The Global Cost of Corrosion
impact.nace.orgThis is an important issue. People keep talking about recycling, but much more important than recycling is just being able to use a thing for longer before you are even thinking about recycling it.
Japanese automakers did the world a great favor when in the 80s and 90s they made much longer lasting cars and made longevity and resale value an important consideration in the purchasing decision. They did this mostly by using better paints and making sure cars and car parts are painted more thoroughly.
There are modern materials that prevent corrosion. Here is a company that sells ordinary looking paper that you can use to wrap anything and it will prevent it from rusting.
Porsche started galvanizing their bodies in the 1970s, VW started in the 1980s, Japan only started galvanizing their bodies in export markets, in response to the germans, and only recently (last 15 years) have been galvanizing all their bodies domestic and import.
>have been galvanizing all their bodies domestic and import.
This is because there's basically no market for used cars older than 5 years in Japan
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.picknbuy24.com/amp/column_1...
It's not uncommon to buy used car like newer than 10yo in Japan now. I can see many such cars at the road side used car shop. Because Japanese people especially in rural area (who need car) getting poor relatively, newer cars getting expensive thanks to safety and comfortable equipment, and reliability is improved, used cars getting more reasonable. After 13yo, vehicle tax increases so it's not popular but still sold, especially kei-cars are sold well because it's cheap for tax.
Still, according to this popular used car site, vehicle made in 2002-2011 is listed 109k, 2012-2021 is 319k so newer cars are more sold well. https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/index.html
Is this new in Japan or has it always been the way?
There have been used car market like now at least for 25 years, but I believe acceptable car age getting wider. 8yo car should be fine to buy also in 2012.
Getting poor ?
There's a huge export market though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_used_vehicle_export...
I read that something like 60% of cars registered in NZ are Japanese imports.
IMHO Japanese used car exports have a lot of the characteristics of "dumping" (in trade terms) but because there is no local vehicle manufacturing in most of the places they end up, nobody complains.
Yep, a huge number of our cars are Japanese imports. It means we can get a 5 year old Toyota/Mazda for the equivalent of about $6-7000 USD (or cheaper imported privately), which will run for another 150,000km with little difficulty.
We mostly don't have snow and I don't think any region salts their roads, so rust isn't much of an issue with something that new.
Dumping is when a country is subsidizing domestic production and selling a good internationally below cost. Japan isn't dumping because they don't subsidize the manufacturer. Instead they just have onerous regulations that make private parties sell their cars. They artificially stimulated local demand
I feel like that is a self-perpetuating cycle. Japanese carmakers build cars to rust out in half a decade and thus nobody wants to buy old rustbuckets thus the carmakers don't bother to build them to last.
It is a actually a legal and insurance issue in Japan. The costs are not tied to the quality of the vehicle. If it costs more to recertify a perfectly functional used vehicle than lease a brand new one, it makes sense to opt for new one.
A HUGE reform to our “throw-away 1 ton of iron” culture of ecology in Europe would be to rewrite the insurance estimates of cars.
The fact that insurances value a car of 35k€ at, I’m guessing, 25k€ at the exit of the garage, then 18, 12, 7, 4, 2k€ the following years, means that people see no value in used cars.
Whereas the real value of a car is certainly 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20k€ along the years, and when one recycles it, it’s actually a huge new cost for the household, for a car that could last 20 years. It breaks after 7 years? “Yeah buying a differential costs more than the entire price of the car, sir.”
But it isn't the insurance that defines the price,it is the sales market. It doesn't matter if insurance says it is worth 20k if people will only pay 2k
This was true in the 60s and 70s for Jap cars, they didnt make them to rust, they just didnt rust prevent like they do now. Go watch youtube and watch some rust belt mechanics like south main auto and u will see what what cars rust and what cars last now (hint, US made cars dont even last 10yrs with salt)
I personally drive a jap car from the 90s and 400+k on the clock. I can fix everything myself including rebuilding anything i need. My wipers arnt controlled by a CANN BUS, they use a simple mechanical switch. There is a new killer on the block that makes corrision look like childs play - its called computers. Cars these days are literly THROW away with the amount of electronics on them. Replacing the guage cluster on a new econo-car like a hyuandi can cost upwards of 8k. Instance write-off, doesnt matter that the engines wont lost 150k, because the electronics that manage it are discontinued way before that. Got a broken wire in your loom? thats 5k to replace.
