Original subtitles

[narrator] On Tomorrow's World Today,

we explore the cutting-edge advances

that are shaping four different worlds.

The world of inspiration,

where the wonders of the natural world

amaze and inspire us.

The world of creation,

where ideas come to life from traditional arts.

The world of innovation,

where ideas and inventions move us all forward.

The world of production,

where innovations are mass produced

to improve our lives.

From Inventionland World headquarters,

here's your host, George Davison.

Hi, everybody. I'm George Davison.

When you think of steel,

you might imagine thick, heavy sheets of metal.

But when it comes to electric vehicles,

you have to go light.

Every extra pound means less range,

and lower efficiency.

So what's the solution?

Thinner steel. That's right.

There's now steel that is, it's like paper thin.

And it's been engineered specifically for electric vehicles.

By using the thinner steel,

automakers can reduce the vehicle's weight

without having to sacrifice strength or durability.

This paper-thin steel,

it's made with the latest technology.

And it's designed to meet the production needs

of this new era of transportation.

In fact, by 2030,

more than half of all cars sold are expected to be EVs.

So I'm gonna send Greg to the world of production

to explore how one company

is changing the steel production process

to make it more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

[Greg] In 1881,

Andrew Carnegie built the first steel mill in the United States,

which would eventually become US Steel in 1901.

And for many years,

it was the largest mill in the world,

and the most productive of all the steel works in the Mon Valley.

This is still a US Steel site,

but now, it is the US Steel Research and Technology Center.

We're gonna head inside,

talk to David Burritt, the CEO of US Steel,

to take an in depth look at steel production

in tomorrow's world.

-Hey, Dave, great to meet you. -Great to meet you too, Greg.

[Greg] As we look at this library, Dave,

I feel like this-- this is the history

of steel making in the United States.

But this research and technology center is all about the future.

I cannot wait to see what you do here.

Safety first at US Steel,

and that means hard hat and rest of the PPE.

-So let's go, follow me. -All right.

[Greg] Dave, tell me about the process we're about to see.

[Dave] Well, this is an A6 continuous galvanizing simulator.

One of a kind,

and it's used to help power the energy transition of the future.

Greg, I need you to meet Alexis and Matt.

Nice to meet you guys.

Alexis, tell me about this amazing machine behind us.

So there are a couple A6 simulators in the world,

but our specific simulator was customized for US Steel

to help innovate for all of our customers.

Excellent. Well, Matt, why is that important?

So one of the most important types of steel that we develop

are the advanced sized string steels

for the automotive industry.

The A6 allows us to simulate

the heat treatment and coating conditions

of any of our finishing lines,

including the ones currently being built in Arkansas.

Greg, we need to get you to Arkansas

at Big River Steel.

Ask for Dan Brown,

he's got a full blown tour for you.

Excellent.

[Greg] Well, I made it to Arkansas,

and I'm on the banks of the Mississippi River.

It safe to say that our country might not be what it is today

without the mighty Mississip.

There have been so many industries

that have utilized this river,

it'd be difficult to count.

One of the main reasons being that there's no better way

to move large amounts of steel than a barge on the river.

Now, the river's got a deep history,

but it's also got a really bright future.

Especially when it comes to electric vehicles.

There are hundreds of pounds of steel

in an electric vehicle.

Now in order to meet that demand in a sustainable way,

auto manufacturers are turning to recycled steel.

And this plant,

and all of the new facilities built around it,

are specifically for that purpose.

Turn all of this into recycled steel.

I'm at the US Steel Big River Steel facility

in Osceola, Arkansas.

I'm gonna be with Dan Brown.

He is the Senior Vice President

of Advanced Technology Steelmaking

for US Steel,

and the Chief Operating Officer of Big River Steel.

We're gonna talk about all of the new and innovative technologies

that are being utilized to get recycled steel

into the electric vehicles that you'll drive

in tomorrow's world.

-Hey, Dan. -Hi, Greg.

-Good to see you. -Good to see you too.

Wow, man, I was just out at the scrapyard,

millions of tons of metal and it's all gonna end up here.

[Dan] Absolutely, 100% recycled scrap.

That scrap gets scorched in the EAF

to feed this beast.

Well, I wanna see this all happen.

Absolutely, grab your safety gear and let's go.

[Greg] Okay, let's go.

Wow, Dan, so this is feeding the beast.

This is feeding the beast.

So all the scrap we saw

dumped outside into the charge bucket,

we charge that a little over 180 tons,

put it in the top of the EAF furnace,

and make a heat.

Our tap-to-tap times are generally 36 minutes.

Wow, so it only takes that long to melt this whole thing--

And I-- I find it hard to believe

that this is electrical energy.

