Word: blasted
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...disputes that most of America's old, integrated mills--the ones that make steel from iron ore in huge blast furnaces--are ailing badly. In 1998, amid a financial crisis that dampened Asia's demand for steel, exports from that region flooded the U.S. and drove prices to 20-year lows. Thirty U.S. steelmakers have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past five years, including icons such as LTV and Bethlehem Steel. With a strong dollar still favoring imports and a global recession crimping demand, the U.S. firms staying afloat say their position is precarious. The most efficient and profitable...
...Slovak Republic and committed itself to a 10-year, $700 million capital-improvement plan. The Slovak company had squandered millions on dubious investments, including a travel agency, a soccer team and lavish holiday homes for executives. But the plant was relatively modern, with 100% continuous casting and three blast furnaces. U.S. Steel stamped out corrupt purchasing practices and shifted production to more profitable products. Result: while USX-U.S. Steel's American business recorded a $177 million operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2001, USSK, its Slovak subsidiary, earned income of $2 million...
...visit to the firm's Kwangyang operation shows why it's a global leader. Completed in 1992, the plant is laid out like a big assembly line, with barges transporting raw materials like iron ore in one end and finished steel out the other end. Capacity in the blast furnaces matches capacity in rolling mills down the line, yielding efficiencies. The plant is highly computerized, workers aren't unionized, and POSCO doesn't bear heavy pension costs...
...characters against a historical landscape, the Canadian author traces the life of Anton B?ll, a German scientist who was a star of the Manhattan Project, as his journey entwines with that of Emiko Amai, a little girl from Hiroshima who lost her face to the world's first atomic blast...
...that ultimately leads to understanding. For B?ll, the scientific triumph of his career has become a paralyzing albatross, quietly hounding his conscience. "Dreams," B?ll concedes, "sometimes become nightmares." The book's pages, too, are haunted with visions of the devastation: "polka dots and stripes, the clothing patterns that the blast imprinted on the skin...