![Port Talbot, By Grubb at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/port_talbot.jpg?quality=83)
Tata Steel has announced an immediate withdrawal from Britain, threatening 4000 steel working jobs, and 40,000 jobs in dependent industries. The main reason given for abandoning Britain, is the high price Tata is forced to pay for energy, thanks to Britain’s green energy policies.
Tata’s decision is nevertheless a body blow to steel in the UK, with wide industrial and political implications. The threat to 4,000 jobs at the UK’s largest steelworks at Port Talbot, a community which is synonymous with the steel industry today in the way Jarrow was with the shipyards a century ago, is existential. But the closure of Tata’s plants, if it goes ahead, could threaten at least 40,000 jobs nationwide and help to make a mockery of the “active and sustained industrial strategy” which George Osborne advocated as recently as last November.
It would be foolish to pretend that there would be no problem facing steelmaking in Britain that determined state intervention could not solve. Global market power in steel production has shifted decisively to China, while decades of underinvestment and a long-term decline in UK steel’s international competitiveness cannot simply be dismissed as unimportant, least of all at a time when public money remains tight. Tata, after all, is a company with a record of trying to take the long view. It invested in a new blast furnace at Port Talbot. But steel’s cost base, especially the prices it had to pay for energy, left it vulnerable to the glut that has followed the slowdown of the Chinese economy. China’s readiness to unload steel on global markets at marginal cost knocked the floor out of the industry elsewhere, including in the UK.
The Tata decision is the latest stage of an ongoing crisis in the British steel industry.
Leading left wing British opposition politician Jeremy Corbyn, a strong advocate of renewables, has demanded that parliament be recalled, to consider state subsidies and other emergency measures to prevent job losses in the steel industry. Sadly the list of measures Corbyn wants considered, does not appear to include tackling the root cause of the job losses – Britain’s insane green energy prices.
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Why just an energy cost? Isn’t steel making all about changing iron oxides and carbon into iron and carbon dioxide?
I no longer ponder “Who is John Galt?” and now ask “WHERE is John Galt?”. GK
I believe he’s in the green room.
In 2008 these same politicians all voted, almost to a man, to cut the UK CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, as part of the Climate Change Act. And subsequently put in place measures to make HC energy more expensive. Did they not realise that this would mean the closure of all our heavy industry ? Isn’t this what they wanted ? Did they think you could run a steelworks off windmills ?
The intellectual deficiency is breathtaking.
Thinking ahead is not something that politicians specialize in.
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
When you can put your stamp on the next one
Actually, I see little problem with this plant closure. My analysis shows that it will have little impact on the LGBTQ community. Moreover, steel production is primarily a Western Eurocentric and American white male construct that is long overdue for a gender redefinition. Anybody who disputes my learned analysis should be investigated for possible application of RICO statutes.
Ah a man who understands what really is important to modern politicians.
Who is John Gault?
Beat me to it….
Although the movies were kinda hokey, It would be nice if Jeremy Corbyn could be forced (A type of Clockwork Orange rehabilitation) to watch them.
“can’t we just substitute bronze?”
This is truly pathetic. Destroying critical industries over this nonsense. Worst yet, the Union members that put that Government in power are the ones losing their jobs. Same thing here in America. The unions are voting in the job destroying environmentalists.Union leadership is the greatest threat to Union jobs. They hate their employers that sign their paychecks, and love the government that will destroy their jobs,
Their employer makes them actually show up and work in exchange for a paycheck.
Government on the other hand promises free money, and all you have to do is vote every couple of years.
The same union leaders want the UK to remain in the EU, which means more of the green nonsense!
If I were a trade minister I would be concerned that the next target to be hit by the green taxes and the general vulnerability of Britain as a manufacturing nation would be the glass industry , especially float glass which the UK , through Pilkingtons, did so much to create.
The UK produces only 9% of the world output compared to 19% in Germany and it is a sector dependent on the economy of housing and auto industries (so may be in some danger at the present time – my interpretation , hopefully wrong) :
http://www.glassforeurope.com/en/industry/index.php
from the above site note the following:
–“The economics of the continuous-flow float operation require a high capacity utilisation rate – typically above 70% – before a plant becomes profitable. Energy and raw material costs are significant, representing almost two thirds of the production costs. “–
I doubt however that any minister of the present govt is bothering to think that far ahead because something more serious than the closing down of individual industries is happening in British society and that is that forces like the Green movement and the EU bureaucracy are so powerful that there is nothing that can be done , “all resistance is futile” .That is the position of the Govt and it is working its invidious way through the rest of society .
