# Why Is Steel So Expensive?



## rake60

Steel prices continue to climb. 

A foot of 2" diameter 1144 stressproof is now $31.46 USD.

Then I think about where it comes from.
Twenty years ago 80% of all the steel in the USA came from either Bethlehem Steel
(now gone), or USS (still in business, but struggling).

The US Navy tells us that the deck of an aircraft carrier is the most dangerous place on 
the planet. I can believe that but these everyday workers may be in the second most
dangerous place. They call it just another day at work...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbm0bUgOLcQ&feature=related[/ame]

OK, so maybe $31.46 ISN'T all that much.

Rick


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## Tin Falcon

I just about drive through a steel mill about once a month the pant is on both sides of Rt 13 in Caymont Del . the place is considered a mini plate specialty mill that makes carbon steel plate. 
http://www.evrazcs.com/index.html
Tin


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## ozzie46

I worked at a steel mill here in Pueblo Colorado, CF&I Steel Mill, in the late 70s.

 Worked in the Coke Plant for a spell. Made coke for the Blast Furnace. Then went to the Basic Oxygen Furnace. They had a large radio controlled Cat to push the spilled hot slag out from under the kettles? (Can't remember the real name).Those 2 places are about as close to Hell as I ever want to be. They had an Arc furnace also and it was sure noisy. The humm was maddening to me.

 In the early 80s the mill went down, almost closed. Now it is Russian owned. Evrez Rocky Mountain Steel it's called.

 Bast furnace and Oxygen furnace gone. They only make steel out of scrap metal now with the Arc Furnaces. Work force cut by half to 2/3rds. Sure cleaned up our air though. We used to be called Pew Town.

 Ron


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## tattoomike68

I did 2 years in a foundry and that video shows how hot and dirty it was. Its a job for bad ass men and women, most newbs would not make it a day.

In seen big and tough men who could do their time as a US marine but not make it till morning break at 10:00 AM on thier first day of work.

Im not saying it was a bad job, im saying is was total hell and you could die there at any time.

yea no fun time. its just pure hell.


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## Uguessedit

Old post thinking wow! $30 some for a small bar. Looking today with new tariffs and McMaster Carr among others and I’m seeing $135/ft pricing depending on grade up to $300/ft. Simply I want to make my own tool holders and it’s less expensive tonjust buy them. What a shame today’s world has become that steel is so far out of reach that we (the average) folks want alternatives or seek Ebay, scrap yards, etc.., for less expensive alternatives. Even the cost of aluminum has doubled the past year something very close to what I see. It is less of an impact for the products we make at work however if we had to make them from steel we couldn’t even come close to being competitive. The cost of raw materials is nearly the cost of a finished aluminum product. It’s eye bulging really. I bet in 2011 you didn’t imagine these excessive increases and economical impacting decisions by an administration who lives large enough the expense doesn’t matter to them. Sadly small businesses are struggling nowadays even more so to compete with overseas products. This is giving those overseas the ability to alsonincrease their pricing knowing our raw materials cost have become excessive. It’s bad for us and good for them. Exactly the opposite of what was intended.


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## Entropy455

US steel is so expensive because US environmental regulations have made it almost cost-prohibitive to burn coal. Remember that half of our electric grid is coal fired - meaning that electric arc furnaces are essentially 50% coal fired, and electricity generation is 33% percent efficient at best. This is why US coal, and US scrap iron, go out of the country to be made into new steel (Canada, Taiwan, China, Korea, etc) - and sold back to the US at very significant profit $$$. Like him or hate him - Trump is trying to fix this problem (i.e. steel currently costing more per pound than produce at the grocery store). . . .


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## mcostello

Water is often more expensive than Gasoline.


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## Uguessedit

Entropy455 said:


> US steel is so expensive because US environmental regulations have made it almost cost-prohibitive to burn coal. Remember that half of our electric grid is coal fired - meaning that electric arc furnaces are essentially 50% coal fired, and electricity generation is 33% percent efficient at best. This is why US coal, and US scrap iron, go out of the country to be made into new steel (Canada, Taiwan, China, Korea, etc) - and sold back to the US at very significant profit $$$. Like him or hate him - Trump is trying to fix this problem (i.e. steel currently costing more per pound than produce at the grocery store). . . .


 Yeah I voted for the man. He has a big mess. The entire trade regulations/agreements have gone so far to the advantage of everyone else. Hoping like intended this is a temporary ploy to even out the playing field. The current atmosphere has to change and yes I’d agree with your coal statement however from 2011 until now has had very little affect. We are currently experiencing the worldwide atmosphere pressuring the United States to give in to their favor. I haven’t a clue how or if he will fix it. It is very complicated and  essentially leveraging those other countries  supplying the raw materials may or may not be to favor. In many cases they just play angry and don’t care holding out until the USA gives in. That is to speak to history we tend to always back pedal and  everyone knows this. I think I’m the given case it will take more than a term and whomever comes in next may not have the same attitude in leveling out this trade war. Still to see the pricing this past year I have been hesitant and waited to purchase and finding myself seeing higher prices every few weeks. When you’re a cheap old man and like making things you are shocked at that $76 6” x 2.5” section of round bar. Laughing I’m staring at a small piece I picked up cheap on eBay that turned out to be through hardened, lmao. Go figure. Thought I scored and sure did. Might take me a week to machine it but I’m certainly determined.


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## Nick Hulme

When you buy a foot or 18 inches you're paying for the pleasure of someone else holding onto the remainder of the length, cutting bits off and selling it off a one piece at a time, form a co-operative or club and bulk buy, full lengths of material, when you collect from the stockist, are far, far cheaper.


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## wrljet

I just checked McMaster-Carr.
US $43 for a foot of 2" 1144 Stressproof.
Up from the original poster's $31.46 in 2011.

That grade is made by Niagara LaSalle Steel in USA.




Uguessedit said:


> Old post thinking wow! $30 some for a small bar. Looking today with new tariffs and McMaster Carr among others and I’m seeing $135/ft pricing depending on grade up to $300/ft.
> <snip>


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## SmithDoor

If buy From a steel warehouses in 12 bars the will drop per ft 
Try steel from Home Depot , Lows or TSC a 3 or 4 FT will cost same as 20 FT from the steel warehouses 
Back March I when to and purchase 360 pounds to save money and new T tax

Dave 



wrljet said:


> I just checked McMaster-Carr.
> US $43 for a foot of 2" 1144 Stressproof.
> Up from the original poster's $31.46 in 2011.
> 
> That grade is made by Niagara LaSalle Steel in USA.


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## popnrattle

recently bought 10 pcs. of 1018 CRS, 7"dia. x 1-1/8 thick cut to length(1.065 finished) for 26.00 + TN sales tax. That'll make 5 of the engines in the vid link. These 5 will have 1-3/8 bore(up from 1-9/32) still with .112 cyl. wall thickness.


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## ignator

I've had good luck purchasing steel from eBay. The shipping can end up being a bit.
example : $35 for 3"x1' round bar, $24.46 shipping.


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## nel2lar

Well, get ready for the price to double. Canada just put a 45% tariff on steel. Too much going on at the top that is going bankrupt this country.


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## Anatol

Friends

this thread has got quite complex, quite quickly. Its interesting to see how global problems are having very local effects, in our small community. Steel is going up in price (in the USA). Why? I guess it is a combination of long historical forces and current isolationist politics. 

I lived for a long time in Pittsburgh PA, which at one time (1920s?) produced more steel than the rest of the world combined. Pittsburgh produced obscenely rich robber barons - the Carnegies and Mellons and Fricks. Meantime, lots of working people, including refugees from Eastern Europe and African Americans from the south - got sick and injured and died working and living in dangerous and unhealthy environments. The air was so poisonous that trees would not grow in the river valley. Office workers had to change their shirts at lunchtime. Houses had a shower in the basement, when you came home you undressed and showered down there so as not to bring soot into the house. The big steel mills along the river in Pgh have been silent for 50 + years, now almost all bulldozed. The valley has trees again. They've scrubbed the encrusted soot off most of the old buildings.

