EuroWire September 2018

Transatlantic cable

He found that by employing chips 0.5 to 2mm in diameter, longer contact times and lower pH, he was able to report killing almost 99 per cent of the bacteria in all concentrations. Even at higher pH levels, at least 90 per cent of the E. coli was eliminated. “The surface of E. coli is negatively charged, and the steel chip is positively charged,” Mr Dai explained to Ben Coxworth of New Atlas . “E. coli can be absorbed on the steel chip surface because of electrostatic attraction.” From there, ferrous and ferric ions from the steel oxidise the cell membrane of the E. coli bacterium, effectively killing it. (“Waste Steel Could Keep E. Coli Out of Rivers,” 24 th May) Plans call for another South Dakota grad student to field-test a larger version of the system in a setting outside the lab, in which storm water from a ten-acre residential area drains into a retention pond. At the inlet to the pond, the storm water will run through a structure like an open-top box, filled with steel chips. “You’re definitely not seeing corporations slow down their appetite for renewables under Trump,” Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president for policy at the clean energy business group Advanced Energy Economy, told the New York Times (1 st June). If anything, he said, demand continues to grow, “and it means that many utilities increasingly have to evolve to satisfy this demand.” Exactly one year earlier, on 1 st June 2017, when President Donald Trump announced that the United States would exit the Paris climate deal, many of America’s largest corporations said they would honour the agreement anyway, pledging to pursue cleaner energy and cut emissions on their own. The Times ’s Brad Plumer had identified the area in which fidelity to that pledge is most highly visible: renewable energy. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies, from tech giants like Apple and Google to Walmart and General Motors, are voluntarily investing billions of dollars in new wind and solar projects to power their operations or offset their conventional energy use. In the process, they are becoming a major driver of renewable electricity growth in the United States. But Mr Plumer also took note of “one big question”: whether these corporate renewable deals will remain a relatively niche market, adding some wind and solar at the margins but not really making a sizeable dent in overall emissions; or whether these companies “can use their clout to transform America’s grid and help usher in a new era of low-carbon power.” Energy

the rarely used Section 232 of the US trade law, which allows for restrictions on imports to safeguard national security. † Ms Jester pointed out that Section 232 does not apply to GOES that is merely cut or shaped, and laid out a scenario in which “bad actors” exploit this loophole by setting up facilities in Canada and Mexico to bring in dumped GOES from offshore, making minor modifications and then sending it into the USA where it would not be subject to the tariff. Mr Portman said that, without a remedy, AK Steel has told him it will have to shut down GOES production. That would make the USA dependent on China and other foreign producers for repair and restoration of its electrical grid in the event of a national disaster. It could take months before power was restored. † Taking a curiously bifocal view of Mr Trump’s trade policies, Mr Portman told the Dayton Daily News that he had urged the president to make electrical steel a priority “so AK Steel can fully benefit from [the tariffs].” This more focused and balanced approach, he said, “would provide relief to the products most at risk, like electrical steel, while minimising the potential harm to downstream steel and aluminium users.” Mr Portman did not explain how an exemption for GOES from AK Steel would minimise harm to downstreamers, including the many steel and aluminium users he represents in heavily industrialised Ohio. Elsewhere in steel . . . † The Trump administration has launched a national security investigation into car and truck imports that could lead to new USA tariffs similar to those imposed on imported steel and aluminium in March. According to the new head of a Japanese industry group, steel firms in Japan are worried that any such USA auto import curbs could have a major impact on demand for their products. As reported from Tokyo by Yuka Obayashi of Reuters , Japan Iron and Steel Federation chairman Koji Kakigi told a 25 th May news conference, “I was really shocked by the US move.” If Japanese auto exports of about 1.7 million units are shut out by the USA market, it will have significant impact on Japanese steel demand, said Mr Kakigi, who is also president of JFE Steel. † Rain water running down city streets and into storm sewers can be carrying E. coli bacteria, which may end up polluting rivers. The results of an experiment conducted at South Dakota State University suggest that chips of waste steel promise an efficient and inexpensive way of ridding water of these bacteria. Building on the findings of a previous research project at the university, graduate student Peng Dai obtained discarded carbon steel chips from a machine shop in the city of Sioux Falls. The chips were placed in a glass column and E. coli-tainted water run through them. Mr Dai experimented with various chip sizes, E. coli concentrations (ranging from low to extremely high), pH levels and contact times (from five to 20 minutes).

Automotive

In the USA, auto efficiency yields an unexpected by-product: speed

As noted by Kyle Stock of Bloomberg News , sometime in the next year or so the USA auto industry will cross a “once-unimaginable” threshold: average horsepower (HP) for the entire fleet (296 at present) will reach 300. Mr Stock asserted that this number – “the stuff of drag-racing dreams” – is almost entirely a happy accident.

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September 2018