The template is the situation in Greece : unemployment was 15 % before the Euro crisis and is now 24% and nearly 50% amongst young people . Yet despite early defiance to EU terms , all is now quiet , the Greeks have now resigned themselves to the situation and that is the quiet , resigned, despair that is overtaking Britain.
Do they still make cars in the UK? Any new housing other than for the financial sector elite?
According to the BBC TopGear program, they do indeed make cars in England. Quite a lot of them. But most of them are made in England by Ford, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, GM, etc. I think the only British company still in the business is Aston Martin and it really ony produces a few thousand a year.
Morgan is also British. (So is Williams but they only make 2 cars per year and they have Japanese engines ;-). )
Nissan received massive taxpayer breaks to start making cars in the UK. Honda do make cars in Swindon. I worked there in 1993/1994, not on the line, when 1 Accord or Civic came off the line every 2 minutes. There was over capacity in the industry then, not sure what the industry is like now.
They should have gone with the green rocket fuel business instead….
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/03/30/nasa-to-officially-unveil-its-green-rocket-fuel-project-in-colorado-this-week.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fscitech+%28Internal+-+SciTech+-+Mixed%29
I am reluctant to comment on power generation in locations that I am not very knowledgeable. So I will pass on on this link without comment.
“Nuclear’s share increased by 2 percentage points on 2014 to 21% of the total.”
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE-Nuclear-helps-offset-dip-in-UK-coal-generation-2015-data-shows-31031601.html
The Obama administration, Sanders, Clinton and the Democratic leaders are committed to Holdren’s policy of deindustrializing the United States in order to pursue “sustainability”. They are promoting the CAGW myth as a scare tactic to destroy the coal and fossil fuel industries. They by pass Congress by executive orders and EPA regulations . Holdren and the Ehrlichs are explicit in their objectives :
” A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de–development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low–consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
– See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/05/31/john-holdren-in-his-own-radical-words/#sthash.ZdwbaUL8.dpuf
Here is a blog post I made in 2009.Fortunately the bill never got past Congress. I suggest WUWT readers look at the whole thing and be truly horrified at what was attempted.
“The Boxer – Kerry and Waxman – Markey bills represent the greatest threat that America’s constitutional democracy has ever faced.
The almost non -existent Anthropogenic (CO2 caused) Global Warming has been used as a pretext to try to grab control of all economic activity in the country because congress will decide the price of all energy via the distribution of carbon credits to whomever contributes most to their campaign funds. Energy production will be diverted to so called “green ” sources which are hopelessly uneconomic unless heavily subsidized.
If these bills pass, all private real estate will essentially cease to exist because Obama’s climate police will decide the appraisal value of all real estate and thus control the sales price of everyone’s home. Any alterations or improvements will have to be approved by government inspectors.
A vast bureaucracy will be created to run this virtual totalitarian police state run for the benefit of the congress and whichever corporations or special interests pay them the most.
Since my first post in January 2009 , solar activity has continued to be virtually non-existent making it more and more likely that the earth is entering a 20 – 30 year cool spell during which crop production would be seriously reduced at a time of increasing population. Obama’s policies of CO2 reduction would exacerbate this problem and worsen the worldwide food shortages which might well occur if the cooling actually develops.
The main stream media are aiding and abetting this coup-in some cases , e.g. NBC, because they are controlled by a company – General Electric which has spent millions on lobbying in order to benefit from the bill or because of the political (Socialist – world government ) agenda of its leaders e.g . BBC.
It is essential that the grass roots of working middle America become informed about this looming threat and come together to speak out and stop this takeover by a kleptocratic and self appointed elite who plan to be the rulers of this Corporate Socialist state .”
Are we headed for a Socialist Sanders Presidency?
It would be funny watching the leftards getting themselves in such knots, if it wasn’t the fact that they are causing widespread misery and poverty. This sentence from the Grauniad article is a classic: “there would be no problem facing steelmaking in Britain that determined state intervention could not solve.” It was determined state intervention that cost these 40,000 jobs, you f*cking idiots.
You can’t roller skate in buffalo herd and you can’t: (i) produce steel using solar energy, or (ii) run a cement kiln using wind power. Do the math.
The green elitists see their iphone and Tesla and consider the energy needed for the daily charge. In reality, it takes steel and concrete (and much more) to exist in a modern society.
How many of the green leftists live or work in buildings or commute on roads between them that don’t use steel and don’t use concrete?
The steel and aluminium industries here in Australia are long gone due to cheap Chinese steel and aluminium flooding our markets. Back in the 80’s when I was a young lad at school, Australian steel and aluminium was some of cheapest and best in the world due to our large amounts of iron ore and bauxite, and cheap manufacturing costs, including cheap energy. We have heaps of high-quality coal here, and coal-fired electricity plants. Electricity was, and should be, exceptionally cheap, but it is not.