The West got rich on oil and coal in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After WWII, the US chose to close down its heavy industries and import, rather than update its industrial base. Asian countries built new, more efficient industry making better, cheaper product - and exploited cheap labor. We've benefitted from their cheap labor in unhealthy factories for decades, while they died of black lung and silicosis and mesothelioma and chemical induced cancers other unmentionable industrial diseases. I've travelled in industrial cities in China where giant chimneys belch yellow smoke and everyone has respiratory problems. 

Now China and India and other countries want a bit of what we got. Can't blame 'em. But the problem is now global. Industrialisation set in motion processes that are causing the greatest extinction on the planet since the Jurassic. It threatens human life as well - our kids and grandkids. The arctic and antarctic ice is melting into the sea and an alarming rate. Humans now use over 80% of  the fresh water on the planet. Tropical storms are more frequent, more severe and more unpredictable. California is on fire.

Coal and oil is fantastic stuff! We get plastics, chemical, drugs, solvents, dyestuffs, paints and other useful things from it. The last thing we should do with it is burn it! Burning coal for energy was a good idea 200 years ago. We've got better, cleaner technology for making energy now. 

The science has been clear for decades. Now even professional organisations in the petrochemical industries agree. Sadly, the United States is no longer a world leader in seeking global solutions (or even recognizing global problems). That international leadership is being taken up by other countries. There is a new international economic alliance called BRICS. It does not include USA and most in the USA have never heard of.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS. Big changes are happening on the world stage. Fasten your seatbelt, it could be rough ride.

We have many members from outside US and I guess their perspectives on this conversation might be quite different - I'd like to hear them. 

Just to mention that I too have worked in foundries, in my youth, and they were the hardest, hottest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs I've ever had.

A


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## Kskie

Hold on as I think this maybe just the beginning . 

From a Canadian perspective we have seen our steel costs go up 40 to 50% in the last two months . 
As soon as the word tariff was spoken  domestic producers on both sides of the border realized that they 
could immediately start increasing their selling prices . Companies that had money began buying steel in large
quantities and that put a run on steel supply and costs began to rise.  There will be no winners in this trade war . 
Consumers loose by paying higher prices immediately ,Workers loose a little later on when demand starts to fall 
and jobs disappear .  A good explanation although from a Canadian viewpoint .
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...nada-us-trade-war-but-were-afraid-to-ask.html

Ironically I work for a company that had purchased almost all it's coil steel from US distributors for the last 20 years .
We always purchased where we could get best value, its what you have to do to survive .

As far as I know Canada has 3 main steel producers , non are Canadian owned anymore. 

Stelco-  Owned by US Steel .
Daffasco - Owned by Arcelor Mittal
Algoma - Essar  India 

K


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## twineman

Sorry nel2lar, but Trump was the one who imposed the tariffs on steel and aluminum going into the US from Canada, 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum.


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## Hopper

The prices you guys are quoting are way cheaper than we pay in Australia, if we can even get something as exotic as stress-proof or free-machining. Then shipping on top of that can cost as much again (I live at least 1,000 miles from the nearest online metal supplier).

Just for a quick example, on Ebay Australia right now, a piece of 1.5" round bar, 8" long costs $20 plus $14 shipping. That's basic 1045 mild steel. For Stress-Proof or free-machining, price goes through the roof, if you can find it. A piece of 4" diameter 4140 chro-moly just 2" (yes, inches) long is listed at $25 plus as much again almost for shipping.

For our hobby, only small quantities are needed so I don't see it as any big deal. Especially when you compare the cost of kits of castings and materials for model engines that sell for $500 to $1,000 and more, plus international shipping of $100 or more. If I can make an engine out of bar stock and have to spend a hundred bucks on bar, I'm still way ahead. Mostly I use offcuts of bog standard 1020 mild steel black bar from the local steel supplier that cost about the same as the examples above but without shipping, but the range is limited. (Yes they sell their offcuts by the inch at the regular price, but give you a "break" on no cutting fee!)

Enjoy your access to cheap, good quality steel, and carry on machining.
And when you are driving to the steel yard, be thankful you are not paying $6 a gallon for gasoline like we do.


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## Racene

Aluminium Bar in any grade or Diameter in Australia is so expensive you need a bank loan to purchase any and its mined and refined not to mension smelted here in all grades,you guys in the states pay a pitance for this product so I think you are very lucky,steel same expensive,we are just a hole in the ground to the rest of the world,yep I'm with you Hopper,I'd  love to have access to  cheap good quality steel and aluminium instead of buying off second hand merchants.


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## Entropy455

Hopper, McMaster-Carr sells a wide variety of metals, including stress-proof, free-machining, tool-steel, etc. Their prices are higher than average (in my opinion), but not outrageous. Will McMaster-Carr not ship to Australia?


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## Entropy455

If you ship via extreme snail-mail (aka ocean-going freight) it might take 40 days to get your steel, but the shipping costs will not be outrageous. The other nice thing about purchasing from McMaster-Carr is they're a reputable company. I.E. if you order 1144 bar, you'll get a quality 1144 bar - not some mystery metal.


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## Cogsy

Entropy455 said:


> If you ship via extreme snail-mail (aka ocean-going freight) it might take 40 days to get your steel, but the shipping costs will not be outrageous. The other nice thing about purchasing from McMaster-Carr is they're a reputable company. I.E. if you order 1144 bar, you'll get a quality 1144 bar - not some mystery metal.



But McMaster-Carr will not ship to Australia (in fact I think they restrict shipping even to Canada only to customers that had an account with them before they made the switch some years ago). Most businesses in the USA will not trade internationally, or if they do, they jack the shipping up so they don't have to.

An example - I got many quotes for 1 foot of 1" 1144 stressproof, prices were in the $15-30 range generally, shipping ranged from $80 - $250! Eventually I got it off Amazon for about $55 delivered from memory. Or a small oil seal that McMaster-Carr have that almost no-one else has - $1.12 ea but they won't sell to me, got them somewhere else for $4.50 ea plus $25 shipping for 4 and they're 1/4" x 1/2" x 1/8" and fitted in a standard envelope. When the USA is the only place to buy something it can be a real pain for us down here.

Edit to add: Amazon has also now restricted Australian purchases to items available on the Australian Amazon site, which is a small fraction of the items available on Amazon.com, so even there our options are disappearing - considering the rhetoric of "increasing trade fairness" it seems strange the USA makes it so hard to buy from them.


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## vederstein

Please.  This is a HOBBY!

So the price of materials has increased.  Some people (not really myself) like to work with brass and brass has been quite expensive for decades.

Just deal with it:  Change materials.  Change processes.  Change designs. Change hobbies.

There's an old saying:  Do you want it high quality, cheap or fast.  Pick two.

...Ved.


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## Hopper

Entropy455 said:


> Hopper, McMaster-Carr sells a wide variety of metals, including stress-proof, free-machining, tool-steel, etc. Their prices are higher than average (in my opinion), but not outrageous. Will McMaster-Carr not ship to Australia?



Not last time I tried. Some time back, I admit. But these days a small flat-rate international shipping box suitable for a small bit of round bar costs about $60. US-outbound shipping prices went crazy a few years back. I get most of my tooling and parts and stuff sent from the UK (or China) these days for that reason.


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## Mousetrap

It is not only the materials and tools we use in our model building --- it is everything we buy. The problem is caused by the never ending wailing fron the greedy share holders ,C.E.O's and the like for more and more returns from their investments. More than enough money is never enough, you only have to see the rich and powerful are prepared to cheat, manipulate, be involved in corruption and steal, even if it risks a prison sentence, anything to get more money. Little do they care that if affects the less well off.


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## oldmetalbasher

It's not just the USA that has seen prices rocket , 2" bright mild steel is about £150 per 3 metres plus delivery plus tax at 20% , for small orders the delivery can exceed the metal cost !
I used to frequent the scrap yards where I could buy more for less but now very few scrap dealers will sell to the public.


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## mcostello

When was the last time a CEO went to prison? That hardly happens.


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## wrljet

Entropy455 said:


> If you ship via extreme snail-mail (aka ocean-going freight) it might take 40 days to get your steel, but the shipping costs will not be outrageous. The other nice thing about purchasing from McMaster-Carr is they're a reputable company. I.E. if you order 1144 bar, you'll get a quality 1144 bar - not some mystery metal.



Something to keep in mind, 1144 Stressproof is a specially processed type of 1144. 
Not all 1144 is Stressproof from Niagara Lasalle. The stuff McMaster-Carr sells is the real deal.

