Eagar 1991 Welding Journal Future of Metals article

Tom's June 1991 *Welding Journal* article. 95% of world metal is steel; in 1990, steel was a $500B industry at 2% growth — its absolute growth exceeded ceramics ($5B/20%), composites ($15B/10%), and semiconductors ($100B/5%) combined.

So I listened to this for years and I got people very upset with me because of my negative way of saying things. I finally took some of the ideas and I wrote an article — not that anyone wanted to publish it. I had to publish it in the Welding Journal because no one else cared about metals at that time. This was June 1991 — an article I called "The Future of Metals." I pointed out that among all the metals in the world, ninety-five percent of all metal made in the world is steel, less than two percent is aluminum, and just over one percent is copper. Steel is the dominant metal, and we'll talk about why. I told you, you're going to hear me keep talking about steel as a structural material — well, this is one of the reasons. It's not me. I'm not the one who bought a billion tons of steel every year — this is what the world buys.