Steel is an alloy which has a high amount of iron and contains varying percentages of carbon. The carbon is mixed to come up with the steel alloy. Human beings started using steel in what came to be known as the Iron Age in the middle 1800’s. Since then, steel has become a major component in man’s life. Steel is involved in all aspects of our life. From social, economic and business steel will always be a part of us, though this can be changed if we get a better and cheaper element to replace steel. One of the biggest advantages of steel over other metals is the hardness and tensile strength that this metal possesses. Steel is also ductile and with additional amounts of carbon, it can even be made stronger and harder than iron.

In today’s world, about 1.4 billion tons of steel is produced making the metal, one of the most used common materials in the world. The steel industry has expanded in the last few centuries with Asia and the United States being some of the major players in this industry. The major element in steel iron is found deep down in the earth’s crust and is made up of oxygen and sulfur. The removal of oxygen from the iron ore gives us the product iron. The process of getting iron from ore is known as smelting and is done at very high temperatures.

Steel is obtained after a lot of carbon has been done away with from the original smelted iron. From the processing plant, iron which has been rolled into hot rolled sheets is bought by workers. When this is further processed, workers make hot rolled steel sheets and steel plates. In the current world markets, the hot rolled steel prices have been escalating due to the high cost of fuel that is used to process the iron.

Another advantage of using steel in our day to day lives is that steel can be recycled. Most governments have invested in steel recycling plants that mostly recycle steel products that have been used and discarded. In the United States, steel happens to be the most recycled material. The steel scrap is one of the most crucial and essential raw materials in the making of steel news.

Many governments have come up with strong economic reforms that have favored the steel industry and thus, we have so many steel plants all over the world. However, this has not stopped the prices of steel from escalating as oil prices went up. The smelting plants are run using diesel and the rise in diesel prices have contributed in rising steel price.

Steel products are all over our houses and working places from soda cans, roofing sheets, farming machines, airplane parts, the vehicles we drive and many other day to day products we use.