I got some no-name 1144 from eBay and it machined like crap in comparison.

Bill


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## stuartblack

steel prices are way over inflated but the miners are getting huge pays. It all flows on . Its not global warming causing the weather were going back in to an ice age. The planet dosent have a thermostat. There are two cycles heating and cooling, we are in a cooling cycle. Thus all the bad weather.


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## Hopper

So does that mean the price of steel will follow the cycle and come down?


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## nel2lar

For everyone in the USA crying about cost just wait and see what Canada's 45% does to it. 
You will go back to wood.
Nelson


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## Cogsy

stuartblack said:


> Its not global warming causing the weather were going back in to an ice age. The planet dosent have a thermostat. There are two cycles heating and cooling, we are in a cooling cycle. Thus all the bad weather.


This is why we now prefer the term "Climate change" over the old "global warming", so people don't get confused when there's a cold snap or stormy weather. Since the industrial revolution, human activity has raised the average temperature of the planet at rates never seen before. Normal variation rates take thousands of years to achieve what we have in only a couple of hundred. This increase in average temperature means extra energy in the environment and increased weather activity/intensity can result. Some parts of the world may get much colder (at least initially) due to local effects of climate change (for example much of Western Europe is warmer than it should be due to prevailing ocean currents that may reverse if the climate drivers of the currents are disrupted), but overall the planet is getting warmer and very quickly. It is true that the planet should be in a cooling cycle right no, which just makes our disastrous effect on the climate stand out even more.


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## Anatol

Cogsy said:


> This is why we now prefer the term "Climate change" over the old "global warming", so people don't get confused when there's a cold snap or stormy weather. ....This increase in average temperature means extra energy in the environment and increased weather activity/intensity can result.



Thankyou Cogsy for getting back to the 'big picture' issues. Yesterday I heard a depressing report from the NYTimes climate global climate change correspondent - an Indian woman. She related tales of increased flooding in Calcutta and flocks and herds dropping dead in Africa (from drought). Here in California we are in the 4th hottest year on record, and 1, 2, and 3 have been in the last 10 years. Northern Europe has also had a record hot summer. Records show these as extreme but science tell us they are more likely to be the new average! Yet CO2 emissions are still rising, partly because we (including the Chinese) continue to build coal burning power plants.


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## goldstar31

We all live for such a relatively short period in the length of the World.
OK, I lived in the coal burning era when the mention of carrying coal to Newcastle was a sort of joke. We had tonnes of it and now the mines have almost gone and those who have survived are simply left with horrible lung diseases.
So going back , my physical geography teachers were talking about the 4Th Quaternary ice age but where we were or are no one knows.  Do we know know after -say 1946?  You guess is as good as mine-- and theirs.

If we move a few more years back, the River Thames in London froze so solid that there sere paintings of skaters on it. but despite the present heat( I've just flown in from the Dordogne in France), I also recall being avalanched  in the Tirol when the Fohn wind blew.  But I can recall 'snow on the dyke backs' in June in Northern England and skiing in October and shepherds being killed in sudden October storms and me( with others) forming the first civilian mountain rescue team. in Britain.

As for this Indian lady and floods, well, I flew in from Southampton in the South to Newcastle almost on the Scottish Border and enjoyed the building of houses  on the bends in what should form oxbow lakes. 

In the English Lake District and on the Scottish Spey, there is the Roche moutonne for when the glaciers carved U shaped valleys through the Cairngorms. I had a house at the end of the Larig Ghru ( the Foreboding Way in English)which is or was glaciated.

Well, that's a bit from me. I reckon that my geography  and whatever  coupled with a fair amount of economic and social history is as good as most. 

At least my qualifications are not Batchelor of Arts( Bombay- now Mumbai ) failed, is not one of my attributes

It will be interesting to know whether the dogs will be frozen to the lamp posts  this winter!

Cheerily

Norm


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## mcostello

One thing I have wondered is that for years We have big farms and Industry pumping water out of the ground at a fantastic rate where it is put into the atmosphere. Millions of gallons a year might not be much to the size of Our Planet but it has been going on for a long time. It might all add up.


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## goldstar31

mcostello said:


> One thing I have wondered is that for years We have big farms and Industry pumping water out of the ground at a fantastic rate where it is put into the atmosphere. Millions of gallons a year might not be much to the size of Our Planet but it has been going on for a long time. It might all add up.



It's rather interesting  but eventually the ground water would end up in rivers, partially evaporate and reach the sea or ocean- and evaporate and  all land on Manchester , England  which all means that the cotton which is imported  does not break when it is being spun into yarn for weaving.  You must agree it is a good yarn! What misses poor old Manchester fills the fairly recently dug canals by the navigators - itinerant  Irish 'navvies' who a rather long time ago suffered abominably from the failure of the potato crops - which were- well, brought over from America in the days of Queen Elizabeth the First by Sir Walter Raleigh-- in Tudor times which started-- rather a long time ago.  Lizzie's grand dad was 1485 and she popped her clogs in 1601. Her successor- James the 6th of Scotland and 1st of England wrote- a Counter Blast against Smoking. and the three boats that the Pilgrim Fathers used were so leaky that they carried loads of water back to New England or wherever. 
Or something like that. 

You can tell who was paying attention at school and who wasn't



N


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## Entropy455

nel2lar, Trump placed a 25% tariff on Canadian steel entering the US. To be clear, this 25% tax is paid by Americans, which goes into the US treasury. The purpose of the tariff is to encourage Americans to procure steel from other sources (a nice way of saying it). The blunt truth is that Americans are being discouraged from purchasing Canadian steel. Why? There are many possible reasons for the tariffs - perhaps Trump is simply trying to kickstart US steel production - or maybe Canada is being punished for unfair trade practices - or maybe a combination of factors? I honestly don't know. . .

One thing is for sure - Americans are not going to be hurt by a 45% price increase in Canadian steel, because the 25% tariffs already took care of that.

FWIW, in 2017 the US produced 81.6 million metric tons of steel, and Canada produced 13.7 million metric tons. Note that China, South Korea, and Japan produced a combined 1007.5 million metric tons.


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## goldstar31

As this is is a forum/fora which caters for very small quantities of metal, I really fail to see the difference in pricing for your hobby. True, getting new model making machinery etc  WILL be really priced astronomically upwards as it comes - one way or another out of the East. 

Of course if you can't finance your hobby--- need I say more?

 If this is about your job- it really has no place here. Apologies for  my bit of real history- warped though it might be.

Norm


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## vederstein

Entropy455 said:


> nel2lar, ... There are many possible reasons for the tariffs ...



FYI:  The officially stated rational for the steel and aluminum tariffs is not about economics, but national security.  In order to build the weapons of war these raw materials are required.  Therefore for national security interests, each power (country) must have the ability to make these raw materials.

The US steel manufacturers have been in a fifty year decline due to many varying factors such as environmental regulations, labor (union) costs, bad management, foreign competition, etc.

Of these listed factors, the federal government can only really control one, foreign competition, with either tariffs or corporate welfare.  (Forget about management, i.e. nationalizing the steel and aluminum mills would be disastrous)  Only one of these, tariffs, doesn't impact the spending deficit.  The result is the same, higher prices for steel and aluminum.  So the Trump administration went with the tariffs.
-----------------------------------------------
Now it doesn't matter if you agree with this assessment or not.  It doesn't matter if you think the reason for the tariffs is hogwash or not.  I'm just stating the US government's position for the tariffs so we have a baseline in this discussion.

...Ved.


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## Entropy455

goldstar31, how much does your lathe weigh? Question - how much cheaper would a new lathe be, if cast iron cost 15 cents a pound, in lieu of 80 cents a pound?

How much does the truck weigh - that delivers your small piece of hobby steel to your door? Do you think shipping costs might go down if the truck frame-steel were 4 times cheaper? How about that rail-car? How about that ocean-going ship?

Just because you're purchasing small quantities does not justify astronomical prices.

And there's the difference in pricing for your hobby. . . .


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## mcostello

Every Dollar counts for Us, for the VIP'S- not worth considering.


