It's Discount Week! 🎁 Pick up new Marketplace gear at a discount when you donate today! Get My Gear!

Why is manufacturing activity up in some regions and down in others?

Jul 26, 2024
Different parts of the country make different products and often respond distinctly to economic trends.
Manufacturers' response to economic shocks depends in part on where they're located.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Why steel prices have been sagging all year

Jul 9, 2024
Slowing demand in construction and manufacturing in the U.S. and around the globe have pulled steel prices lower for months.
Two reasons steel prices have dropped? Slowed construction spending and flat-ish manufacturing activity.
David Becker/Getty Images

Electrical grid transformers could be more efficient with different steel. Here's the challenge.

Apr 22, 2024
Last year, the Department of Energy proposed using amorphous steel. But some electricity providers, power companies and steel plants objected.
Workers from United Auto Workers Local 3303 and community members gather in Butler, Pennsylvania, to hear how the proposed Department of Energy rule could impact their plant. The DOE ultimately walked back the efficiency mandates.
Julie Grant/The Allegheny Front

Once again: Who pays for tariffs on Chinese steel?

Apr 17, 2024
As the Biden administration proposes tripling duties, experts recall how previous tariffs mainly hit American consumers and industries.
President Joe Biden speaks to members of the United Steel Workers Union in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, announcing plans to raise tariffs on Chinese steel.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Higher tariffs may be bad for trade, but good for the environment

Oct 16, 2023
Recent research finds that higher tariffs on dirtier imports could reduce carbon emissions.
Steel production in the U.S. is a lot cleaner now than before the 1970s, thanks to the use of more energy-efficient electric arc furnaces. Above, a steel plant in Pennsylvania.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

U.S. Steel may be for sale, and union workers want a say on the buyer

Aug 25, 2023
The final outcome of the sale could have huge implications for both organized labor and the domestic steel economy.
There's a lot at stake for the employees of U.S. Steel. Whoever buys the company could chose to close plants or move operations overseas.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The steel sector is carbon-intensive. "Green steel" could be a game changer.

May 22, 2023
If you use renewable energy to make hydrogen and use the hydrogen to manufacture steel, the process would be friendlier to the environment.
Green hydrogen could be a way to wean raw steel production off coal, said Aaron Bergman of Resources for the Future. One barrier, though, is the limited supply of the substance.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

China’s efforts to address domestic problems can lead to global challenges

Restrictions on exports like fertilizer and steel have major economic ramifications for trading partners.
When the prices of fertilizer began to increase last year, China moved to restrict fertilizer exports. Above, workers move bags of fertilizer in China's northwest Qinghai province in 2005.
Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images

The bump in the road for improvements to infrastructure

Apr 20, 2022
President Biden is traveling the country to promote the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Inflation could derail or delay that spending.
President Biden is on an infrastructure tour of the US, discussing the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure law, but inflation is causing a few roadblocks.
Scott Eisen/ Getty Images

Biden requires infrastructure bill's materials made in U.S., with exceptions

Apr 18, 2022
U.S. industry doesn't produce enough of the materials, such as steel, to satisfy the need, so this may be more of an aspiration than a policy.
Biden is calling for materials funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill to be sourced domestically, but that's easier said than done.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images