Posted on 04/09/2025 8:07:39 PM PDT by Red Badger
Now, if “they” would just stop burning tires [Ms. Walz nose not withstanding] to make cement....
So, like all the electric car nitwits, they get their electricity from the Voltage Fairy.
Which I presume comes from fairies dancing in the woods.
And I supposed that the electricity makes this process work at all comes only from solar panels and windmills.
And they will just grow the beams, sheet metal panels nuts and bolts etc in electrochemical molds.
Darn. I thought it was sharks with laser beams.
I wonder if it would work on slag heaps.
Have you seen the size of the battery packs that the sharks have to behind them to power those lasers????
Heck, I burn 'em just for fun!
converting iron ore into sponge iron via one of the direct reduced iron methods has gone into production worldwide, being more energy efficient than blast furnaces ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron
According to the EPA, burning tires to make cement is better than landfilling them. 2500 degree fire leaves little residual ash.
Tires also burn cleaner than most coal.
The exception is on earth day when individual tires are burned on front lawns.
No doubt. Better, on average, than piling them yugely up in mosquito sanctuaries.
Still, there has to be some nasty compounds in the exhaust gas.
[SO2 comes to mind as a big one]
Yesbut...this process produces iron, not steel. Iron, obviously the main component of steel, is fairly useless unless and until it is converted to steel. It has nothing like the strength of steel. The process, or I should say, the several processes for converting iron to steel, requires the steel to be brought to above its melting point and blasting oxygen through it. Naturally this could be done with wind generators/s.
Converting iron to steel also involves the introduction of various other metals, manganese, chromium, nickel, etc; to create alloys with various desirable characteristics. For this to occur, the metals have to be liquified.
So even though iron could be produced electrolytically, steel can not, not to mention all the alloys that make life itself© possible.
Get back to me when they’ve figured out how to mix a bit of chlorine and iron together to rust proof them
“Converting iron to steel also involves the introduction of various other metals, manganese, chromium, nickel, etc; to create alloys with various desirable characteristics. For this to occur, the metals have to be liquified.”
And Carbon. First and foremost Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon.
The only way I can see this being commercially viable is if they mass-produce SMR’s. Then we might be talkin’ business.
Came here for this.
Maybe they can make low temp iron, but unless they're going to make Lodge frying pans, they need to add carbon to iron to make steel.
Yes, this entire article has me and everyone else who has ever worked with metal of any type scratching their heads. Pure metal of any type is typically not as useful as various alloys. 14k gold is only 58.3% gold and 41.7% other metals, like copper, silver, nickel, or zinc which make it much stronger than 24k gold which is 99.9% gold.
When I am casting lead to make bullets, pure lead is only used for pistol bullets because it is so soft and cannot be heat treated. Iron is useful for some purposes but high strength applications are not one of them.
Yep, fact. :)
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