NEW STEEL TO ROCK THE ESTABLISHMENT
The industrial age matured because of "big steel". Andrew Carnegie
grew greater than Midas via the flaming crucibles of Pittsburg. U.S.
Steel became the economic landmark for America. All that turned to rust
during the 1970s and 1980s as first Japanese and then Korean steel
makers, operating out of new plants with new techniques, came out with
"small steel". Soon, again from Korea, will come a new strip-casting
process that will make obsolete the rest of the world's existing steel
plate-making facilities. The steel-making process has been greatly
simplified. Pronouncing the company name and location hasn't: Pohang
Iron and Steel Co. from Pohang, Kyongsangbuk-do, South Korea.
Known as "continuous strip-casting" tests run at a pilot plant reveal
a startling technique that will make obsolete that invented and patented
by Sir Henry Bessemer in 1856, which elevated Pittsburgh to stand among
the most envied industrial cities in the world in the days when Carnegie
gambled. And won.
* * *
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