The GP talked about Japan only applied rust protection on cars for the export market. Their domestic cars were designed to rust out.
Some Japanese brands are "galvanizing" instead of proper electro-galvanizing. Here is investigation into Mazda, legendary for rotting into nothing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mazda3/comments/adioma/polish_autom...
the mazda3 used to be terrible for rusting but they changed something in 2007, a collegue mazda3 was from 2006 and it rusted so much thast it had almost no resale value, my gf mazda3 from 2008 sill looks new...
p.s. I live in a place were salt used to be applied aggressively in the winter. Nowadays they use more sand and only use salt when the road conditions really requires it. but it's a recent development (3 years at best)
The test was in 2019. Mazda was spraying a coat of zinc paint, dedicated metallurgical instrument was unable to detect galvanization process. Manufacturer protested claiming a coat of zinc is coat of zinc regardless of uniformity, adherence, purity or quality :)
Famously, 1990's Mitsubishi and Subaru vehicles can basically rust down to the frame before the drivetrain stops functioning. And they don't wait long to start on the former.
Interesting. Mine is a 2004 wrx and getting full of holes, but mechanic keeps assuring me drive train is solid and perfectly safe to drive.
I'm not confident enough on when that era ended to say it magically ended in 2000, just that it hadn't ended by late enough in the 90's to use a big fat brush and say "the 90's". The closest I've been to a Mitsubishi or Subaru maven is 2 degrees of separation.
Toyotas cost nothing compared to Porches, so 1-0 Japan vs rest of the world.
VW is an affordable brand.
And Skoda and SEAT are even more affordable brands, and essentially the same cars.
VW has been caught lying about the capabilities of their cars, then the executives blamed the engineers to cover their asses. If one needs a reason to forget about VW.
VW was the _first_ company selling diesel powered passenger vehicles to be caught lying. Opel/GM, Chrysler, Nissan, Jeep, Renault, Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and Porsche were all later caught somehow skirting diesel emissions testing. Basically all large truck manufacturers did it too.
Clean diesel is a myth, it never was a thing and the only reason anyone thought it was was because the entire auto industry was lying to regulators and customers for decades.
Of these other scandals, which other companies have their, "executives blamed the engineers"
That is what I was highlighting. Not, "mistakes were made" but, "And they were, points fingers at scapegoat"
It's not fair to call those manufacturers are criminal like VW. VW (Bosch) cheats the emission test deliberately, but some other manufacturers don't cheat but emission is bad when condition is worse than test environment.
Toyota has their fair share of similar scandals. Maybe none at such as scale as WW, but still.
Unless you happen to think that reduced car ownership is good for the world!
Or, even better for the environment , we could kill all of human civilization! /s
>This is an important issue. People keep talking about recycling, but much more important than recycling is just being able to use a thing for longer before you are even thinking about recycling it.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order
Well perhaps "retain" should be added. Making something last longer isn't quite "reduce" or "reuse".
Isn’t it reuse?
Reduce - don’t buy another car, reuse - keep using your car, or buy a used car, recycle - sell your old car for scrap.
Well I think of reuse as.. use it again after you've used it once. As opposed to, keep using it the first time and make its initial use last longer.
Perhaps we should add, "Reconsider" as in, "Reconsider purchasing the item, when it's not needed, or a better alternative exists".
Is there a difference between "reconsider" and "reduce"?
"Reduce" would imply "Do less of" while "reconsider" would imply "Maybe something else fits better". Instead of reducing your usage of plastic bags, reconsider if maybe paper bags works as well?
Which would reduce your use of plastic bags.
There would be a difference between reducing your use of motor vehicles and reconsidering using them at all if our lifestyle allows us to use an alternative, like an ebike.
Thanks for the downvotes for simply openly suggesting something fairly benign. A real vibrant and healthy community we have here.
