Jonathan SchofieldSep 27, 2025

The UK is trumpeting #rail200: the 200th anniversary of the railway. As @markhburton points out, that’s a bit premature: https://mstdn.social/@markhburton/113803780435711720

But I want to re-up Kris de Dekker’s lens.

If we were serious about constructing a low carbon economy, we’d acknowledge, soberly, that we have a steel problem:

“The global iron and steel industry consumes more energy and produces more carbon emissions than any other industry.”

Some notes from Kris’s excellent analysis follow…

Mark Burton (@[email protected])

2025 is being celebrated as the 200th anniversary of the birth of the passenger railway. A bit premature, although there was a one-off excursion on the Stockton and Darlington railway, with passengers traveling on coal wagons, the regular passenger service from 1825-1830 used horse-drawn coaches. In 1830, the Liverpool Manchester railway opened, the first connecting 2 cities and the first scheduled passenger service. Stockton and Darlington Railway - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_and_Darlington_Railway #rail200

Mastodon 🐘
Show threadSimon BrookeSep 28, 2025

@urlyman @markhburton I wrote about this four years ago. We're really going to struggle, in the medium term, for sufficient structural materials, especially steel, and we cannot, as a society, afford to be profliigate with it.

https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2021-08-18-wheres-the-steel/

There's a researcher called Simon Michaux who has done a lot of work on this.

Where's the Steel?

From the discovery of iron working techniques, about 3,200 years ago, up until the widespread exploitation of fossil fuels, about 250 years ago, iron and steel were rare, precious materials. The average person, across the whole world, almost certainly had less than 500 grammes of it. A knife, probably; some tool of their trade, possibly. Even members of the elite — warriors who fought in full armour, for example — probably owned no more than 30kg of iron and steel.The use of fossil fuel changed all that, of course. There's about one car for every two people in the UK, and the average car now weighs 1857Kg, so that's almost a ton per person in cars alone, not to mention all the steel we now have in buildings and infrastructure. But it's fossil fuels that have made that possible. In future, we can't use them. So how much steel will we have?

The Fool on the Hill
Show threadMark BurtonSep 28, 2025
@simon_brooke @urlyman
And Valero, A., Valero, A., & Calvo, G. (2021). The Material Limits of Energy Transition: Thanatia. Springer
International Publishing AG. ISBN (ebook) 978-3-030-78533-8
The UKFIRES Report 'Absolute Zero' is also good and concise on steel. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/33aaf353-b7de-45b0-9c40-5f62975b2127
Absolute Zero

We can’t wait for breakthrough technologies to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, we can plan to respond to climate change using today’s technologies with incremental change. This will reveal many opportunities for growth but requires a public discussion about future lifestyles.

Show threadSimon BrookeSep 28, 2025

@markhburton @urlyman See, that report is all simple common sense, and yet no political party -- not even the bloody #Greens -- are even trying to sell this vision. It's a good vision, it would work, and if we adopt it RIGHT NOW there is (just) still time.

Why isn't ANYONE pushing this?

Show threadMark BurtonSep 28, 2025
@simon_brooke @urlyman Indeed.
We used it in the Getting Real report. Sent a year ago (if my MP's office did what they said they had) to approx 80 potentially sympathetic parliamentarians and separately to policy people, not one of whom even acknowledged it
https://gettingreal.org.uk/full-report/
Full Report | Getting Real about the Crises Facing the UK

Read the full report The pdf version will open in your browser or pdf reader. Or Download the print version Complete wit

Getting Real about the Crises Facing the UK
Show threadSimon BrookeSep 28, 2025
@markhburton @urlyman (I do wish people would publish these documents as HTML, which can be read on literally any device including paper, instead of PDF which is basically unreadable unless printed)
Show threadMichael EdwardsSep 28, 2025
@simon_brooke @markhburton @urlyman
Sorry but I read a lot of PDFs. Why do you say they are 'basically unreadable'…??
Show threadJonathan SchofieldSep 28, 2025

@MichaelLondonSF

IMO Simon’s statement is a cry of anguish more than measured. But I am with him in spirit because:

- PDFs are generally deeply inaccessible (it is very rare that they are well-made from that standpoint)
- from a viewport perspective, PDFs are entirely unable to adapt to the available width
- PDFs consume way more bandwidth than HTML equivalents

They are good at the purpose for which the PDF standard was conceived and terrible for everything else

@simon_brooke @markhburton

Show threadMichael EdwardsSep 28, 2025
@urlyman @markhburton @simon_brooke ok thanks
Show threadSimon BrookeSep 28, 2025

@MichaelLondonSF @urlyman @markhburton This is what the HTML version of Mark's report looks like on my screen. I've applied a basic stylesheet of my own choosing, and can consequently read without the glare of a white screen or the eye strain of absurdly small fonts.

You may not like my choice of stylesheet, but that's fine -- you can provide your own. But I ask you, honestly, is this not easier to read than the PDF?

https://gettingreal.org.uk/getting-real-full-report-html/

Show threadMark BurtonSep 28, 2025
@simon_brooke @MichaelLondonSF @urlyman
Interesting is personal taste - I always switch everything to black font on white ground!
Show threadSimon Brooke
@markhburton @MichaelLondonSF @urlyman which works for many people; it's not my preference. But that is the delight of the web; it enables us to all read the same texts, but each in a format we individually find conducive to easy reading.
Sep 28, 2025 at 5:29pmWeb