Comment by PaulHoule
12 days ago
Also those old open hearth furnaces are long gone, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHnJp0oyOxs
There are people making top quality steel in the US today by modern methods but it wasn't like the new replaced the old, the old mostly disappeared and we got a little bit of the new.
Yes, I should have been more clear there: they could catch up in volume but it will require a different mindset if they want to become a net exporter of such items.
To add a meta contribution to yours using anecdotes:
US pipeline for metallurgical R&D broken (by financial/cultural incentives)
This guy studied metallurgy in Carleton U, Canada, switched to CS, founded YC, emotionalized the decision
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39600555
Who knows, he might have become John Carmack's John Carmack, building rockets better than Carmack or Elon
And yet, it could be done, I'm pretty sure of that.