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## bobs7-62steamair

The world stage of metal prices is confusing and probably rigged against the consumer in a lot of cases. I won't buy from McMasters Carr and some others in the US due to their excessive prices, most of the time their prices are 3-5x other suppliers. I continually find the best deals from Speedy Metals and local sources to take care of most of my modeling material needs. If you have a local metal monger that deals in scrap bar stock count your blessings. Steel mills in this country that are being constructed or currently in use have a very small discharge footprint compared to mills before 1950.


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## goldstar31

E455. Perhaps you haven't a clue what makes me tick but it isn't Entropy-- what ever that is.

One thing that I can tell you is that I bought a Sieg C4 lathe which  is currently priced at £1,800 without accessories and that I paid £350 for one with some accessories.

What does it weigh? No idea.

It's a bit like my late wife who was talking to her next door neighbour. She was buying a new Volvo car and my dear wife said 'What colour' to which she got a reply' Who cares what colour, we are buying 14- if you come in ,we'll get a bigger discount!'

There's a message which answers a few posters here

Norm


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## wolframore

a lot of metal suppliers are using the Trump tariff to justify raising prices since imports are non competitive.


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## TimW

In my experience, some US speciality steel suppliers will ship to Australia but the freight and handling costs are prohibitive and it seems to take many weeks to get here. A better option seems to be to deal with steel suppliers who have a local presence here in Aus like Bohler but they don't seem to stock reasonable equivalents to many things such as  1144 Stressproof which I gather is readily available in the US.   A cheaper all around solution is to scrounge for and recycle automotive scrap like old truck axles however with this approach you are usually left guessing as to the specs of the material you are working with if that is important to you.


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## Wizard69

Interesting conversation and points of view.    In any event I'm actually glad that we are seeing something done about the very unfair trade practices that have damaged so many industries in the USA.   

However the complaints here about steel prices really are out of place.   Steel has been at historically low prices and in fact scrap prices have been as low seven cents a pound for mild steel less than a year ago.   It was so cheap that people would give away scrap mild steel to avoid the cost of actually trying to scrap it.    So any increases in steel prices will only be a positive for the steel industry which has been on the ropes. for some time in the USA.

 Now for buying steel, you will not get good pricing buying shorts of prime material.   Once you buy non standard lengths cut to order you costs will go up significantly for the "service".   That goes for the big retailers like MSC or McMaster-Carr and even the smaller online distributors of small chunks of steel.   Your best bet here is to look for a local distributor selling to the tool and die industry that normally offers a cut to length service.   Of course if your near by city has no tool and die industry you are stuck.

One alternative is is you have a large distributor of steel products near by, is the drops section.   That is materials that are sold as non prime (recently about $1 to $0.60 a pound).    I try to visit my local supplier (Klein Steel's "Express Metals Outlets") about once a month.   Once in a while you get lucky and find bar stock marked with its grade.   I picked up a bunch of 8620, 2" bar awhile ago and scored a chunk of 1144 or 5" diameter a while ago.   Other bar stock is mystery metal but in some cases that doesn't matter as long as it machines.   The only real killer is the minimal charge which sometimes means buying a little extra to get your weight up.

In any event my point is there are options for steel out there.   If you are looking for something specific and are in a hurry you will nto get the bargains.   But a bit of careful shopping can make a huge difference in your hobby's cost.


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## Entropy455

There's a local recycler I like to purchase my steel from. My most recent big purchase was just under 100 feet of 4" diameter round bar for 400 bucks - and a piece of 4 foot diameter pipe with 1" walls for 175 bucks.

The last new steel I purchased was D2 round bar, which cost me about $4.50 per pound (ouch!)

My new big lathe was 14 cents per pound - obviously used, but I'm super excited about it. . .

The steel I used to build my gantry crane was obtained from an elementary school renovation project - again, purchased at scrap value.

Every now and then some nice brass/bronze bar shows up, but I'm always hesitant to buy it - because I'm worried it might contain beryllium.


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## Charles Lamont

Uguessedit said:


> We are currently experiencing the worldwide atmosphere pressuring the United States to give in to their favor. I haven’t a clue how or if he will fix it. It is very complicated and  essentially leveraging those other countries  supplying the raw materials may or may not be to favor. In many cases they just play angry and don’t care holding out until the USA gives in. That is to speak to history we tend to always back pedal and  everyone knows this. I think I’m the given case it will take more than a term and whomever comes in next may not have the same attitude in leveling out this trade war.



The perspective from outside the US is somewhat different. Firstly, your man started the current mess in economically naive and counter-productive but populist actions which ensured he would be able to blame everyone else for the predictable backlash. Chinese dumping is a problem, but this is not the way to go about fixing it. This is bad for everyone. And secondly, it is impossible to get any trade agreement through Congress that is not tilted substantially in the favour of the US.


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## Entropy455

Charles, so what you're really saying is that other countries have been price-gouging the US, and Trump is finally putting an end to it - which has got everyone in a tizzy. . . . .

I agree with your assessment completely.


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## tornitore45

In the US e-bay and Amazon are the cheapest sources.  With any luck you find a piece the size you need.  Shipping is reasonable because the sellers package to take advantage of the US mail flat rate boxes.


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## Sleddog

I just checked Hobby Metal Kits .1 foot of 12L14 is $30.45. They specialize in supplying small quantities for us .


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## mcostello

Our Industries have been picked apart to pieces by other Countries. How to get them to the bargaining table to renegotiate? Trump picked one way. I think We ought to have reciprocal treaties, You tax Our cars so much We tax You somewhere else that much.


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## Charles Lamont

Entropy455 said:


> Charles, so what you're really saying is that other countries have been price-gouging the US, and Trump is finally putting an end to it - which has got everyone in a tizzy. . . . .
> 
> I agree with your assessment completely.



Yea, whatever. I am not going to rise to it. We are way off topic anyway.


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## goldstar31

If the US Government is going to build  or rebuild smelting works and also put additional taxes on imports, I frankly can't see any other outcome.

Maybe someone is thinking that there could be another war when homegrown steel will be again vital.

Just someone who has seen more than enough of wars and rumours of them

N


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## Entropy455

The unfortunate reality is that nuclear weapons will be used during the onset of large-scale war - not 4 years into it, and LONG before there's any steel shortage. I'm not speculating as to which nation will fire first - just pointing out that WWII type military buildup & conflict are a thing of the past.

Charlels Lamont, "why is steel so expensive" is quite literally the topic of this thread. . . .


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## tornitore45

Just for the sake of argument and idle talk. in case of war remember that the Manhattan project developed an entire branch of applied physic in less than 6 years. A fest 100 harder that jump starting US steel production from scratch.   In case of war there will be modern steel mills running in 3 months.  But hat is just idle talk.


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## Cogsy

I'm not an economist (thankfully) but my understanding is: customers always want cheap product and US product has been too expensive, so cheaper imported metals have been purchased. Now policies have been put in place to make it far too expensive to purchase imported metals (the tariffs everyone is talking about), so now the consumers have no choice but to purchase the more expensive domestic product. Increased demand for the domestic product and lack of competition from the imported product (due to the tariffs) allows domestic suppliers to further increase their pricing/profits.
So from all this - I can't see how the importation of cheaper product can be construed as 'price gouging' and the prices now being complained about are from American companies charging American consumers - surely the rest of the world can't shoulder the blame for that?


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## Entropy455

Cogsy, foreign nations purchase US coal & scrap iron (mainly our scrap iron/steel). They use these materials to produce fresh steel on their own soil - steel which they then sell back to America at VERY appreciable profit. Yes, we get paid for the coal and scrap iron - however the net effect is our lining the pockets of foreign nations (see Trade Imbalance).

It is true that US put itself into this predicament - through over-the-top environmental regulations.

That being said - the steel industry is only one part of a much larger trade imbalance problem. Tariffs alone will not fix the slice that is expensive steel. Trump must also relax US environmental regulations relating to steel foundries - back to 'reasonable' levels. Then when more steel foundries are built, and their operating/production costs go down - the cost of domestic steel will drop sharply.

Remember, Trump is not a politician. He's a self-made cutthroat billionaire businessman. He's also not in the pockets of special interests. These facts alone are striking fear into the nations that have been taking advantage. . . .


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## IanN

The average US steel worker (or general citizen) aspires to own two cars, two computers, an iPhone for each member of the family, live in a large house and eat meat every day

The average Chinese or Indian steel worker (or general citizen) aspires to own a bicycle, accommodate their family in two rooms and get enough rice to feed them each day

The source of the problem with US domestic manufacturing costs is pretty obvious....