And repair. Repairing always uses fewer resources than making new.
While I personally and professionally select use repairable items in lieu of non-repairable ones, I believe that this is not entirely a personal issue. Another r-word to add should be regulation. Without some degree of enforcement, the present set of incentives will continue to worsen the situation.
That's only true if you don't count skilled labor as a "resource". Repairing badly corroded vehicles isn't economically viable because it takes so much work to cut and weld the corroded body and frame parts. So that kind of repair is only done for collector items. Regular cars just get junked and replaced.
recycling is an issue of material consumption and pollution - if you are optimising for time and convenience, single use plastic is the best thing ever.
And labour is expensove because rent is expensive. Countries with cheap rent have enough labour to repair things, countries with expensive rent are throwing away perfectly good dishwasher because 1 motor must be replaced and there is noone to do it.
I was just listening to an economic analyst bleating how a potential fall in house prices would be terrible. Noone is reflecting on the fact that housing shortage has done more economic damage than the Plague.
Reduce trash by retaining things for longer. :D
But you're right, IMO. Maybe it should be retain, if you can't retain try to reduce, if you can't reduce reuse, if you can't reuse recycle
I think the idea is reducing consumption and it falls under that.
There is also a 0th R-word in that truism, which is "Refuse".
Refuse is funny because depending on how you pronounce it, it might not fit well.
Exactly. Reducing is the exact opposite of oxidising. Don't let your car rust!
Volvo led the way in this long before Japan got even close to figuring this out. That's why you still see ancient Volvo's drive around in numbers that are just way higher than any other brand.
I got the impression Volvo was able to do this for fairly small production runs, whereas the Japanese figured out how to consistently do it in large volumes.
That may well be so, Japanese cars had an absolutely terrible reputation for being rustbuckets in the 70's so they had to do something about it. Given the number of them that were manufactured the fact that they are so rare today is as far as I know uniquely due to the rust problem.
Mazdas are still rustbuckets today.
Mazda mostly sorted out their rust issues by the 2010s depending on model. A couple decades late, but they're pretty good now.
Isn't the Mazda 3 a really, really popular and pretty well-regarded car?
Yeah, it's a good car. Until it rusts. Supposedly they've fixed the rust problems in the new Skyactiv models, but I'd be weary of any Mazda before 2018.
Oh so you mean it quite literally - that's it's very rust prone.
Interesting! Any information on what they did wrong?
I'd say the Japanese figured out how to make this happen on a cheap car. Almost all high end european cars (including Volvos) had great rustproofing for a long time but cost far more than Japanese cars. The Japanese made the first reliable and long lasting low priced cars.
I think that was what I wanted to say. Thank you for putting it more clearly.
(In my mind, European craft production results in pricey cars, whereas large volumes only make sense for cheaper stuff.)
I came here to mention this about Volvos. Starting with the 7xx series (1982 on) they have been virtually rustproof. Old 7xx volvos are crazy cheap because they last forever, and there just isn't enough demand for the huge numbers of them still around...
Funny that you mention Volvo and I'm reading this today, since this weekend I was commenting to a friend that my 2004 XC70 had not a bit of rust even though it has spent all its time in the NE. I see so many much newer cars driving around that are very rusty.
Galvanized sheetmetal with a good quality coating will last you a lifetime.
But beware of accidents, make sure all the seams are checked near the point of impact and some way back from there.
I wonder if this is because Volvo comes from a country with strong winters? (although japan is an island with probably lots of salt water corrosion)
Are modern Volvos still better than average for corrosion resistance?
Somewhere in the late 90's early 2000's car manufacturers switched paint processes, typically to a water based paint.
That's the point in time where you could see the most clearly which manufacturers had their house in order in terms of weld cleaning, seam coating, basic material procurement and surface protection.
Some of them failed horribly, which led to some brands (for instance: Mercedes) having an undisclosed hit against their earnings to deal with the resulting rust issues on relatively new cars. It wasn't rare at all to see an early 2000's C-Class in the shop for the replacement of four doors, bonnet and rear hatch. And it wasn't rare to see them completely rusted out either a few years later. From Q1 2003 they galvanized those panels and then the problem stopped.
