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[Geography] Location Factors: Iron-Steel, Heavy Engineering, Automobilesfor UPSC GS Mains Paper 1 & Detroit Bankruptcy

1. Prologue

2. Iron-Steel industry

3. The three locations

1. #1: Near Forest

2. #2: Near coal fields

3. #3: Near coastal areas

4. Factor: Empty Wagons

1. Ural-Kuznetsk combine

2. Bokaro Rourkela Combine

3. The curious case of Cleveland

5. Factor: Coking coal Shortage

6. Factor: Technology

7. Industrial Inertia

1. Why industrial inertia?

2. Inertia due to Government Policy

8. Factor: strategic reasons

9. Factor: Developmental policies

10. Steel Based Industrial Regions

1. USA, Great Lakes-Pittsburg region

2. Canada: St Lawrence Valley

3. Germany, Ruhr Valley

4. Britain: Birmingham, Midlands

5. Sweden, Central region

6. CIS: Ural region

7. China: Steel industry

1. China: Backyard Furnaces

11. Integrated vs Mini steel plants

12. Desi Steel Plants

1. TISCO, Jamshedpur

2. Bokaro

3. Durgapur

4. Burnpur

5. Rourkela

6. Bhilai

7. Steel Plant: South India

1. Vishveshwarya, Karnataka

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2. Salem, TN

3. Vishakhapatnam, AP

13. Secondary industries

14. Heavy engineering industry

15. Shipbuilding industry

1. Japanese Shipbuilding industry

2. German Shipbuilding

16. Automobile industry

1. Detroit: Car Capital of World

2. Detroit Bankruptcy

3. Toyota-Nagoya region, Japan

4. Sanand, Ahmedabad: the Nano Factory

17. Machine tools

18. Light engineering industry

19. Mock Questions

Prologue

Separate Archive page for Geography created: Mrunal.org/geography (Just like I’vefor /economy, /diplomacy, /snt, /enb, /aptitude, /history)In the last four articles, we saw the industrial location factors for

1. Timber And Fish Industry

2. Natural Fibers: Wool, Cotton, Silk And Jute

3. Wheat, Corn, Milk, Meat, Pig, Poultry, Vegetable And Wine

4. Sugar, Tea, Coffee, Rubber And Cocoa

Now moving to Iron-Steel, heavy engineering and automobile industry, with disclaimeras usual: Disclaimer as usual: not covering everything, fill up the details as and whereyou find necessary.

Iron-Steel industry

Iron ore + coke + limestone ==heat==> pig iron.pig iron=more processing=>cast-iron, wrought iron, steel and variety of alloys

Thus, Essential inputs are

1. iron ore, coking coal and limestone2. water for cooling3. energy for heating

Steel industry also requires dolomite, manganese etc. but in small quantities=> theirpresence is not the main deciding factor for the location.

The three locations

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1. Near Forest2. Near Coalmines3. Near Coastal Areas

#1: Near Forest

Until the end of medieval period, iron production was done on small scale.Energy was immobile (No wires to move electricity, No trains to move coal).To produce five tons of iron, you had to chop down one acre of forest to getsufficient charcoal.Therefore, wood supply=primary factor for deciding location. And smelterswere usually setup near forest areasEven in Modern times, Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (Karnataka) was setupnear jungle to get wood-charcoal. (Later switched to hydro-electricity fromSharawati river)

#2: Near coal fields

During the Industrial Revolution, iron and steel industry were setup near coalmines,due to following reasons:

1. The coalfield region had a tradition of iron working based on charcoal as a resultcoalfield areas already had the labour and technology.

2. In Britain, iron ore was found embedded with coal seams= same area providedboth iron ore + coal

3. During that era, to process 1 tons of iron ore, you needed 8-12 tons of coal.Railway engines were also inefficient. So, weight-wise, it was cheaper totransport iron ore to coalfields rather than transporting coal to iron ore site.

Examples of Iron-industry near coalmines:

Germany Ruhr Valley, Saxony region

Britain Lancashire, York shire, South Wales

United States Appalachian-Pennsylvania-great Lakes

Australia New South Wales region

China Wuhan, Anshan, Chongqing

by the way,

Why do we need “Coking coal”?

Because Iron ore=has iron oxide. But We’re only interested in iron. So, we’ve to getrid of the “oxide” part.

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Then how can we remove the “oxide” part? Ans. Make him marry with carbon andform “Carbon dioxide”.But where will you get the carbon? Ans. Coking coal. Because Coking coal hashigh concentration of carbon, compared to cheap varieties of coal like Lignite.Therefore you’ve to mix the coking coal with iron ore.

Iron Ore (Iron Oxide) + Coking Coal (source of Carbon) + Limestone (reducingagent)=heat*=> Iron + CO2 + slag.

*for heating you can use other variety of coal / even electricity.

#3: Near coastal areas

By early 20th century the coal and iron ore mines in US-Europe started gettingdepleted. So, they started importing iron ore from other countries.As a result the iron space and steel industry started moving toward coastal sitesto reduce cost of transporting ores from port to factory via railways.

Japan Iron steel industry is developed @coastal areas/port