On this Earth Day celebration one may ask, why are we still dependent on fossil fuels? To answer this question let's look at a 'revolution' that was happening in the steel industry in the mid 60's and early 70's.
During this time before the Three Mile Island accident, the steel industry had perfected the electric arc furnace. Basically, this process would melt iron or recycled steel to make new steel. Many thought the old technology from the days of Andrew Carnegie, the blast furnace which relies on coal, would be totally replaced by the new electric arc furnace. The electric arc furnace would only use electricity from nuclear plants and there would be no need for any coal or coke (a coal product). They encountered a problem, however. Without the right carbon additives, the steel was weak. To this day, there is not a clear technology where we can introduce carbon without coal to strengthen steel. Electric arc furnaces now are a secondary process that rely on blast furnaces to make a preliminary steel product. Because the electric arc furnaces require a lot of electricity they take a lot of power from the coal fired grids. Because transmission of electricity is not efficient, the blast furnace ends up having a smaller carbon footprint than the electric arc furnace! So by trying to become more independent of fossil fuels, we actually became more dependent on them!
As detailed in previous posts on this blog, new technologies with the best of intentions have backfired much like the electric arc technology and are increasing our addition to fossil fuels. The moral of the story is that before we get carried away with a 'revolution' we must first examine the science behind the 'breakthrough'.
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