`US steel industry productivity transformation (1980-1990)`

The long arc from Saugus Iron Works (1600s, 3,000–4,000 hours/ton) through Bessemer and Carnegie (~100 hours/ton, 1850s–60s) through the BOF (Linz 1958, commercial mid-60s), continuous casting (Japanese, late 60s), and onward. The §8 spine of the lecture.

Energy cost is fundamental to the cost of the material, because that's the big thing about getting it out of the ground. It wasn't always that way. Since I know the industry, I'll talk about the steel industry — surprise. I found this morning, looking ahead at my old lecture notes, a plot I put together last year on hours per ton to make steel.