[muawiyah]

No doubt there's a "next generation" of technology sitting there ready to turn out the world's cheapest steel. At the moment we are going through a cycle of developing and using replacement products in construction and manufacturing. PLUS, we've developed a highly efficient steel/iron recycling systemm.

I think the long term prospects for steel are not all that good ~ even in time of war, and particularly for ships. We will be blasting them to pieces from space.

[x_plus_one]

A new type of stainless steel alloy, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is the "Superman" of its class, offering superior oxidation resistance compared to conventional stainless steels while in the same time being affordable, with no significant increase in production costs.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Scientists-Developed-New-Super-Stainless-Steel-58006.shtml

New metal alloys are appearing and are available to Joe Machinist. Small manufacturers are adapting to new alloys rather than go out of business. Research in ceramics (at Rolla and other engineering schools) is creating new materials with incredible capabilities that are functions of high voltage and temperatures. But ceramics are not currently used to design commodity or industrial machine products due to their difficulty to manufacture. Steel and aluminum alloys are the choice for manufacturing and design since they are easy to mass produce, are available and are cheap enough for the middle-man to make a profit.

The driving force behind the continued use of steel, aluminum and other similar metal alloys is their availability and cost effectiveness.