The diffusion of new steelmaking technology

The share of electric arc furnace steel-making technology in world crude steel production has risen from 15% in 1970 to 34% in 1997. This trend has permanently altered the composition of metallics feed into the steel-making process since the electric arc furnace primarily uses scrap steel as feed, unlike the more traditional basic oxygen method, which uses iron ore and coking coal as feed. Continuation of this trend will have significant implications for iron ore and coking coal demand in the longer term. This paper uses the diffusion curve approach to technology adoption to model and forecast growth in the EAF share of crude steel production in Japan and the United States. The inclusion of a dynamic adoption ceiling within the diffusion model framework is a major advantage over previous work in this area. These models are applied to two of the world's largest steel producers, Japan and the United States. In Japan, the EAF share of steel production is forecast to rise from 32.8% in 1997 to 36.5% in 2010, and from 43.8% to 50.1% in the United States over the same period. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.