Comment 49835

By mrjanitor (registered) | Posted October 19, 2010 at 14:58:30

Edward,

As one of the 900 people working at US Steel I think you're comments about about the health legacy steel has left on Hamilton are accurate but your conclusions are misguided.

First I highly doubt 30,000 jobs will be created dismantling steel mills, only about 100 people were involved in decommissioning, dismantling, packing and shipping the Oakville Petro-Canada refinery to Karachi, Pakastan. This lasted a little less than two years.

Secondly I think there are huge job growth opportunities by providing grants, laws and incentives to make the production of steel a zero emission industry. I have heard discussion that this is a reality in many parts of Western Europe, Germany being the best example. There is money to be made by the steel companies in using the off-gases (Coke gas and Blast Furnace gas) as fuel for electricity generation. These gases are used in steam production but are produced in excess of the plant steam load requirements. Stelco did this in the past (now obsolete 25 cycle power) and USS is spending around $600,000 on the engineering alone to go forward with 60 cycle power. Emissions at steel mills are controllable but the project will required the backing of government, engineering know-how and the fabrication of the new parts and machines... that sounds like more good paying jobs to me!

This would be a much more positive outcome for me then just closing it all down.

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