All the best,
Ian


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## 99Norton

https://agmetalminer.com/metal-prices/carbon-steel/
  Always dear if you can't buy drops which is why I scavenge and sometimes buy Mysterium from scrap yards.
  Engineering shops are good to approach as a home machinist as they will often sell a small piece.


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## goldstar31

Might I really surprise and say that I came from a coal mining family in depressed County Durham with a father as a blacksmith in the coal mining which supplied the coking coal to feed the blast furnaces in Consett, Co Durham where my father and his 2 brothers were apprenticed at the age of about 12. The other side of the my family was from Cumberland where there was was Workington Iron and Steel and my grandfather and his ;large family; had worked in the mines and moved to County Durhan where there was some work.  After conscription, I ended up back in Cumberland - with its iron and steel and coal- long gone.
I know precisely what it really was like and am appalled by the studied ignorance of conditions in the UK in my lifetime.
The difference between the North of England and India and China is little different and only a few years actually separates the conditions.  Unquestionably, I had no education but whatever there might have been was made worse by WW2.   We lived on food ration books and clogs which only needed 2 clothing coupon points - for growing folks..
One of my dear friends, in Rotary has the funds for poor local children to actually buy them footwear. It's in his and my lifetime!

My father forbid me to go into 'engineering', he's been injured so many times both down the mine as a blacksmith/farrier. Indeed, children of 14- my school leaving age  worked underground. 
For whatever represented an education then was supplemented by us growing and selling spinach in the local Newcastle market. I'm a peasant- and damnably proud to be so! I went to a sort of better school which the garden sales allowed.
It was not until I was conscripted into the Royal Air Force that  I found that I had an intelligence quotient of 135, was offered a commission from the ranks but couldn't afford. 135 is the sort of magic figure which is is just outside the three standard deviations- of the rest of the peasants. Whatever being Goldstar31 was, I was able to retire at 55 and live quite happily for the next 33 years and have been to the USA and Canada and onto HongKong  and found the people there surprisingly as well off as me and certainly better fed than we were and much the same as me now.
OK, I was once a millionaire but my grandchildren will not have to sell spinach or go about barefoot.

With some amusement, I'm sort of accepted the local Chinese community  and quite a lot of ethnic circles. I live with them in harmony and understanding. We might live in half or three-quarter million pound homes and have three od four very new cars in the drives and out children in private and very expensive schools and colleges but somewhere in the back of our memories is the times which we understand and I have written about.

Instead of getting the worst case scenario by someone who is paid for column inches - and buggers off to the bank and then the next assignment, look at a man's hands. 

Invariably they were buckled and each of us can tell the subtlety between 'Entropy'  and plain honest 'Enterprise'

Have a nice Day

Just another peasant


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## Entropy455

Goldstar31, you and I are more alike than you know. I joined the military out of high school (enlisted ranks). I got out, got a degree in in Mechanical Engineering – while working a full-time job to pay my bills. Everything I have I've earned.

Because you’ve asked multiple times - Entropy is the measure of the quality of work extraction from a thermal reservoir (the glass half-full explanation). Or Entropy is the increase in thermodynamic disorder from a thermal source during work extraction, due to system inefficiencies (the glass half-empty explanation). Mathematically, the partial derivative of Entropy is equal to the partial derivative of internal of internal Energy, divided by the absolute temperature of the thermal reservoir in which work is being extracted.

In layman’s terms, Entropy is simply a thermodynamic property. Mechanical Engineers will use Entropy to predetermine the ultimate thermodynamic efficiency of a coal or nuclear-fired powerplant (mathematically) before it's built.

In super-layman’s terms, the lesser the Entropy generation, the better the gas mileage of your heat-engine. That being said - Entropy is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a thing - and happens to be an unavoidable properly of nature. Like gravity, and heat flowing from hot-to-cold. . .

And the 455 is simply my favorite engine - the Pontiac 455, manufactured between 1970 and 1976.


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## deeferdog

Anyone know where all this is heading?


----------



## goldstar31

deeferdog said:


> Anyone know where all this is heading?



Haven't a clue. As I was sentenced by the judge, I simply replied that it seemed a good idea at the time.

N


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## Anatol

Entropy455 said:


> Remember, Trump is not a politician. He's a self-made cutthroat billionaire businessman.



Agreed, Trump is certainly not a politician, he's also not a statesman or a diplomat - both qualities we usually expect of a  president. Nor is he 'self-made'. If any of us on this forum got a million dollar startup package from daddy, we might be doing ok too! But Donald has a documented history of huge debts and failed deals and he was regularly bailed out by his daddy. Fred Trump was, I think, "self-made". He was also a notorious  slumlord and racist. (Woody Guthrie wrote a song about him!)  FYI, here is a fact check from the Washington Post in 2016 (call it fake news if you like) - 

_... a recent Wall Street Journal on Sept. 23 reported that a 1985 casino-license document showed that Donald Trump owed his father and father’s businesses about $14 million.

Trump joined his father’s thriving real estate business after college and that he relied on his father’s connections as he made his way in the real estate world.

For instance, Fred Trump — along with the Hyatt hotel chain — jointly guaranteed the $70 million construction loan from Manufacturers Hanover bank, “each assuming a 50 percent share of the obligation and each committing itself to complete the project should Donald be unable to finish it,” according to veteran Trump chronicler Wayne Barrett in his 1992 book, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”

Trump also benefited from three trusts that had been set up for family members. In 1976, Fred Trump set up eight $1 million trusts, one each for his five children and three grandchildren, according to a casino document. (That today would be worth about $4 million in inflation-adjusted dollars.) The casino document lists several other loans from Trump’s father to his son, including a $7.5 million loan with at least a 12-percent interest rate that was still outstanding in 1981.

In a 2007 deposition, Trump admitted he had borrowed “a small amount” from his father’s estate: ‘I think it was like in the $9 million range.” And as Trump’s casinos ran into trouble, Trump’s father also purchased $3.5 million gaming chips, but did not use them, so the casino would have enough cash to make payments on its mortgage — a transaction which casino authorities later said was an illegal loan._


----------



## Anatol

mcostello said:


> Our Industries have been picked apart to pieces by other Countries.



Hang on ... The biggest economy in the world (and only military superpower) allowed its industries to be 'picked apart' by other countries ?!  I can't see how that could happen unless the USA chose it. After WWII, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Germany, Austria and other countries rebuilt with more efficient industries. USA let its steel industry become uncompetitive, and imported from these countries. US heavy industry has dwindled to almost nothing. Meantime, the US economy has got rich on computer technologies. One industry dies, another thrives (for now).


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## Entropy455

Elections have consequences. . . . ​
It is true that Trump got a million dollar loan from his dad, which he turned it into a billion dollars (plus he paid back the loan). I have to ask Anatol, if I gave you 1000 dollars, could you turn it into a million dollars? (it's the same order-of-magnitude). Or is the starting buffer for successful investment begin at the one-million dollar mark?

Goldstar31, I find your posts cryptic and difficult to follow. Perhaps I'm not smart enough to keep up? You seem like a nice guy nonetheless.


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## goldstar31

I try to be decent! Always remember the background, I'm not an engineer and have studied things like political economy, social and economic history, accountancy and - clears throat- constitutional law---- and some of it was American. So I'm a bit of an odd bod.

A million dollars only buys a house and I'm not the village idiot that pisses off the neighbours  with a bloody big set of cheap jack machinery which is going to devalue their property-- and mine.  Yea, I've got a little lathe or three tucked away 
but not, NOT to bugger up the works.  I came out of the gutter but I have no intention of going back.

Meantime my best wishes.
Norman


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## Entropy455

Who's implying you're destine to go back to the gutter? What prompted you to make such a statement?


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## Hopper

You missed the most important meaning of entropy: a gradual decline from order into disorder, resulting eventually in complete disorder. Seems more relevant.


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## Entropy455

How is it more relevant to the high cost of steel?


