Steel workers travelled by rail yesterday to lobby their Members of Parliament in advance of a debate on ‘Protecting Steel in the UK’.
Tata Steel own the steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales, including its two blast furnaces, which make steel from iron ore. The Government has announced a plan to give Tata £500 million to close the blast furnaces, install electric arc furnaces instead and make 3,000 steel workers redundant. Watch our video:
’Decarbonise’ steel production?
The debate was moved (See Hansard HERE by the Labour opposition. Faced with an open goal of the absurdity of the Net Zero agenda, this is how their motion for debate began:
‘That this House recognises the need to decarbonise steel production…’ before complaining the government plan ‘will result in thousands of steelworkers losing their jobs and risk leaving the UK as the first developed country in the world without the capacity to produce primary steel … and is therefore concerned about the impact that the Government’s plans could have on national security’. It also worries about ‘irrevocably damaging working people’s trust in the opportunities the net zero transition could bring.’
The reality is that ‘carbon’, in the form of coking coal, is essential to the process of making primary steel. As it burns, the coke in the blast furnace ‘robs’ the oxygen from the iron oxide ore, releasing the iron in a molten form. See HERE. You can’t ‘decarbonise’ a blast furnace.
Electric Arc Furnace
The electric arc furnace is for a different purpose, to melt down and recycle scrap ferrous material into lower grade steel. As the FT reports, each arc furnace uses colossal amounts of electric power, enough for a small town, which has to be generated using, in the absence of a thriving UK nuclear power industry, er, fossil fuels.
The Guardian (see below) describes electric arc furnace as ‘a greener and cheaper process.’ It is true, it is cheaper in that it uses fewer men to operate it, and it may be quicker, but it does not yet make new high-grade product. That being said, the UK only currently recycles 3 million tons of scrap steel. Sir Robert Goodwill observed in the debate and was supported by the minister Ms Ghani, that we export some 8 million tons to China, rather like Kenya, which exports all its iron ore to China and, like the UK, buys steel back. We should be recycling our scrap steel mountain here.
So blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces are not an ‘either/or’ but a ‘both/and’.
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Steel-making exempted from COP28
The COP28 conference in December agreed to contribute to ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science,’ according to the final global stocktake draft text.
It spoke about ‘accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.’ Greta Thunberg was angry with the agreement not going far enough or fast enough for her. But then again, whenever isn’t poor Greta angry?
However, note that the ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels was specifically stated as being for ‘energy systems’. It did not and does not apply to plastics, transport or agriculture. Nor does it apply to the manufacture of new iron in blast furnaces.
UK Steel
So there is no reason for the UK to close the blast furnaces in Port Talbot, at the cost of thousands of jobs and the UK’s steel security, becoming the only G20 nation which cannot make virgin steel, all the while citing ‘climate change’.
A similar crazy deal at Scunthorpe will mean the UK ending up as the only G20 country that cannot make steel from raw materials, As the Guardian reports. Yet neither the Guardian, nor the senior Union and Labour politicians they quote, seem to have spotted their opportunity to criticise a plain stupid act of UK virtue-signalling and self-harm.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch even decided to portray the agreement with Tata Steel with a straight face as ‘a great deal. Not just for Port Talbot, but for the UK’, she said.
Thousands of jobs at risk
Mrs Badenoch ventured: ‘What I would say to people who are concerned about job losses is that we do understand and we have a transition plan in place that’s funded up to about £100 million to make sure that people have skills to retrain and move on to other things if they don’t want to stay in the steel industry.’ Move on to what ‘other things’? Picking strawberries? a ‘green job’ in lobbying?
Gary Smith, GMB general secretary, retorted: “The jobs of thousands of steelworkers are now at risk. The cost to local people and the wider Port Talbot community will be immense. “Once again, we have the spectacle of leaders talking up the fantasy land of a ‘just transition’ while the bitter reality for workers is them getting the sack.”
Did anyone ask the voters if we wanted to stop making primary steel and throw thousands of men out of work?
The absurdity is that the raw steel will still be made, merely elsewhere in the world, in countries like China and India which do not have a spiritual death-wish.
Indeed, The Guardian reports Tata Steel is doing exactly that, and opening a huge new blast furnace in India. The Guardian accuse Tata Steel of ‘hypocrisy’ failing to notice it is the UK Government net zero policy which is doing the damage. In the Commons debate cited above, only Sir John Hayes spoke out against the net zero agenda. Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con) spoke up for the West Cumbria Woodhouse colliery and its coking coal for blast furnaces.
Prayer and Action
Ensuring the UK’s security in this uncertain age is the God-given responsibility of the state. To close industries and deliberately impoverish working people is not to love thy neighbour. It is stupidity and oppression. Israel in the Old Testament was a beacon of excellence for worshipping God and keeping his holy laws, not for national suicide or stopping men from working.
It is almost as if an evil spirit of national rebellion and destruction, a covenant with death, has wormed its way into the corridors of power. Or perhaps the stupidity is being sent by the Lord as judgment as it was on Rehoboam. Either way, our politicians need to repent, seek the Lord, stop doing WEF-approved evil, and start doing good.
The UK Government Use this link to the UK Parliament website to email your MP to ask him/her to ask His Majesty’s Government what international treaty compels the United Kingdom to close its blast furnaces, and ask them from which countries they intend manufacturers to buy primary steel in future.
READ: Gen10:5; Lev 19:18; Deut 4:7-8; 2Chron 10:13-15; Psalm 104:23; Isa 28:15; Ezek 33:11, 45:9; Dan 5:22,25-28; Micah 2:1-2; Mark 12:30-31; 1Tim 2:1-4.
PRAY For those who lead us as scripture commands. Pray His Majesty and his ministers will repent of their worship of man and ‘the planet’ and worship the King of kings, seeking the Lord in humility for wisdom. Or if not, that the Lord on high will replace them with men after his own heart.
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The Government is planning to abolish vehicles that use fossil fuels and replace them with electric vehicles.
This will dramatically increase our steel consumption.
If Port Talbot is closed, where will we get the steel to do this?
Will we have to close down the vehicle manufacturers and import the vehicles?