isthe loss of its customer base, in particular what he said werelabor-intensive items made of steel. Since last year, prices forkey raw materials have soared. Using 2007 as a base of 100, he saidthat iron ore this year is now at around 175; coking coal is around300; and scrap steel (heavily used by his members) is around 250.
“Higher raw material prices have placed substantial costpressures on NAFTA (North American) steel producers,” hesaid.
Lyon said the risk of rapidly rising raw material prices should bepassed on to steel customers, who are “ideally suited”to pass the cost on to end-users.
“This is a bitter pill for end users,” he said, butsustained consumer demand means goods simply will cost more.
“We should ask no one above the end user to absorb thecost,” he said.
Inflation may soon be a problem if the price pressures continue,Danjczek said. “My surprise is that (the United States) isonly running at a 2 percent inflation rate.”—DavidWagman