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## Cogsy

Entropy455, I really would hate to see environmental regulations being rolled back, even slightly. We need to reduce emissions from all sides and industries, not ramp them up again. I stand by what I said though - consumerism has created this issue. If consumers did not purchase the cheap imported product your trade imbalance wouldn't exist. Consumers wanted it cheap, so they bought from the cheapest source, supply and demand. It's similar to the little Mom 'n Pop grocery stores being driven out of business by the big chain supermarkets - everyone is sad to see them go and their livelihood destroyed but the prices at the supermarket are just too good to pass up. What happens if tariffs were to double the prices at supermarkets? - I think the Mom 'n Pops would raise their prices to just under the supermarket prices and enjoy the situation whilst the consumers cried foul.

I have to comment on the $1000 to $1M order-of-magnitude too. It may be the same order of magnitude increase but it's entirely different. $1m allows diversified, substantial, investment opportunities and the ability to live for an extended period on some of the principal. It also opens doors to all sorts of deals and opportunities that the average person has no access to. $1000 is chump change and anyone would be lucky to make more than current bank interest rates. I don't think there's a single person in the USA, or any developed country, who could be stripped of everything they have, including contacts, who could turn $1k into $1M. But there's many who could turn $1M into $1B.


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## Entropy455

In the past, coal was burned throughout the Great Lakes to make cast iron & steel with essentially zero emissions controls. Neighborhood houses were black from coal ash, and many people had chronic lung problems. Then one day a politician promised cleaner air if elected, and he was, and he did. This brought the first generation scrubbers, which were essentially water nozzles that caused it to rain down within the smokestacks. The retrofit cost was low, and the impact was high (basically plumb the existing stacks with water nozzles, and modify the base to collect & filter the sludge) . Immediately the air began to clean up. It wasn't long before the next politician promised 10-times cleaner air, in lieu of just 5 times. This required the smokestacks to be extended taller. It was more expensive, but the foundries complied - or faced closure. Then it became 20 times cleaner, then 50 times cleaner - which required construction of second and third smokestacks, and more efficient nozzles. Very expensive, but still doable.

Note that during the Clinton years, US steel foundries were running roughly 100 times cleaner than the smokestacks currently operating in China today. It was during the Clinton years that the EPA mandated upwards of 1000 times cleaner air for coal fired foundries. Example: a small steel foundry that might net 25 million per year would have to invest 1.1 billion dollars to meet modern standards (basically make zero profit for 44 years). Needless to say, the foundries were shut down & recycled for scrap. This is why the US produced 115 million metric tons of steel in 1967 (China produced 14 in the same year), and now the US produces about 82 million metric tons per year, and China produces 832.

I live in Washington state. There are days when our air quality is measurably poor as a direct result of China's air pollution crossing the entire Pacific ocean. I would argue that relaxing the US clean air standards from 1000 times cleaner, back down to a more reasonable 100 times cleaner, would be better overall for our planet - considering China is burning coal to produce steel for export, with basically zero emissions controls.

And there's no free money. Generally speaking, when someone is making millions, others are losing millions. If it were easy to turn 1 million into 1 billion, we wouldn't have one-million millionaires. . . .


----------



## Mousetrap

Anatol said:


> Thankyou Cogsy for getting back to the 'big picture' issues. Yesterday I heard a depressing report from the NYTimes climate global climate change correspondent - an Indian woman. She related tales of increased flooding in Calcutta and flocks and herds dropping dead in Africa (from drought). Here in California we are in the 4th hottest year on record, and 1, 2, and 3 have been in the last 10 years. Northern Europe has also had a record hot summer. Records show these as extreme but science tell us they are more likely to be the new average! Yet CO2 emissions are still rising, partly because we (including the Chinese) continue to build coal burning power plants.


In Australia we are having massive bush fires -------- and it is winter time.


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## Hopper

Entropy455 said:


> How is it more relevant to the high cost of steel?


LOL, more relevant to this thread.


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## Cogsy

The thing is though - steel is still produced in the USA, so some steel foundries have been able to meet the emissions targets and remain profitable. If the consumers then used these domestic suppliers exclusively, they would have had the capital to increase supply to meet demand. Basically we are back at the 'big supermarket' scenario, except this time with a couple of big US suppliers instead of imported ones. Except they mostly didn't and went for the cheapest product instead. I don't see how it can be any other entities fault when the basic argument is just "they sold us cheap stuff so we stopped making it ourselves". It can work in reverse as well, like the island nation of Nauru. They exported all their natural resources for huge profits and enjoyed their tremendous wealth until the resources ran out. Now they have nothing to fall back on and mostly rely on foreign aid. Surely they can't now complain that they have nothing left or the world shouldn't have bought it all off them.

We're not immune to it here either. Our local car construction industry has pretty much wrapped up and (as far as I know) we now rely exclusively on imported cars instead of local product. Most people were not happy about this but the reality is that the cars we were making were too expensive and, at least compared to the European products, not of the same standard as the imports. So consumers stopped buying them, then the industry died. Again, the fault lies on the consumers that wanted the cheapest product (at the bottom end of the scale) and the manufacturers that couldn't match the quality of the rest of the market. There's no blame left to put on the countries supplying us with imports - we wanted them, so they sent them to us.

 I have to agree that cutting China's emissions is a fantastic ideal, and if the tariffs help with that I'm all for it. But I'd like to see alternative energies being used instead of returning to coal - like something geothermal using the huge energy reserves you have powering Yosemite and the like. Keep the restrictions and let the engineers work out better solutions (then you get a job out of it as well!).

What I meant about the $1m to $1B is that it's possible, not that it's easy, just that it can be done. $1K to $1M is virtually impossible though, even if it's the same order of magnitude. For example, with $1M you could get a bond for another million and buy probably close to 40 apartments 'off the plan' for ~$50K each, with the remainder to be paid upon completion, but you bank on the properties appreciating during construction, then you sell just prior to completion for a tidy profit, pay back your bond and start again. During a nice boom period you can over double your money every iteration. It is risky though, and when the market crashes or you make a mistake you go bankrupt. Lots of people go bankrupt but with the backing of others, some have been allowed to have another go at it. With $1K you can buy an iPhone...


----------



## Entropy455

Geothermal does not work for large-scale power extraction. This is because the thermal conductivity of the Earth is too small. Yes, you can hit hot temperatures by drilling a hole into the ground, however the moment you establish a coolant loop to draw out heat, the hole goes cold. (core heat does not "flow" fast enough through rock). Even if we drilled literally into a magma chamber, we'd start forming solid rock around the thermal well-head during the first few hours of running.

Solar does not work either (for large-scale power), for the same reason you do not burst into flames when you walk outside. Solar flux on a sunny day is about 1 kW per square meter. A good solar panel might convert 15% of that into electricity. This means to get the same power out as a typical nuclear plant (1000 MW electrical output), you'd need a solar panel about 2.6 x 2.6 km square. Add some cloud cover, and you'd need twice that. And don't forget that the higher efficiency solar cells burnout faster (i.e. plastics that don't hold up well to sunlight - go figure. . . .)

It is simply cost-prohibitive to construct new steel foundries in the US - because we've got over-the-top environmental laws. We have energy shortages for the same reason. This is not the consumer's fault (where we disagree).


----------



## Cogsy

Fair enough, I know nothing about geothermal, except there's a lot of energy there, but obviously extracting it is another issue altogether. Solar I know a bit about, and that 15% seems a little low (especially from the 55% theoretical) but large scale it's not going to work either.

Probably best if we let this one die - somehow I don't think we're going to solve the issue just between ourselves.


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## Entropy455

High efficiency solar cells die an early life. The cells that have a decent lifespan are 15% to 20% efficient. The world record (per Wikipedia) is 46% efficient. Again, this 46% is not a longevity product. Nonetheless, you would need a 46% efficient panel approximately 1.5 by 1.5 km (square), to obtain 1000 MW (typical nuclear power plant electric output). What irritates me most about solar power, is that the idea continues to be sold to the public as some future cure to the current energy crisis. The reality is that once R&D funding assistance stops, so will the solar industry. . . Again, for the simple reason that you don't burst into flames when you walk outside. . . . The energy density (solar flux from the sun) is simply too low to have meaningful impact. 

Just for chit chat, a kilogram of uranium will produce about 1000 MW of thermal power, for 24 hours. Assuming a typical 20% thermodynamic efficiency for nuclear power (Rankine cycle), a 1000 MW electrical output requires 5000 MW of thermal input - or 5 kg of uranium per day.