But that stands for electrical arc furnace.

[Dan] Electrical arc furnace.

We use 100% recycled scrap to arc on these heats.

Electricity, true DC energy to meld these heats

to tap into a steel ladle at the bottom of the furnace,

and ship for further processing.

Either to secondary metallurgy or our RH degasser.

[Greg] Okay, so this vat of molten metal

goes to the RH gasser, you said?

Tell me about that.

[Dan] The RH degasser is an interesting story.

Big River Steel is the first company

to put an RH degasser into a mini mill.

Gives us the ability to make automotive steels,

hydrate, uh, electrical steels,

and non-grain oriented steels for electrical vehicles.

[Greg] Well, I'd love to get a look at that.

Let's go.

[Greg] So Dan, what makes the degassing process

so important to what you do here?

[Dan] As I mentioned before,

we we're the first steel company

to put an RH degasser

within the mini mill steel industry segment.

This vacuum degasser gives us the ability

to serve customers a mortgage

that no one could ever serve before.

The automotive market, non-grain oriented steel,

and a high-tech electrical steels.

Okay, well, how does the process actually work?

Very interesting process.

Behind you is a degasser vessel.

At the bottom of that is what we refer to as snorkels.

An up-leg and down-leg.

There's a series of weirs for Argon gas in the up-leg.

They actually change the density of steel.

Lift a leg with steel up,

back to the down-leg, gravity breaks it down.

And it's a re-circulating process.

You actually re-circulate the chemistry

and homogenize that steel every two minutes.

Wow, so what-- What actually happens?

It actually just extracts the gas from it?

[Dan] Interesting process.

You get lower carbon levels,

lower hydrogen levels and lower nitrogen levels

out of this process.

[Greg] All right, well, I know we've still got some steps to go,

but it feels like we're getting really close

to seeing slabs of metal.

Next stop, we'll be taking that liquid molten steel on a ladle,

and forming into a solid transfer bar.

Let's go.

[Greg] Oh, Dan, looks like we're counting down to something here.

So now we're taking that liquid steel ladle

and we're passing that through our gassing machine

into a solid transfer bar.

This machine's speed right now is running roughly at 170 inches per minute

and at approximately 20 inches.

we'll be counting that to our customers specification

down at our crops here.

[Greg] Okay, let's take a look at this now.

So this is actually the molten metal

-coming out of the ladle. -[Dan] That's correct.

That's the ol' ladle, that's molten liquid.

it's being poured out of the bottom

into a mold.

That mold is cooled with backwater sprays.

It actually makes the shell around that transfer bar

cools it from the outside in into a solid state

that you have coming down here.

[Greg] But now if this cools down,

it's actually cool enough now

to maintain its integrity through the roller.

That's correct, it's formed you a good shape.

The thickest of the bar's a little over two-and-a-half inches.

It'll get cropped to customer's specification,

or it could lay flat.

It's set on through this tunnel furnace

to a hot rolling mill.

Three football fields later,

and this is gonna look like what your customers want it to look like.

[Dan] That's correct. It'll go through a 1000 feet,

down to a hot rolling mill, and get rolled into a boil.

-All right, let's go see what the end looks like. -Let's go.

[Dan] You remember that transfer bar

that was two-and-a-half inches thick

that we sent through the furnace that's 1000 feet long

to continue eating?

Right, so it's gotten here,

but two-and-a-half inches thick

is not what your customer's usually looking for.

How do you reduce that down to their specifications?

Now it enters the hot rolling process.

So that transfer bar goes through

a series of stands, rolled out,

and then sent out a run-out table

and hit with large amounts of water.

We get the mechanical properties out of it.

Customer width, specification-correct gauge,

and that coil at the end of the line

will either be sold out into the commercial market,

or sent downstream to cold room processing.

So at the point, it's ready to ship?

-[Dan] That's correct. -Let's check that out.

[Greg] So this is the beginning of the--

of the rolling and reducing process.

Are these rollers the same rollers that are in the machines?

[Dan] That's correct.

The rolls you see right here are the actual work rolls

that are in the stands right now.

There's six stands.

Each stand reduces that transfer bar better and better

till you get out of the last stand.

Once you exit after six,

you're at the exact thickness for customer specification.

The center for the run out table,

hit it with water for mechanical properties,

and you've a final product on the coil for the customer.

[Greg] These won't work out to be really precise.

You're looking for a near perfect piece of metal.

The parameters on the work rolls and the graining,

very, very straight.

They'll make sure you get the customer specification.

Okay.

After the steel exits our last stand,

it gets X-rayed

for the proper customer thickness.

Goes through our run out table,

gets blasted with high pressure water

for mechanical properties.

