Tag: Manufacturing

Energy Crisis in Australia: Costs are 3 or 4 times higher than the US, manufacturing is at a ‘tipping point’

The CEO of Bluescope Steel is a fan of renewables, but for Mark Vassella to make steel, what he wants is cheap gas, not wind and solar power — and he’s getting desperate. These are strong words from a CEO of one our Big-50. “Manufacturing is at a ‘tipping point” he says. “Energy costs are now 3 to 4 times higher than the US”. 

A dark image of Australia with the text 'NET ZERO AUSTRALIA' prominently displayed at the top.

JoNova

By Jo Nova

Molten steel being poured in a manufacturing facility, showcasing industrial processes.

What’s left of Australian manufacturing

The CEO of Bluescope Steel is a fan of renewables, but for Mark Vassella to make steel, what he wants is cheap gas, not wind and solar power — and he’s getting desperate. These are strong words from a CEO of one our Big-50. “Manufacturing is at a ‘tipping point” he says. “Energy costs are now 3 to 4 times higher than the US”.  Furthermore, “Without immediate intervention there will be no Future Made in Australia.” — He twists the knife, talking about the PM’s pet project (the one where we somehow make solar and wind power here cheaper than the slaves do in China. )

He’s especially scathing of the idea that one of the biggest exporters of LNG in the world, now has to import it back.

“ In what world does exporting LNG in massive quantities only to re-import it to supply a shorter domestic market make any sense? It’s like importing sand into the Sahara.”

Vassella knows US and Australian energy prices all too well. Bluescope also own the North Star steel mill in Ohio and is looking to expand further in the US.

BlueScope CEO: Manufacturing at ‘tipping point’ over energy costs

By Perry Williams, The Australian

“Today, the situation is more dire than ever,” BlueScope chief executive Mark Vassella said after its annual results on Monday.

“Manufacturing is at a tipping point with energy costs that are no longer just too high, but unsustainable. What was once our competitive advantage is gone.”

“And let me be really clear about this,” Mr Vassella said. “This does not increase our sovereign risk. Restricting exporters from buying domestic gas for re-export and prioritising domestic supply over LNG imports. In what world does exporting LNG in massive quantities only to re-import it to supply a shorter domestic market make any sense? It’s like importing sand into the Sahara.”

A large LNG (liquefied natural gas) tanker sailing on the ocean, featuring multiple spherical storage tanks on its deck.

BlueScope warns soaring energy costs threaten Australian manufacturing as profit drops 90pc

ABC News

BlueScope has sounded the alarm over Australia’s energy crisis, warning that unsustainably high gas prices are pushing domestic manufacturing to a “tipping point”.

The steelmaker has reported a full year profit of $84 million, a 90 per cent drop from the $721 million reported a year ago.

“Without immediate intervention there will be no Future Made in Australia.”

Mr Vassella said BlueScope had submitted a detailed response to the federal government’s Gas Market Review including suggested immediate and long-term changes.

At least he’s honest about why he likes unreliable generators — they buy his steel. So he repeats the impossible mantra:

“We need more energy, we need it to be renewable, we need it to be reliable, we need it to be affordable,” Mr Vassella said. “And we were supportive of the wind industry. Our products go into the wind farm industry.”

Just so everyone can appreciate the historic inanity of our situation — this graph below is the state of the top five players in the global LNG export market.

Australia is sending off ships full of LNG only to pay someone else to turn them around and send them back.

Graph showing monthly liquefied natural gas exports from select countries including the United States, Australia, Qatar, Russia, and Malaysia from January 2016 to December 2024.
EIA 

Alternately we could just dig up more brown coal, more black coal, some uranium, or we could explore for more gas, but we don’t because we dream of being a better global weather controller.

Interestingly the US has launched itself out of bottom left during the first Trump presidency, right through Covid, and it kept on growing (despite Joe and Kamala).