The US has about 250 million registered cars. About half are daily driven. Assume 1/20th of those are on the road at a time - that's 6,250,000 cars. Assume the average car requires 35 horsepower (actual steady-state power to the road), which is equal to 26 kW electrical power. Assuming a typical 5% power loss in the battery/inverter, and 15% loss in the motor/driveline, that 26 kW becomes 31 kW - i.e. the actual power consumed by a 35 horsepower electric car. The average daily power consumption for 6,250,000 electric cars on the road at a time would be 1.9375 x 10^11 watts, or equal to roughly the power output of (qty 194) 1000 MW nuclear power plants, requiring a total daily fuel consumption of 970 kg of uranium - - - that's 970 kg of uranium per day, just to get cars off of gasoline. . . .

I have my opinions about electric cars also - which should be pretty clear based on the above. . . .

There's no reason we should not talk about it. Ultimately it is up to the people of Earth (all people) to clean up the planet - not just Americans. . . .


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## Cogsy

Agreed entirely that it's everyone's' problem to solve. Where I live solar is a very handy addition to the grid, with many homes having their own arrays connected to the main grid. Depending on usage and array size, up to 75%(ish) reduction in power costs can be achieved. Considering the per unit credit you get for uploading to the grid is much smaller than price charged per unit for consuming from the grid, many of these systems are actually producing more than they use. Figures quoted here (which would obviously be completely different for you) have the systems paying for themselves in the 5-10 year range depending on usage. The PV guys at my uni are working towards high-efficiency, long(er) life panels but I don't have figures on those either (not my area).

Your estimates make me think engineers are quite similar to physicists in back-of-the-envelope calculations, though you omitted the spherical cow reference entirely. Again, I have no figures to hand, although here I think most cars don't see that sort of duty cycle, but still they use a lot of energy. I'm almost willing to bet Australians and Americans are likely close to the top 2 countries for wasting energy on personal transport though. Our public transport systems are limited here and we could save a lot of energy if it they were improved. Plus we could work closer to home, telecommute, walk, cycle, etc. instead of jumping in cars.

This problem has almost the same cause - consumers want big houses on big blocks of land so cities spread out, distances that need to be covered increase and infrastructure can't contend with sprawling settlements properly. I figure I can't control what any other person, let alone country, does, but I try to do what I can to save resources. If every person who cared did a bit, we would make a large difference at least. Not ideal, but we have to start somewhere.


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## vederstein

Nuclear Fusion:  20 years into the future and always will be!


----------



## RM-MN

vederstein said:


> Nuclear Fusion:  20 years into the future and always will be!



We're gaining on the nuclear fusion.  It was 50 years in the future 40 years ago.


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## Entropy455

A friend from college went on to get his physics degree. While in our third year of school, he told me in-depth about how cows can be represented as simple spheres, and how the mathematical approximation greatly simplified equations, yet still returned very accurate results. I walked over to the trash, grabbed an empty egg carton, and told him I had just built a working model-prototype of a high-efficiency cattle car... He didn't think it was funny. Apparently round cows are serious stuff in physics. . . . .


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## Rocket Man

That is a cool little engine did yu b


popnrattle said:


> recently bought 10 pcs. of 1018 CRS, 7"dia. x 1-1/8 thick cut to length(1.065 finished) for 26.00 + TN sales tax. That'll make 5 of the engines in the vid link. These 5 will have 1-3/8 bore(up from 1-9/32) still with .112 cyl. wall thickness.




Cool did you build that at MTSU.


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## Rocket Man

I lived in Arizona for 3 yrs it was cheaper to order metal form Nashville TN have it sent to Phoenix AZ by UPS.   I bought a lathe and bridgeport mill while in AZ it cost me 3 times more than TN.  When I moved back to TN I sold equipment got my money back.  Metal cost a lot more in AZ than TN even after paying shipping cost from TN to AZ it I saved money.


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## goldstar31

Entropy455 said:


> A friend from college went on to get his physics degree. While in our third year of school, he told me in-depth about how cows can be represented as simple spheres, and how the mathematical approximation greatly simplified equations, yet still returned very accurate results. I walked over to the trash, grabbed an empty egg carton, and told him I had just built a working model-prototype of a high-efficiency cattle car... He didn't think it was funny. Apparently round cows are serious stuff in physics. . . . .



'Spherical cows' is a silly joke.  Sorry and all that. I expect with all that methane**********************
Have a nice day!

Norm


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## MRA

>The US has about 250 million registered cars. About half are daily driven. Assume 1/20th of those are on the road at a time - that's 6,250,000 cars. Assume the average car...

Entropy455 - that's a useful analysis, thanks for taking time to type it up.

In my idle moments I wonder about a strange future (if we can get there peacefully) with hi-tech electric trains delivering stuff to local railheads, picked up by horse and cart.  There can't be enough rare-earth materials around for all the batteries and motors needed for electric cars and vans for replacement at current levels of use, let alone the charging requirement.  And how many charge cycles are they good for?  Toyota Prius has been around long enough to do some googling on that - I'll give it a go. 

It's the 'getting there peacefully' which worries me, as much as climate change itself.  Cheap stuff in the shops means low crime, my underworld contacts tell me.  The Japanese may retain the social discipline necessary to manage times of scarcity.  I'm not sure we (UK) do...


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## Entropy455

It's actually not a silly joke Norm.

Just as higher order terms are tossed out within talor series expansions, there's an entire field of physics equations that are based on the simple assumption that objects are perfectly round. Take something as simple as steam - the water molecule is not round, and is quite polarized, is it not?

The spherical cow example has been taught widely in physics classes for many years.


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## Anatol

Love the spherical cow references  Its true, predictions of the behavior of complex systems is almost always unreliable, often wildly wrong. But one side of this conversation that I feel is almost never motioned, but which Cogsy and MRA alluded to, is our expectation of access to energy. 

It is sobering to recall the first thing most (80%) people on the planet do in the morning is carry water. We expect is to come out of a faucet. Behind that faucet is a a huge resource consuming infrastructure. LAs water is pumped over the steepest mountains in the hemisphere! Likewise power and transport. Anyone on this forum is already part of the 1% in terms of energy access.  

Who ever said it was fine to take a ton of steel with you to get a pint of milk? For most of the history of the human race, available power was your own muscles, maybe that of a donkey or horse. (Unless of course you had slaves). The access to energy we take as normal is a blip on the screen of history. I think about more reasonable energy scenarios,  as MRA does, and I worry about the social implications too.


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## vintagengineer

Wow! I didn't realise you had mountains higher than Everest!


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## reubenT

The bigger business gets the more it runs as a money game.  extract the most possible from the consumer while spending the least possible in raw materials and labor.    Any bumps in the economy is a good excuse to push prices up,  and keep them up as long as possible after the bump,  at least until competition pushes them back down.  But not infrequently all the business industries in one commodity can get together and agree to not compete,  instead hold all their  prices up so they can all make more profit.      Anyway,  I've collected a lot of scrap,  steel mostly, some cast,  (like tons of it)  and got rid of a lot,  then collected a lot more,  and was recently thinking I needed to get rid of some to reduce the junkyard around the shop.  Until I went looking for some pipe fittings.    Yikes,  prices have gone crazy,  out of sight.  $150 +/- for just a 3" pipe fitting.   That's rediculas.   So I decided to go ahead with an attempt at a induction furnace.  Turn some of this useless scrap into expensive parts.   (or parts that would be expensive if bought)    With the advantage of being able to custom make anything I need.  All I need is a pattern,  make the shape I want as a hollow in green sand and then melt and pour.  Oh it's got it's hazards and tricks of the trade.   But it's an old trade and all the info is readily available.