At the factory where I work I was given the job to file the steel certificates we require for pressure vessel assembly. almost all of them were written in Chinese. Some of the certificates were very old, up to 20 to 30 years old.
Australia, and undoubtedly the UK have been enjoying cheap steel for decades at the expense of their own. I guess the unnecessary high cost of energy is the last nail in the coffin for these industries.
I thought unions had a duty to protect their membership interest not sell them down the river by siting on their hands while green lobby groups and politicians pick apart their members.
The are going to facilitate the demise of what remains of manufacturing . What are they afraid of ?
Here is a clue unions… Start Demanding politicians reverse the foolish policy decisions of the past 20 years which were based on failed climate model projections of doom . Let’s hope the earth keeps warming .
How many members of unions have relatives who are at or on the verge of fuel poverty ? Time to step up or leave the dance floor .
Most union leadership are socialist/communist first and foremost.
They will gladly sell their membership down the river if it helps to advance the cause.
“What we know is that the British government has for the last three years
been blocking efforts by the EU to equip itself with the sort of anti-dumping
weaponry used by Washington to confront China.
Germany shelters its energy-intensive industries by cross-subsidies under
its ‘Energiewende’. The UK left its steel mills to face the full shock of green
taxes, until a partial rebate was agreed in December.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/30/britain-sacrifices-steel-industry-to-curry-favour-with-china/
I hope Tata will also leave Holland. My family doesn’t work there anymore so who cares. People voted for this government. We forecast that this would cost jobs and now it is happening.
China’s heavily subsidized producers are dumping their output on the world market. China’s share of global steel output has risen from 10% to 50% over the last decade. It has installed capacity of 1.2 billion tonnes a year that it can never hope to absorb as the construction boom deflates. On OECD estimates, it has built up 400m tonnes of excess capacity, – twice the EU’s entire steel production. China’s unwanted steel is finding its way systematically into Europe, greased by export subsidies, tax breaks, cheap state credit, and the panoply of measures used by a mercantilist power to rig global trade. This is not the free market at work.
The most interesting aspect of all this concerns the EU’s limited response to China’s actions. While the US has imposed 267% tariffs on cold-rolled steel, the EU’s tariff is just 13%. Why the muted response? Apparently it’s all down to one EU member vetoing a more robust response: Britain.
Incorrect, the government opposed the scrapping of the rule which allows lower duties to be imposed as a matter of policy but in fact asked that higher duties be imposed on Chinese steel exports. The rule permits lower duties but does not set them, that is done by the European Commission. The $9 tarrif was determined in Brussels not London.
This is the biggest factor behind the collapse of the UK steel industry. The downturn in the Chinese construction industry has seen them dump cheap steel on the world market. The US acted quickly to impose tariffs on Chinese goods but when the EU moved to act by axing a rule which limits tariffs to 16% – known as the lesser duty rule – the Tory government blocked it.
The real problem facing the UK steel industry is the collapse of the price of steel on world markets. When the price you can get for your product falls by 50% in 2 years you will struggle. This is a factor of decreasing demand in China and increasing production. Decreasing energy costs would help but the reality is that its way more expensive to employ people in the UK than India or China. Local papers on Teesside pointed out that many of the companies decrying the closure were sourcing steel from the cheaper producers.
This is the best analogy I have seen…
https://twitter.com/omotforest/status/715237246954291200
Whilst it’s undoubtedly true that the Climate Change Act and other UK policies are indeed mental, the Port Talbot problem is actually a direct result of a rather different environmental policy: that of recycling.
The steel industry has made huge leaps in the last decade to be able to recycle steel of varying quality into specific high quality, specialist steels that previously needed to be made from “virgin” steel straight from the ore. This part of the market is doing at least OK, even in the UK where we have some real specialisation, but there is significant over-capacity of blast furnaces – the world has innovated away from them.
Saving Port Talbot is more akin to saving a blacksmith that doesn’t produce tyres for cars.
This is the most under reported angle of the Green Energy movement, the opportunity costs. The real costs of this nonsense isn’t what we spend on it, it is what we don’t spend on other things that are more useful, and the hidden costs imposed on people whose incomes and livelihoods get harmed.
Liberals just publish nonsense like this, and no one ever holds them accountable. Fracking was the main driver of job creation in the last 8 years. Alternative energy killed countless jobs in coal, rail, steel, etc etc.
http://aboutdanwong.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/info-4.jpg