So everybody smartened up and now things are much better, to the point that there hardly are cars made that have serious rust issues. Coatings are a continuous materials science development front and some of the stuff that happened in the last decade and a half is extremely impressive.
Car bodies used to be gone long before the engines, those days are over.
VAG, Volvo, Mercedes, BMW all have a very good reputation nowadays for being rust resistant, I would not know of a favorite between those. By the way, Volvo is now Chinese (bought by scooter manufacturer Geely).
My own car is a 1997 (just before they switched paint formulation for that particular brand) and there isn't a spot of rust on it and as far as I know it has never had body work done. (Don't get me started about engines though...)
I find this entertaining. Come to upstate NY, USA where we liberally salt our roads in the winter. Definitely not "everybody" smartened up as it's still very common to find vehicles here that after 10 years should be declared unsafe to operate due to rust-through of critical structural components.So everybody smartened up and now things are much better, to the point that there hardly are cars made that have serious rust issues.Interesting, any particular brands or is that across the board?
Here we liberally salt our roads as well in winter and in the past cars would not last a decade before falling apart. Now you really have to look to figure out which cars are new, 10 or 20 years old. Rust is - as far as I can see - a solved problem. Not many US cars on the road here though.
Chevrolet and GMC full size pickup trucks and SUVs are probably the worst offenders. Which seems counter intuitive since many of GM's engineering and design happens in northern climates with salted roads. It's not all of GM's vehicles which are subject to this, many do have good corrosion resistance, they just choose to only use such techniques on a subset of the vehicles they produce.
For example: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10178959-9999.pdf
A few years back now Toyota had a big recall on Tundra pickups for improperly applied corrosion prevention. I'm to believe they corrected this as it was quite expensive for them to repair so many customer vehicles.
Just had to get rid of a 2011 Toyota SUV because corrosion on a hydraulic line cascaded to other problems. (Was overall in good shape but some sort of chip or other problem on the line caused issues.)
>A few years back now Toyota had a big recall
Mustie1, absolute YT gem of a human being, did a couple videos showing his efforts to salvage post recall Toyotas. Recall was a scam. Instead of replacing bad frame, or stripping, cleaning and repainting Toyota opted to pay third party contractor to just spray some black goo on frame rails so they last 12 more months while the goo hides corrosion (and traps more moisture speeding up the process).
RRRUST 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s7N8QEAAeM
toyota 4runner frame rust repair 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBB8YX1I1QU
more toyota frame repair 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdLNKOdi4-A
Toyota Tundra frame repair 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IBXYnYYccI
toyota tundra rusted frame repair update 2 winters later 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn-cqoVYQR0
TLDR involved welding plates to replace eaten metal and regularly coating in oil/liquid film protection every year.
Interesting. It was my understanding that the official Toyota procedure involved lifting the cab and bed off the existing frame and transplanting all of the rest of the truck to a new frame.
This seems to outline the requirements: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10154787-9999.pdf
The warranty work is listed at about 40 hours of duration for frame replacement, which seems rather short to me. For about a million potentially affected vehicles that's not a cheap recall.
Maybe thats what they were supposed to do, but the post recall trucks Mustie1 worked on all looked the same - spray of hard coat over the corrosion/holes the size of a fist.
A big part, I think, is differing European attitudes towards maintenance. If there's a bit of coating damage and a rust spot somewhere detected by a mechanic in the US, everyone involved is likely to shrug and not bother with any remediation. The customer doesn't want to pay to prevent a problem that will manifest in years, and there's more lucrative work the mechanic could be doing.
Do aftermarket "anti-rust coatings" actually work? Y'know, the kind people are always trying to sell you at auto dealerships and the like?
They typically make rust and corrosion WORSE, not better. They remove factory lee plugs to spray their anti-corrosion goo in, then often fail to reinstall them or do it poorly. Their goop can clog the engineered drainage paths and cause water to accumulate and sit. Some places even drill additional holes thru virgin metal to access hidden areas, which damages the finish and exposes unprotected areas.