[Greg] So by mechanical properties,

you mean either the hardness or softness of the metal.

And you determine that by how quickly you cool.

Whatever the customer application is,

we make that on that run out table into the boiler.

[Greg] Okay.

So Dan, I mean,

you can still really feel the heat coming off of these coils.

This can't be the end of the line.

[Dan] You remember that coil just two hours ago

was part of a liquid steel ladle.

Take it through gassing, take it through rolling,

very critical, precise processes.

This boiling temperature is very important too

for final properties.

We'll get that coiled up,

either sent out for customer shipping,

of further downstream with another process.

Let's head downstream.

[Dan] So some of the hot roll coils

are gonna go directly to customers.

Others go downstream at our facility

through our pickle line tandem mill,

we refer to it as our PLTCM.

The pickling part of the process,

you take the hot rolled coils, you weld them together

to make a continuous operation.

After that, it's sent directly to the cold mill behind us

for cold reduction.

-[Greg] Okay, well, let's take a look at that. -[Dan] Let's go.

So after our coils are run through

the pickling part of this line,

this is one continuous line,

hanging directly from the pickle line,

through the cold reduction, cold rolling process.

Similar to the hot rolling process.

Five stands.

Take a little bit more reduction with each stand.

We get down to the final thickness and gauge

for the customer specification.

These coils are taken off the mandrel.

Some of these coils are shipped off as final product.

Other coils are sent to our galvanized line next door.

Let me take you there.

[Greg] This steel isn't specifically for EVs.

But it is used in the automotive industry

and for some of your other customers as well.

That's correct, we just got done cold reducing our coil.

So now we put 'em through a furnace for mechanical properties,

run 'em through a zinc bath,

put a slight layer of zinc coating on the material.

And we use that to supply automotive and construction customers.

All right, well, I wanna see this galvanizing process.

I guess it's a hot process, we're all suited up.

-So let's go. -Follow me.

[Dan] So these two coils are shared here,

at the tail end of the previous coil.

The front end of the next coil shared,

welded together within a minute

and sent down to the process.

We have to run this line continuously.

It has to run 24/7.

To our right are the zinc ingots

that we add to our zinc pot

to get the right chemistry for the molten zinc.

Then we put on the steel coils,

to get to the right customer specification.

Wow, Dan, that looks like a mirror.

But I would imagine that the--

if you shatter that thing you'd catch a few more than seven years of bad luck.

[Dan] So the steel's taken through a furnace

heated up to the proper temperature.

Annealed to get the right mechanical properties for our customers.

And now we bring it down to a molten zinc bath

-that's at-- currently at 426 degree Celsius. -[Greg] Wow.

[Greg] That's well over 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Dan] Well over 800 degrees Fahrenheit,

and then taken up through a series of air dryers

to the top of this roof of this production line.

[Greg] How far does it travel up as it dries?

[Dan] One hundred and eighty four feet.

So at the point, it's dry enough

to be coiled back up, put on the rails and sent back out.

Absolutely.

You'll be taken out to the rail car,

put in the rail car and shipped to a customer.

Let's go see it.

[Greg] Wow, Dan, this coil looks very different than the way it started out.

Yes, this coil is the final product.

This has been galvanized, coated,

packaged up, banded,

and now this is ready for shipment,

ID it for our final customer.

[Greg] Dan, we-- we've learned a lot

about the different metals that you make for various markets.

But right now, I really wanna know more

about bigger of a steal,

US Steel and electric vehicles.

So you've seen the whole process so far.

Hundred percent recycled scrap,

melded, casted, rolled, up to the point.

And this behind us is a world class, $450 million investment

and non-grain oriented electrical steels.

Non-grain oriented electrical steel

for the electrical vehicle market

in the future of the United States.

-Excellent, can we go inside? -Let's go.

[Greg] All right. Now I get it.

This is what $450 million looks like.

[Dan] Behind us is our non-grain oriented anneal coating line.

This line is part of the non-grain oriented steel electrical project.

This line creates the mechanical properties

and magnetic properties for our electrical steels.

This looks a-- a lot like some of the processes that we've already seen.

How much of this is evolution,

and how much of it is brand new?

It's a combination of technologies.

Almost like a giant continuous annealing line.

And on top of it, making magnetic properties

for world class non-grain oriented electrical steel

for the electrical vehicle market.

Okay, well, how big is this building? It's massive.

This building is massive.

This building three-tenths to a mile long.

-Wow, you wanna take a walk? -Let's go.

[Greg] Now, Dan, the-- the steel industry has been around

for well over a 100 years.

[chuckles] That's pretty clear they're not resting on those laurels.

It looks as though US Steel is all about innovation.

A lot of people view steel as just a commodity.

