IG Metall, Germany’s largest union as well as Europe’s largest industrial union, warns that at Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann (HKM), the switch to climate-neutral steel production may fail due to the lack of financing. This would be the end of the plant, IG Metall said.
With a current production volume of 4.2 million tons of crude steel per year and a capacity of 5.6 million tons, HKM is Germany’s second largest metallurgical plant. There are currently 3,100 steel workers employed there.
DB2
This reminds me of the closure of many businesses in the U.S. in the 1980s because they could not install pollution controls and maintain profitability. Many jobs were lost as a result.
But the environment became noticeably cleaner.
It was a painful transition to a service-based economy from a manufacturing-based economy with far-reaching negative consequences. (From increasing trade deficits to increasing income inequality.)
The switch to a climate-neutral economy will probably have many similar negative consequences. Lost jobs, higher prices, etc.
The Earth will continue to exist even if the climate changes and the billions of humans can no longer feed themselves. When desperate climate refugees move into the backyards of those who can still grow food.
There are no pain-free answers.
Wendy
Beginnings of a public debate in Germany for a military/industrial complex. With the French production kicking in as well.
Supply side econ caused that. Remember Volcker at the FED was a supply side guy who raised rates to a recession level. The excuse given by the supply side econ guys was the beginning of the lying to tax themselves less while blaming the responsible adults in the room for their disasters.
For instance today we have $31 trillion in debt because of supply side ideology that taxes must be low on the rich for the GDP to grow. Never worked. And instead not one person running for office is running as a supply side candidate in America. The blame today is squarely leveled on if you are woke or not. Like caring about this world is the enemy.
True. Two questions for you
#1: How many trillions per year are you willing to spend to warm a few tenths of a degree less?
#2: Would the money be better spent on adaptation?
DB2
How many multiples of what you are asking are you willing to spend as we whittle away our fossil fuels and do not convert to the alternatives?
Stop acting like anything fossil fuel has ever been innocent.
Or, was “burdensome big gummit regulation” the excuse to move production offshore, which they were going to do anyway?
I was laffing at the local news a couple weeks ago. A restaurant owner was crying a river because the health department had “interfered with his business”, by shutting the restaurant down because there were roaches running all over the place.
Steve
Doing nothing is having negative consequences, whether half the country wants to believe it or not. The bad thing is that the cost of switching is visible and built-in. The cost of doing nothing, however, is hidden, so we don’t realize we are paying it and what the cost is. This makes switching to a non-fossil-fuel future appear to cost money and be expensive.