"With $1K you can buy an iPhone..."    And 100's of thousands of other ways to waste it.   But you can also invest small in something that will give return,  and then do it again and again and grow to millions.   There are so many temptations to spend,  and so many people and business around us with their hands out asking for our money,  it's very difficult to exercise the self discipline to not spend on anything not critically necessary and invest instead.    And those of us who grew up dirt poor and learned the discipline have been successful.   But we think we're doing our children a favor by giving them a head start on it.   It doesn't work that way.   If they don't grow up poor and learn the self discipline like we did they won't know how to handle money in such a way as to gain or even maintain success.    That's why so many who win a lottery loose it all quite fast.   And I did grow up in a one room cabin without electricity or phone.   Got one pair of tenny shoes a year,  went barefoot all summer.  pumped water from the well with a hand pump.   But my parents lived like that in order to live cheap and pay for the property we lived on.   Now we have 80 acres in the mountains paid for long ago,  and plenty to keep us busy,  multiple business opportunities, we've tried several,   but my favorite is agriculture under cover so I'm working toward expanding that using several interesting technologies to back it up.   My plan will turn it into a very low overhead high profit venture that's fun to work with as well.  And since I'm past 50 now I need to think about a "retirement" plan,   even though my plan with the greenhouse business will keep me going in health energy and endurance and never need to retire from anything.


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## goldstar31

I suppose that it HAD to happen  and Beijing has imposed a 25% tax on imports from the USA.
I'm not always dozing off!

The good news- for the Brits is that a traditional fish and chip shop in the North of Leeds is printing its menus in Mandarin. Two bright bits emerge on the Chinese front as I was invited to a Chinese wake last week and sadly couldn't go as I was imbibing large quantities of quite palatable vin rose in the Dordogne.  So I've promised my daughter who happens to do orthodontics- North of Leeds a 'carry out' on my impending visit. Hummm? I wonder? Again, I have a close neighbour who is half Chinese and who sells vast quantities of his curries- to chip shops.  I suppose that - but more importantly whether he has 'fixed me up' to meet a rather important Chinese financier- in Oban, Scotland-- of all places.

And I think that all this planning, I'm been pressed to go 'State-wise' next year.    I doubt with my Muslim and now Chinese connections that it may be an 'opium' pipe dream.


Well, It's different, I'm able to buy Chinese machines with cash, pay an non scrapyard price for metal of unknown quality -- and - go somewhere else for my long holidays.

Oddly, there are model engineers like me. Oh, and I've got a date with a Toyota Prius driver who wants me to co-drive hers into Austria for a sort of 'Sound of Music' sort of thing--- for the umpteenth time. She's rather 'dishy', quite rich and was professor of flute and cor anglaise. Oh, and she has her own solar panels!!!

Good Day to you all


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## BaronJ

Hi ReubenT,

I wholly agree with you, particularly your first paragraph.
That is why we do not have any real competition here in the UK between energy companies, Electricity, Gas, etc.

The internet makes it easy for these people to ensure that they make maximum profit.  They all want us to switch and save money !  What a con.  Try getting something out of them that you can really use to compare prices.  No before you get anywhere, you not only have to tell them where you live, but supply other information to confirm that.  Then they check their databases and find out who you are with and how much you are paying.  Its at this point that you find that your new prices are up lifted from the old ones.

A perfect example is here in the UK we have what is called "Economy 7"  for as long as I can remember it has always been half price night rate for 7 hours.  All of a sudden economy 7 is now 90% of the day rate.  And the public are letting them get away with this robbery.

Let us take the so called standing charges !  They might knock a penny off the day rates, but I'll guarantee that the standing charge has gone up by double that.  Not only that but if you have solar, the standing charges are higher still.

Ofgen is doing absolutely nothing to curb this behaviour, a toothless organisation, paid by the taxpayer to be a sop to the minions.

Rant over, I'll get off my soap box now.


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## Rocket Man

Change the spherical cow subject lets talk about colonoscopies now it will be, more funner, more better, less worser, more gooder, less badder.  LOL


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## goldstar31

Rocket Man said:


> Change the spherical cow subject lets talk about colonoscopies now it will be, more funner, more better, less worser, more gooder, less badder.  LOL



Merde or as the Chinese say 'Ah so!!' 

N


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## deeferdog

I'm just pleased that the reason steel is so expensive has been explained so clearly.


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## Cogsy

But what about cans of coke? I used to be able to get 4 for a dollar at the corner shop and now they're $4 each!! This whole steel pricing is just to distract us from the profit they're making on coke now...


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## goldstar31

Coke cans are made from an aluminium 'slug not steel! They are made or were by forcing a hardened mandrel down on them---- did dah, did dah.  If the much missed 'Gus' was still around- he worked for  Metal Box Co, he confirm.

Sorry but true

Norm


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## Cogsy

You somewhat missed the point of my very tongue-in-cheek post Norm, and just for the record, I was not claiming coke cans were steel (although they used to be when I was a lad).


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## goldstar31

Cogsy

Full marks.   I did miss it.  We did have a coking plant which was laughingly called 'Dante's Inferno'. 

And for my 'bit' about 'Hokey Kokey' in HK?   Better not for fear of being 'blackballed'.  Then I got another invite HK and onto Fiji. Too much cava and lost a brand-new suit. 

Best wishes

N


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## JackKnife

rake60 said:


> Steel prices continue to climb.
> 
> A foot of 2" diameter 1144 stressproof is now $31.46 USD.
> 
> Then I think about where it comes from.
> Twenty years ago 80% of all the steel in the USA came from either Bethlehem Steel
> (now gone), or USS (still in business, but struggling).
> 
> The US Navy tells us that the deck of an aircraft carrier is the most dangerous place on
> the planet. I can believe that but these everyday workers may be in the second most
> dangerous place. They call it just another day at work...
> 
> [ame]
> 
> OK, so maybe $31.46 ISN'T all that much.
> 
> Rick



Don’t start making knives ! Some of the steels we use are over $1000 per Kg now !


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## wrljet

FWIW, I'm in the market for a hunk of 303 stainless and decided to look at Speedy Metals.
McMaster-Carr was cheaper.

Bill



bobs7-62steamair said:


> The world stage of metal prices is confusing and probably rigged against the consumer in a lot of cases. I won't buy from McMasters Carr and some others in the US due to their excessive prices, most of the time their prices are 3-5x other suppliers. I continually find the best deals from Speedy Metals and local sources to take care of most of my modeling material needs. If you have a local metal monger that deals in scrap bar stock count your blessings. Steel mills in this country that are being constructed or currently in use have a very small discharge footprint compared to mills before 1950.


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## mortimer

Does any one have conversions  from  the USA  material specs to EN or din standards?


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## wrljet

This chart show some of them:

https://dfwmachine.com/2010/07/steel-grade-equivalent/



mortimer said:


> Does any one have conversions  from  the USA  material specs to EN or din standards?


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## cuhlik

Retail steel prices in Portland have increased dramatically due in part to Trump's tariffs.  I just bought a couple of 14ga cold rolled sheets (105 lbs each).  Cost last time I bought this on May 28, 2014 (4 years ago) was $78.13 each ($0.75/lb which matched up reasonably well with the ~$0.30/lb wholesale price at the time).  
http://steelbenchmarker.com/files/history.pdf  wholesale prices were $470--750 per metric ton ($0.21--0.34/lb)

Yesterday I paid $185 each.  The Standard Steel sales rep told me they are selling at their cost and business is way down.  These tariffs are killing them.
Recent high wholesale price was $969/tonne ($0.44/lb) or $46/sheet which accounts for only 25% of the price I paid.

These numbers don't add up...  what else it going on to push the prices up so much?

The tariffs on Chinese steel are 25% of the wholesale import price.  At $968/tonne, the tariff should be roughly $11.50/sheet
So how come the retail price increased $107/sheet or 237% to $185?

Chris

2" 0.065 20ft sq tube $61.80 each, was $23.72  --> price increase 260%
48x96 sheet of 14ga CR  $185 each, was $78.13  --> price increase 237%


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## ThomasSK

JackKnife said:


> Don’t start making knives ! Some of the steels we use are over $1000 per Kg now !


I'd rather have one made from O2 or any reasonable steel that can be ground to a sharp edge that holds.  
The knifes made from old HSS hacksaw blades were the best, but a lot of grinding to get a decent knife from the blade.


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## BaronJ

Hi Chris,

The suppliers get away with pricing because Americans can't do sums


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## goldstar31

BaronJ said:


> Hi Chris,
> 
> The suppliers get away with pricing because Americans can't do sums



Oh, John----- Naughty, Naughty!

It's the would be purchasers who can't do sums. The others who can, build hotels and golf courses ( giggle, giggle!)

N


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## mcostello

When You pinch pennies the sums take care of themselves.


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