It's not great.

Steel is highly technical and highly innovative.

We spent a lot of time on research, development,

and innovation within our company.

This line in back of us and the whole NGO project

is the perfect example of that.

As massive as it all is,

I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg

-of what you're developing here. -That's correct.

And I'd like to show you our second part

of our close to $4 billion in investments.

[Greg] Well, Dan, you got me intrigued.

You mentioned new products coming out of this area,

and you've got another massive structure here.

What are you building

and what are you gonna do with it?

So you remember our continuous galvanized line number one that we went through.

This is CGL two.

We're going past the furnished structure right now.

This line uses a zinc and aluminum coating

as opposed to just a zinc coating.

Guaranteed for 60 years, weather corrosion resistant,

very popular with the roofing,

and the appliance industry in the market.

[Greg] Well, Dan, tell me about your vision here.

Because right now, this just looks like a big hole.

[Dan] It is a big hole.

But it is the future site for our zinc-aluminum pot for CGL two.

You remember when we toured continuous galvanized line number one,

when you referred to the steel strip as a mirror?

This is the area where we'll coat

with both the zinc and aluminum to the strip

and get it into the products that we discussed earlier.

Okay, well, how long will it take you to get this up and running?

[Dan] The construction and engineering of this

will be finalized and this line up and running

within a year from now.

[Greg] Wow, that's amazing.

Well, I know there's lots more to see,

so are we gonna be able to check that out?

We absolutely will.

I saved the best for last,

but we're gonna need my truck to get there.

-Let's take a ride. -Let's go.

[Greg] Dan, there's a lot of construction going on here.

What do you think?

Another three, four years before you start producing out of this?

[Dan] No, no, this will be operational in less than a year.

BRS was one of the best start ups

in the history of the steel industry in North America.

Very aggressive timeline, very challenging.

That engineering and construction group that built BRS

is actually building BR two.

We've managed to keep that whole group together.

We are on schedule and on budget at this point in time.

When you have a great time, why break 'em up, right?

Okay, so Dan, tell me about the buildings that are right in front of us.

[Dan] So this building is one of our autonomous coil yards.

So this is high-tech automation.

Moves coils, stores coils

and ships coils by rail or truck

-without human interaction. -[Greg] Wow.

[Greg] So what are the other buildings

that are under construction right now?

So to the left is the finishing areas

that we talked about before.

That's the value added lines

attached to the pickle and tandem mill process.

And then the back is gonna be where our hot end goes.

The meld shop and our endless strip processing,

our ESP technology for casting and rolling

[Greg] Now in the past,

most of this stuff would've been spread out over several areas

or-- or maybe even a couple of different towns.

But you're doing everything right here.

[Dan] That's correct. We act as our own general contractor.

So you'll see buildings in different states

with concrete pours,

with girders and beams being put up,

with skins putting on the outside.

We actually get the buildings up,

and some of these buildings were actually storing

some of our equipment and already,

so it's under shelter.

Wow, this has been amazing, Dan.

Thank you so much.

I can't wait to see how this all develops.

But in the meantime, I've gotta get back to Inventionland.

-How about give me a ride to the gate? -Yeah.

[chuckles softly]

Hi, Dave, welcome to Inventionland.

Great to be here, George. Thanks for having me.

I couldn't wait for you to get here,

'cause I'd like to hear a little more

about the future of steel.

[Dave] Well, I'm holding the future of steel.

The future of steel is now.

Thin as a piece of paper. Feel that.

Mined, melted and made in the good old USA.

It's light too.

How strong?

[Dave] Durable as that heavy piece of steel you just picked up.

That's really cool.

I'm hearing some great things.

Greg was talking about everything you're doing down there,

and he then said a $3 billion plant being built right now.

[Dave] You know, you think about US Steel,

there's a lot of firsts associated with US Steel.

We've been around for 122 years.

Now we're the first US steel company

to set a net zero emissions target for 2050.

With the Big River,

we're the first ones to have

a lead certified mill in the United States.

And now, Responsible Steel has actually certified

the mill at Big River Steel.

So you've made a big investment in the future?

[Dave] Yeah, think about this steel.

This goes in the electric motors.

So you stamp it, you stack it.

And it's so lightweight,

that it lets the motors go further.

That is, further between charges,

so that you can actually take your-- your vehicle

on that long vacation.

With a new kind of steel that's lighter, stronger...

Only company to make it in the United States

that's 75% to 80% less GHG emissions.

-GHG, I'm sorry? -G--

[Dave] Greenhouse gas emissions.

-Ah. -We have to make sure

that we're doing our part to reduce that.

Well, I can't thank you enough for coming into Inventionland.

It's great to be here.

All right, take care now.