Thread by @chrisbriem

Some have suggested I don’t get the reasons there is all this pushback against the sale of U.S. Steel. Believe me I do, but so much is based on nostalgia for an economic history that is just not coming back to Pittsburgh.🧵

How big was steel in Pittsburgh? In October 1952 there were over 379 THOUSAND manufacturing jobs in a 4-county region of SW Pennsylvania. The majority of which were directly or indirectly linked to the steel industry.

Around 170 thousand regional jobs were literally categorized, specifically as "primary metals" workers. Today that number is around ten thousand in total across a much larger 7-county region. So down ~95% or more from that peak.

That 10 thousand number includes a lot of specialty metals that as an industry are pretty far removed from commodity steel which is about all that US Steel makes and which was the core of Pittsburgh's steel industry for a literal CENTURY.

There literally is nothing left of the massive cluster of commodity steel production in Pittsburgh that lives on only in so much memory.

And here's the most important thing. There are deep structural reasons the agglomeration of steel production in Pittsburgh went away so completely. It's not "oh, the county has mean regulators" or "the mayor was mean to me" or anything even remotely close to any of that.

The only reason what minimal amount of steel production is left here is the sheer scale of past sunk cost investment that was built up over the region's 150++ year history as a steel center.

TL/DR: the era of carbon steel in southwestern Pennsylvania is not just over, but has been over for a half-century or more. That this is even debated today is testimony to the persistence of memory.

Looking ahead, could Pittsburgh be a competitive location for non-carbon based steel production. Most new steel mills are electric arc furnace (EAF) minimills.

That question depends on the answers to:

Is Pittsburgh optimally located to take advantage of scrap steel supplies nationally?
Is Pittsburgh optimally located to supply national or international steel demand?
Does the region have low industrial electricity prices?

Maybe add in one more: does Pittsburgh have a young and growing workforce to invest into?

But for that question and all the others, the answer is pretty clearly no. Any debates are on the margin at best. Yes, Pittsburgh once had the world's best geography for steel. Not today.

Hydrogen-based steel you say? Another topic for sure, but just addressing the potential of Pittsburgh becoming the place a new cluster of H2-based steel. First off we are way behind the power curve both internationally (Re: Sweden) ......

and domestically quite honestly, even Arkansas has a lot more going on than we do right now.

https://x.com/chrisbriem/status/1657141542878937092?s=20

And for a post-credit spoiler to a future thread I’m sure. This idea that somehow Allegheny County regulators have scared off investment is so counter to reality. County air regulation has been eviscerated ever since Roger Westman was forced out 15 years ago.