Photo: Smelter From a  Bluescope video | Photo: LNG carrie by Shahamah

Time to Face the Facts: The Real Environmental Cost of EVs! Electric Vehicles Are Saving The Planet!

In this video, we delve into the lesser-known aspects of electric vehicles (EVs) and their environmental impact. We challenge the common narrative of EVs as the ultimate green machines and explore the hidden pollutants that often go unnoticed.

Piston Pundit

In this video, we delve into the lesser-known aspects of electric vehicles (EVs) and their environmental impact. We challenge the common narrative of EVs as the ultimate green machines and explore the hidden pollutants that often go unnoticed.

*️⃣ 00:00 | Intro Reason

6️⃣ 00:38 | The CO2 Conundrum. Reason

5️⃣ 01:42 | The Manufacturing Maze. Reason

4️⃣ 02:59 | The Power Paradox Reason

3️⃣ 04:07 | The Hidden Pollutants: Tires and Brakes. Reason

2️⃣ 05:25 | The Battery Conundrum Reason

1️⃣ 06:41 | The Other Polluters

In summary, this video provides a comprehensive look at the environmental impact of EVs, going beyond just CO2 emissions. We invite you to join us on this enlightening journey as we uncover the truth about electric vehicles and their role in our sustainable future.

#PistonPundit #electricvehicle #electriccar #electrictruck #electricsuv #truckreview #suvreview #carreview #fordtrucks #gmctrucks #toyotatrucks #hybridvehicles

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Stay tuned for more content about the latest models, comparisons, and comprehensive reviews from the world of cars!

Disclaimer: This video is not sponsored. All opinions expressed are our own.

China Looking to Build EV Factories in Mexico to Avoid U.S. Tariffs on Its Imports

BYD, China’s largest EV auto maker, which recently surpassed Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, is reviewing potential locations for a plant in Mexico that would allow it to bring its low-cost electric vehicles into the United States.

By IER (instituteforenergyresearch.org)

Key Takeaways

1

China’s BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, is scoping out Mexico, where labor costs are low, to locate a new EV plant as a backdoor manufacturing hub for their entrance into the U.S. market.

2

Cars imported directly into the United States from China are assessed a 27.5 percent tariff, while those from Mexico are assessed at most a 2.5 percent tariff.

3

American manufacturers are concerned because China can manufacture cars at a much lower cost as it dominates and controls the EV energy supply chain, including the processing of necessary minerals.

4

BYD currently sells most of its vehicles domestically in China but is making inroads by offshoring manufacturing in obliging countries.

5

The U.S. EV market is ripe due to Biden’s strident push for electric vehicles including subsidies and mandates designed to force people out of internal combustion vehicles.

BYD, China’s largest EV auto maker, which recently surpassed Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, is reviewing potential locations for a plant in Mexico that would allow it to bring its low-cost electric vehicles into the United States. Mexico offers close proximity to U.S. markets, relatively low labor costs and the opportunity to take advantage of low or zero tariffs on made-in-Mexico vehicles. Some of the locations BYD is considering are near the U.S. border. At least a dozen Chinese electric-car component suppliers have also announced new factories or added to their existing investments in Mexico in recent years. They are responding to a U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal that encourages carmakers in North America to use locally sourced materials.

BYD is looking to expand globally as it has an excess domestic EV inventory. CEOs at rival automakers have warned about the potential threat from China, with some suggesting the need for more government action to avert such competition in the United States as Chinese automakers have a big cost advantage in the electric vehicle market with China’s dominance of the battery supply chain and processing of essential minerals. Through engineering, government subsidies and lower labor costs, BYD and other China-based EV makers have been able to entice customers with stylish and technologically advanced electric vehicles at attractive prices. If China can lock buyers into electric vehicles dependent upon its dominant supply chains, it would strengthen its position as the world’s leading car manufacturer.

