Explosion in Clairton steel mill.

Dang, sure hope everyone makes it out.

Level 3 MC
Not good.

I think the accident was at the Clairton Coke Works. They process metallurgical coal into coke for use in their blast furnaces. It’s the largest coke batteries in North America.

Coal gasses off to make coke like wood does to make charcoal. I remember reading about taxis in London using gassifiers during WWII with coal as fuel.

How many steel plants do we have running now in the US and Canada?

Only a dozen, maybe 13, blast furnace mills here in the US. Those mills use coke in the steel making process. Typically , these mills produce a better quality steel. The remaining steel mills here are EAFs, electric arc furnaces. Basically, melting scrap steel into new steel.

I believe the Stelco Works in Hamilton, Ontario ( former US Steel ), use blast furnaces also. US Steel and Stelco were our biggest customers buying metallurgical coal .

Prayers for those folks and there families.

Chinese sabatuers, Lets Go Brandon.

One less.

We need a great many more.

Keith

Prayers for all involved

Prayers sent

Prayers for all involved

Prayers for the workers involved and their families.
But , yes we need to bring back steel production in the States.

Allowing industries that are essential for our defense and survival to virtually die out in our country was not a good decision. Hopefully this helps motivate us to build more steel and coal plants.

Keith

Unfortunate situation. Makes me wonder what generated enough energy for a explosion?...Molten metal poured onto water is a powerful bomb, due to superheated flash steam expanding 16X its original volume.

Worked at a steel mill in the 80's and we would gas torch the ladles to dry & heat before tapping molten furnace metal into them....A wet ladle made it through one night, then was tapped into, and blew out the first story tap floor, killing a supervisor.

The coking process requires crushing of coal, so there are particulate explosion concerns there it would seem.

There is no steel made in the Clairton Works. It’s not a steel mill. It produces coke ( from coal ) that is used in US Steel mills. Everything comes in on barges, on the Mon River. Some coke is also sold to other steel makers. Coal is baked in ovens, in the absence of oxygen, producing coke. Kinda like making charcoal from wood, except there’s far more BTUs in coke.

I’ve toured the Clairton Works years ago, before I retired. Coke dust is extremely volatile, even worse than coal dust is underground. I don’t know what happened today, but if it was a dust explosion, it’s gonna be really bad.

We have a friend who works there. He was going to take on an extra shift but he did not. That was his battery that exploded today.