US Steel basic open hearth (early 1970s)

Tom's central indictment of US Steel management: in the early 1970s, after BOF had been proven for a decade, US Steel built the last large open hearths (450-ton capacity) at ~$1B cost. "Billion-dollar dinosaurs."

US Steel built the last open hearth in the early 70s. They were about 450-ton capacity, huge. In this whole thing, you tap it by the whole thing lifts up, so you're lifting up this thousand-ton vessel that has 450 tons of steel in it. What replaced it — we're going to talk productivity here — was the basic oxygen furnace, after World War Two.