From Coal Locks to Garden-Like Mills: A Concept Note on Steel Transitions
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This note argues that “transition” in steelmaking has too often meant relocation and sectoral substitution rather than absolute reduction in extractive pressure. Reading past shifts—from charcoal to coke/coal and from open-hearth to basic oxygen furnaces—through Simondon’s lens, it diagnoses the blast-furnace regime as a resistive concretization that locks technical ensembles, places, and labour into coal-centred operations with enduring social and ecological burdens. As an alternative, it advances inchoative design: an ontological and design program that re-weaves couplings between steel systems and their associated milieus (technotopes). The note anticipates geographic re-sorting of production toward renewable-rich regions, changes in skill profiles (greater roles for electrochemistry and bio-processes), and the possibility to address historical environmental injustices through cleaner processes and tighter integration. Policy is framed as inchoation lifelines that systematically de-concretize coal-bound infrastructures and re-concretize garden-like mills—organisms within a larger ecological garden that cycle materials and energy with far less brute force. The result is a clear, advocacy-driven agenda for a participatory, intensive steel regime.
Author: Garattini, Ludovic
Institution: Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7080547820
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