> Some places even drill additional holes thru virgin metal to access hidden areas, which damages the finish and exposes unprotected areas.
That's an exceptionally bad idea for another reason: cabling is often sandwiched in between two layers of sheetmetal to protect the loom from mechanical damage. If you start drilling holes in box members there is a fair chance that you'll end up doing damage to whatever is enclosed. And of course the debris from the drill is an excellent way to start the oxidization process.
That depends on the state of your paint. If the paint is still good it will help a bit because the coating will take some of the wear. But if the paint is already damaged then rust will have started and applying a coating on top of that won't make much difference, though it may slow things down a little bit.
The best protection against rust is to keep your car clean, especially from leaves, bird droppings and other debris. Wash but not too frequently and if there are scratches or other minor issues fix them immediately.
I appreciate this reply, thanks.
Yes if you use a liquid one like Fluid Film. No if you use a “hard” coating like Ziebart.
Volvo is owned by a Chinese parent company, but their operations are still based in the same places as before.
Using the definition implied by your comment, they were previously and “American” car manufacturer as they were sold to geeley by ford.
Edit: absurd typo, it is owned by a Chinese company.
> Volvo is not owned by a Chinese parent company, but their operations are still based in the same places as before.
You are welcome to use your own definition of the word 'owned' but I'll just stick to the dictionary one.
> Using the definition implied by your comment, they were previously and “American” car manufacturer as they were sold to geeley by ford.
https://www.industryweek.com/finance/software-systems/articl...
I highly suspect, based on facts about Volvo and the structure of that sentence, that they didn't mean to write "not owned", but rather "now owned."
Yes, that is indeed correct. Thank you for clarifying for me.
Ah, that could be, thank you for pointing that out. That would make a lot more sense. But then I still don't understand the comment. Volvo is now Chinese, whether you like it or not is another matter.
I never meant to say that Volvo isn’t Chinese. It’s just odd that people really feel the need to bring it up, despite the fact that operationally little is different.
It’s Chinese in the same way that Jeep/ram/dodge/Chrysler are Dutch now. No one ever seems to bring that up when they are mentioned, though.
> I never meant to say that Volvo isn’t Chinese.
Accepted.
> It’s just odd that people really feel the need to bring it up, despite the fact that operationally little is different.
It was merely for completeness' sake, and to indicate that since the days that Volvo pioneered this sort of thing the company had changed ownership.
> It’s Chinese in the same way that Jeep/ram/dodge/Chrysler are Dutch now.
That's a tax dodge and has very little to do with the actual ownership.
And no, Geely is really a Chinese company and really controls Volvo.
> No one ever seems to bring that up when they are mentioned, though.
Because most people are aware of the difference between a tax dodge and a controlling interest by a foreign company.
If you want to make a parallel with Stellantis I think it should stop with the shareholders of Stellantis which you'll find in Italy and France, not in NL.
Stellantis really is a European company, which was the point. I felt the need to choose a country so I chose where they’re headquartered. Regardless, most people would identify those brands as “American” cars, which was the overarching point.
> Regardless, most people would identify those brands as “American” cars, which was the overarching point.
Yes, car brand ownership is a mess. So if you want to buy an American car, I think your options are limited to Tesla.
Would you say that Arm is a Japanese company?
Yes, absolutely. As soon as majority ownership of a company changes from one nationality to another you're kidding yourself if you want to continue to see it as belonging to the country where it originated.
The shareholders control who runs the company, what it does, how it does it and ultimately where the profits are. It's just like outsourcing. But we don't like it when we look at Asian companies owning famous Western brands. But when McDonalds operates in China we're quick to call it an American company. That works both ways.
Apologies, that was a typo.
The risks of posting on a phone…
Someone else caught it and pointed that out. I totally missed it.
Hmm, we have one of the rusty c classes, made in South Africa. The doors, bonnet etc have been just fine. Underneath is the disaster. Particularly the rear end which has collapsed several times as it just rusted through in the first ten years. Bizarre. Bodged up by a backstreet garage it still goes, engine just fine, never a problem, just that faint disconcerting worry the wheels will fall off again...