BYD’s low-price electric vehicles have gained traction with buyers in places such as Europe and Southeast Asia. Europe, where Chinese EV imports are strong due to their lower price and Europe’s net zero carbon goals, is conducting an investigation into whether China provided subsidies to the industry unfairly, making it more difficult for European EV carmakers to compete. The investigation could result in new tariffs if EU officials find the Chinese companies are receiving unfair subsidies. The Biden administration is monitoring Chinese investment in Mexico amid concerns Chinese businesses could take advantage of North American free-trade agreement rules.

Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Chrysler-parent Stellantis, likened China’s potential entry in the United States to the arrival of the Japanese automakers in the 1970s and South Korean firms in the 1990s, calling their expansion as “very Powerful.” Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk also expressed similar concerns, saying the Chinese companies have already had significant success outside of China and are now the “most competitive” in the world.

Currently, Chinese-built electric vehicles are subject to a 27.5 percent tariff when imported into the United States that is composed of a 2.5 percent tariff that generally applies to imported cars plus an additional 25 percent tariff on Chinese-made cars that was introduced by the Trump administration in 2018. The Biden administration is debating whether to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles further, and the Inflation Reduction Act limits eligibility for a $7,500 consumer tax credit for cars built with batteries made by Chinese companies.

In comparison, cars made at a Chinese-owned factory in Mexico would only be faced with the 2.5 percent tariff upon entering the United States and could possibly pay no tariff if they met stringent standards for local content under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement adopted in 2020.

Executives at Toyota estimated that Chinese companies had a 25 percent to 30 percent cost advantage over global competitors when manufacturing electric vehicles—more than enough to overcome the small 2.5-percent U.S. tariff. Pushing EV adoption too quickly would serve, however, as an invitation for Chinese EV companies including BYD, Geely and NIO to enter rigorously into the U.S. EV market. President Biden has a goal of electric vehicles making up 50 percent of new car sales by 2030, and his EPA and Department of Transportation have proposed rules that would effectively force electric vehicles to make up two-thirds of new car sales in 2032. The Biden Administration is pushing electric vehicles upon manufacturers and consumers and enticing them with subsidies for vehicles and charging stations.

BYD sees other potential uses for the plant in Mexico, including using it as an export hub for shipping cars to South America or sending batteries and other car parts to the United States. In China, BYD makes many EV parts in-house, including its EV batteries, to reduce costs—advantages it may or may not be able to replicate in Mexico. In North America, the company currently sells electric buses and trucks made at its location in Lancaster, California.

Conclusion

Chinese companies are looking into building EV car factories in Mexico to take advantage of the Mexico-U.S.-Canada trade agreement and avoid hefty tariffs on imports of electric vehicles coming directly from China. In particular, BYD, China’s largest EV automaker that recently surpassed Tesla in sales, is looking at locations in Mexico near the U.S. border. Chinese companies have a 25 to 30 percent cost advantage over U.S. competitors because of dominance in the EV battery supply chain and processing of critical minerals as well as low-cost labor and attractive energy prices. CEOs of U.S. automakers are worried that China could make a serious dent in the EV market as Japan and South Korea have done in the conventional auto market previously. With onerous proposed EV rules by Biden administration agencies on U.S. carmakers, the competition could be disastrous for legacy car makers, who are currently losing vast sums on meeting Biden’s EV goals.

Britain is Leading the World in Committing Economic Suicide

From The Daily Sceptic

BY DAVID CRAIG

As our leaders bicker over how fast Britain should get to Net Zero, you’ll hear politicians, eco-zealots and media pundits claiming that Britain is leading the world in reducing our country’s CO2 emissions. This is one of the few statements about climate made by our ruling elites which does actually appear to be true. Since 1990, Britain’s CO2 emissions have almost halved from 604 million metric tons to just under 350 million tons by 2022. That equates to a drop from 10 metric tons per capita in 1990 to below five tons per capita:

While celebrating this great supposed ‘success’, our politicians, media and eco-activists often seem less keen to explain how this reduction in CO2 emissions was achieved.

