Photos courtesy Nucor
Today’s domestic steel industry is innovative and technologically advanced, responsible for supplying materials to some of the world’s most important construction projects. Yet, despite these hallmarks of success, prevalent myths associated with the U.S. steel industry still need to be dispelled.
Myth #1: Steel is not produced
in America
The U.S. has a robust steel industry. Steel foundations and structures found in data centers that house emerging AI technologies; skyscrapers in every major city built with high-strength structural steels; and sheet steels that have become an essential product for the HVAC industry—to name just a few. It is all “Made in America.”
One example of what construction and design teams can accomplish with domestically produced steel products is a stunning new high-rise building in Chicago that my company was recently involved with. The building’s construction and design teams had unique architectural and building challenges to overcome due to the job site’s proximity to the Chicago River and the ambitious design. By using high-strength structural steel, which can support the same loads with less tonnage than traditional steel, the design team was able to solve engineering challenges while reducing overall tonnage and its associated embodied carbon.
When adjustments were made mid-development, Nucor offered the Chicago high-rise’s design team material assurance and agile delivery. Purchasing the same material from an overseas steel manufacturer would have added time to the project timeline. In this case, using domestically produced steel allowed the team to achieve engineering and procurement feats that would not have been possible without the benefits of domestic steel.
Myth #2: Domestic steel is not
readily available
Material accessibility is of course a top priority for architects, engineers and the design community, and America’s expansive steel production network ensures that a steady, consistent supply of the highest-quality steel products will be readily accessible to the people and projects that need them. Today, there are steelmaking and steel fabrication facilities within every region of the U.S. No matter where a project is being built—and regardless of the specific steel products needed—domestic steel is available to meet customers’ needs.
Additionally, the expansive network of domestic electric arc furnace (EAF) steel manufacturing facilities can be leveraged in the rare case that a steel mill is taken offline by a natural disaster.
This network allows alternate facilities to jump in on short notice and ramp up production to cover the lost manufacturing time, which is a huge benefit compared to traditional blast furnace steelmaking facilities, which cannot be ramped up or down nearly as quickly.
Most steel made in the U.S. is circular or recycled steel, made using the EAF method. Steel made from recycled material can be used in the same applications as steel made using the traditional extractive blast furnace method.
Myth #3: Steel is not considered
a sustainable material
Steel made in the U.S. is extremely sustainable compared to the majority of steel manufactured elsewhere around the world because of how it is manufactured. As of 2023, EAF steelmaking accounted for 70 percent1 of all steel made domestically. In contrast, only 10 percent of steel in China is made using EAFs.
Nucor, for example, produces all its steel using EAF technology, resulting in less than one-third of the greenhouse2 gas emissions per ton of steel compared to the global average for blast furnace steelmaking. Specifying domestically sourced steel made with an EAF is the best entry point for customers looking to reach their sustainable building goals.
Over the past 60 years, circular, EAF steelmaking has become the most prevalent steel manufacturing process in the U.S. According to a report by the Steel Tank Institute/Steel Plate Fabricators Association (STI/SPFA), steel’s recycling rate in North America is higher than that of plastic, aluminum, and glass combined. This is largely due to steel’s ability to be recycled infinitely without reducing quality, making it the world’s most recycled material3.
The tracking of recycled steel has gained traction, too, with expanded and improved certification processes and standards. These processes and standards share one key attribute: their ability to help the customers who purchase steel reach their sustainability goals. This is achieved by offering green domestic steel products that can be backed by the documentation needed to meet sustainability targets publicly.
Of the various certification processes and standards available, one of the most robust was created by the Global Steel Climate Council (GSCC). The GSCC is an international coalition of roughly 40 steel producers and other groups representing production in nearly 90 countries. The group is focused on advancing climate strategies and decarbonizing the steel industry by establishing science-based targets to achieve a 1.5 C scenario by 2050.
GSCC’s Steel Climate Standard incentivizes true decarbonization of the steel sector, regardless of the production method and has three main objectives:
- Providing a single, technology-agnostic framework for steel product certification and company science-based emissions target-setting that applies to all steel producers equally globally;
- Enabling all steel customers to know the carbon emissions associated with the specific steel products they purchase; and
- Creating an industrywide standard for achieving the emissions reduction goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement by 2050.
Many of the world’s leading steel companies are members of the GSCC and have agreed to the same certification standards, including making their science-based emission targets public, self-attesting annually to product certifications and third-party data verification every three years.
The U.S. steel industry has grown continuously in recent decades, meeting demands for higher-strength steel grades, strengthening supply chains, and encouraging domestic job growth.
Notes:
1 canarymedia.com/articles/clean-industry/chart-heres-where-the-carbon-intensive-steel-industry-is-concentrated
2 worldsteel.org/data/world-steel-in-figures-2024/
3 steel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AISI_FactSheet_SteelSustainability-11-3-21.pdf
Luke Johnson is a seasoned structural and sustainability engineer. In 2022 he brought his wealth of knowledge to Nucor, assuming the role of sustainability specialist.