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Jakob Ehrensvärd | profile | all galleries >> Decay, ruins, wrecks and scrap >> The ancient blast furnace tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

The ancient blast furnace

The massive rationalizations fuelled by the boom in the demand for steel in the 1950s triggered a wave of closures of old steel manufacturing plants, foundries and blast furnaces which were part of the "old school". A labor intensive school characterized by small units producing in batches with high energy consumption in a time when environmental responsibility was something unknown. A time where the result ultimate relied on the skill and subjective judgement of the masters. Where automation was something unknown.

With a daily output of some 40 tons of pig iron (less than 10.000 tons a year) it's somewhat staggering to consider at the time of closure in 1959, massive coke-fired blast furnaces were built around the world having yearly output in the range of 1 million tons.
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