Here’s another chart. It shows the share of the U.K.’s GDP made up by manufacturing:

Since 1990, the year U.K. CO2 emissions started falling, the percentage of U.K. GDP from manufacturing has also halved from just over 16% to around 8%.
Moreover, during the same period, the number of people employed in U.K. manufacturing has dropped from 4,963,000 to just 2,601,000. A cynic mighty be tempted to wonder what happened to all those hundreds of thousands of highly-skilled, highly-paid green jobs that our rulers promised us would be created in Britain by the energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.

For years the U.K. has had some of the world’s highest energy prices due to our replacement of cheap, reliable fossil fuels with expensive, unreliable and intermittent supposed ‘renewables’. In 2022, in the U.K., which gets only 42% of its electricity from fossil fuels, household energy cost $0.41/kWh. In France, where 70% of its electricity comes from cheap, reliable nuclear, electricity costs were just $0.21/kWh – almost half the U.K. price. In the U.S., which generates about 60% of its energy from fossil fuels, the price was $0.18/kWh – less than half the U.K.’s cost. In China, where 55% of electricity comes from coal and a total of 83% comes from fossil fuels, household electricity costs are only $0.08/kWh – a quarter of the U.K.’s cost. There is a similar picture in India, where over 75% of electricity generation is from fossil fuels, of which three quarters comes from cheap, energy-rich coal, household energy costs only $0.07/kWh – a sixth of the U.K. cost.

So, just to put all of this into context, we can look at how much of the U.K.’s GDP comes from manufacturing – making real things that people in Britain and abroad want to buy – compared to our major competitors. In 2022, 8% of the U.K.’s GDP came from manufacturing compared to 9% for France, 12% for the U.S.A., 13% for India, 14% for Italy, 18% for Germany and a massive 28% for China.

A picture is emerging which suggests that the more a country relies on renewables for its electricity, the higher are its energy costs and the lower is the percentage of its GDP made up by manufacturing.

Economist Richard Salsman wrote: “The science of economics is clear: the production of money and debt is not equivalent to the production of real wealth. To claim otherwise is to follow fantasy, not reality – or science.”

As we in Britain enthusiastically print money and increase national debt in pursuit of our Net Zero goals, we seem to be wrecking U.K. manufacturing with high energy prices thus committing economic suicide as U.K. manufacturing moves to countries with lower energy costs. It’s more than astonishing that not a single one of our politicians and media supposed ‘experts’ seem to understand or are willing to admit what is actually happening and how the U.K. is committing an extraordinary act of self-mutilation by cutting the country’s CO2 emissions.

If there really was a climate crisis, the U.K.’s economic suicide to supposedly save the planet might be justified. But as I try to explain in my most recent book There is No Climate Crisis, there is no emergency that warrants such extreme actions. Yes, the Earth has probably warmed up a little since the freezing 1960s and 1970s when many experts were panicking about global cooling and the advent of a new ice age, which experts predicted would cause crop failures, mass starvation, the migration of millions from the cooling North towards warmer countries and wars over scarce food supplies. But this warming is just part of a natural cycle of warming and cooling driven mainly by the Earth’s rotation, solar activity and cloud cover. Moreover, the ice caps aren’t melting, in spite of the Guardian and the New York Times regularly predicting their demise. The polar bears are doing fine. In fact there may be so many of them that they may have difficulty finding sufficient food. The Great Barrier Reef has record levels of coral. Around five times as much U.S. forest burned each year in the scorching hot 1920s and 1930s as is burnt now. Even the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) admits that there has been no acceleration in sea level rise for the last 100 years. And the number of people killed by extreme weather events has fallen by over 95% in the last 120 or so years in spite of the world’s population quadrupling from under two billion in 1900 to almost eight billion now.

It’s a pity that those dragging us towards their Net Zero nirvana aren’t a bit more forthcoming about the economic devastation that their deluded policies are inflicting upon us.

David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.