SO MUCH WISHFUL THINKING.

Run along, Kenny Stancil.  Go ahead and produce a ton of steel without any abstract principles, or fossil fuels.  "'It's time that the steel industry take the growing need and demand for fossil-free steel seriously,' said one advocate."  That's how it works, doesn't it?  Click those ruby slippers together and chant, "there's no fuel in steel, there's no fuel in steel ..."  Such is the life of an "advocate."  There's a lot of things I would love to advocate for, but reality has the final say.

Progressive organizers on Wednesday urged steelmakers to swiftly adopt the clean manufacturing methods needed to achieve a shift from coal-based steel to "green steel."

At the Great Designs in Steel conference held in a Detroit suburb, Public Citizen and Mighty Earth activists used a series of digital ads and mobile billboards to call on industry insiders and automotive executives to accelerate the nascent transition from dirty to clean steel by fully embracing low- to zero-carbon production processes—one of many changes that scientists say are necessary to avert the worst consequences of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.

"Steel manufacturing remains one of the most energy-intensive and polluting aspects of making a vehicle, but there are solutions to clean it up," Erika Thi Patterson, supply chain campaigns director at Public Citizen, said in a statement. "As companies and governments work to meet net-zero climate commitments, it's time that the steel industry take the growing need and demand for fossil-free steel seriously and embrace the cleaner technologies that exist today."

"Insiders at this conference," Patterson continued, "need to recognize the inevitability of green transportation and move in that direction quickly and forcefully."

They're gathering in Detroit for vegetarian Coney Island dogs to slag on Cleveland Cliffs for ... relining a blast furnace at their Burns Harbor works, a former Bethlehem plant that was state of the art sixty years ago, and still competitive with imports and the improved products from the not-so-mini electric furnace plants.

That Mighty Earth statement?  It's like my relationship with Bud Light, can I be said to be boycotting a beer, to use the term loosely, that I never buy.

ResponsibleSteel, a collaboration between leading steel companies and NGO’s, is launching ResponsibleSteel International Standard 2.0 to drive a shift to a decarbonized industry. Key features of the standard include achieving the “fastest global transition to a near zero steel sector” and provisions to prevent burning forests at a large scale (biomass) instead of coal, helping ensure that the steel industry of the future is powered by clean energy.

Whew. Here, I was afraid we'd have another reversion to the primitive, which the self-styled progressives keep pushing, in the form of charcoal-fueled shaft furnaces and water wheel blowers; or perhaps backyard melting furnaces in the style of China's Great Leap Forward.  The Chinese saw the error of their ways.  But ... phasing out the blast furnace - basic oxygen integrated steel mill in the service of a climate emergency that's hype isn't going to play well in China.  You really think the Chinese are going to play nice and scrap their existing and projected integrated steel expansions?  "Much of this stranded asset risk is concentrated in Asia: 80% of the BOF steelmaking capacity under development globally is planned in China and India. An additional 14% of the BF-BOF steelmaking capacity under development is planned for Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia."

The integrated steel mills continue to reduce ore to iron and convert it to steel in the basic oxygen shop because even with the improvements in metallurgy that accompany industrial-scale thin slab casting in electric furnace shops, there are still uses of steel where the recycled product has too many possible flaws.  Never mind that, wishful thinking for the win.

[A]ccording to Public Citizen's newly launched FAQ webpage on the subject, clean manufacturing techniques are capable of delivering the higher-grade steel required by electric vehicle (EV) makers.

"Green primary steel is produced from iron ore without coal or other fossil fuels," the webpage states. "A proven method of ironmaking known as direct reduced iron (DRI) can be powered by green hydrogen to produce fossil-free steel."

"Automotive-grade steel has certain properties, including low levels of residual elements like copper and nickel, which affect mechanical performance," the webpage continues. "These impurities are difficult to remove through simple metallurgical processes, but direct reduced iron (DRI) facilities can produce green automotive-grade steel with even lower levels of residual elements than blast furnace steel."

"Fossil-free steel is possible today," it adds. "Facilities using this technology are currently under construction in Europe. Still, the U.S. has no new facilities in the works [or] plans for new facilities, and current DRI plants are reliant on methane gas."

Is that hydrogen obtained from electrolysis of water, preferably in a solar-powered gas plant that only operates a day shift?

The crowning glory of that Common Dreams essay in wishful thinking is the hint of a future conflict among several factions of environmentalist wackos.

Wednesday's action at the Great Designs in Steel conference comes on the heels of the launch of the 'Lead the Charge' campaign, of which Public Citizen and Mighty Earth are members. To help achieve its goal of ensuring that EVs "aren't manufactured in a way that harms people and the planet," the campaign maintains a scorecard that tracks human rights and environmental issues throughout the EV supply chain.

As of March, just two automakers had set goals for the use of fossil-free steel, the campaign found.

"It's time steelmakers ditch the dirty blast furnaces of the past and invest in fossil-free steel today for the health and future of our climate, communities, and steel producers' viability and own financial health," says Public Citizen's new webpage.

Am I nyekulturny to raise the possibility that the Congolese child labor and Chinese gulag labor in the latest line of electric cars might mean that the best way to avoid manufacturing them "in a way that harms people and the planet" might be to stop mandating their production and use?  Alternatively, should I just chill some beer for the oncoming spats between this crowd of advocates and the Biden re-election campaign?

As for the lower union density found in the steel industry's mini-mills compared with its few remaining merchant mills, there's no reason why lawmakers couldn't enact policies to turn the shift to green steel into a win-win opportunity to boost unionization.

Notably, the United Auto Workers is currently withholding its endorsement of U.S. President Joe Biden in the early stages of the 2024 race in an attempt to secure concessions that would make the EV transition a just one for labor.

I'd better chill even more beer, because the ongoing spat between environmentalist wackos, broadly conceived, and environmentalist wackos with a special interest in transportation gets really interesting when the subject of battery-powered pickup trucks comes up.