Those engines last forever. I had a C-class from that vintage, it looked like you could walk in on one side and out the other without opening the doors (great: nobody ever thought of stealing that car). But the engine just kept on working and as far as I know it still runs (in Limburg, with a friend that I haven't seen since COVID).
My first car was a ‘96 Nissan Altima. By 2004 when I got it, the paint was worn away on the center of the hood and the top. My family got 3 new cars circa 2010, one of which is an Altima, never had this issue again. Perhaps this is explained by what you’re talking about?
Despite cars being on the road for longer than ever, I feel like I’ve seen far fewer “rust buckets” than in my youth
Many manufacturers are also plastic sheilding their cars from down under. Improves wind flow, noise isolation and prevents rust.
Toyota has had a serious problem with truck frames rusting.
https://www.autoblog.com/2016/11/14/toyota-3-billion-settlem...
You can and should fix this yourself if you own one. Spray cosmoline or fluid film on the frame. Cosmoline is perfect because you can pressure wash the dirt off but it won't disturb the cosmoline film.
At this point there is nothing to spray on, it all fell apart. It was already bad at the moment they did the recall 6 years ago with frames having fist sized holes. The way you could fix it was cutting the frame up and replacing with fresh metal plates piece by piece.
Their SUV/truck lower body panels also rust prematurely in the snow belt compared to contemporary American vehicles. This is particularly prominent on tailgates/hatches above the rear bumper when people don't diligently brush off the snow.
"They did this mostly by using better paints and making sure cars and car parts are painted more thoroughly."
Their cars last longer because they put more emphasis on durability and longevity than bleeding edge performance, for parts that matter in extending overall operating life of a vehicle.
Germans may use their dollars differently, designs that require tighter tolerance for higher performance. They may also skimp out on actual durability testing, serviceability of parts, etc. Again, prioritizing performance over other attributes.
Owning a 1994 Toyota pickup, this truck has been argued as one of the toughest trucks ever made. However, they rust. Badly.
It's usually the frame, starting from the inside where it collects dirt and water absorbs into it where it won't evaporate and will stay in there damp for months.
Cutting and welding patches onto a frame isn't the biggest deal, and you can install drain holes with places to spray cavity wax coatings.
Once it's rusty inside, you're gonna have a battle. It really needs to be coated from day and then maintained.
I just posted a bunch of YT links that show how that process looks like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233327
that's a poor example of "modern". I've seen tools/parts that have been lying around wrapped in oiled paper since the 1930s, without a hint of rust.
The parts lying in oil paper were probably also covered in oil or more likely grease. Oil paper by itself does little to prevent rust. There are costs associated with covering parts with grease. You have to apply it everywhere, for many applications, you have to remove it before actually using the part, etc.
The product I linked automatically emits a chemical which clings to the metal and creates a microscopic protective barrier. The layer is so thin it does not affect the mechanical properties of the metal so it does not have to be removed. Although it will go away by itself several hours after the part is taken out of the special packaging.
Anyways, I am not trying to sell the stuff, just letting people know what is available out there.
Inhibitor paper is old tech though, was already around in 1970s.
why not? it does inhibit air/moisture exposure
the magic compound in the product you've linked doesn't cover the entire surface of the part you wrap in it, and it doesn't create a perfect seal, so it functions exactly as that oiled paper I saw did
I saw some pretty intricate automotive parts preserved that way. granted, they weren't exposed to the elements, but still - pristine. shiny like factory-new
>Japanese automakers did the world a great favor when in the 80s and 90s they made much longer lasting cars and made longevity and resale value an important consideration in the purchasing decision. They did this mostly by using better paints and making sure cars and car parts are painted more thoroughly.
This is baseless fanboyism.
The European carmakers lead the way with various degrees of zinc plating and dipped coatings being widely implemented on their products in the 70s and 80s. Then around that time lead paint got banned in the US (creating that generation of cars that faded a lot in the 80s) and everybody in the US market was like "hey, we need alternatives that don't break the bank, let's copy what they're doing". The Japanese and US makers both upped their game for the north American market over roughly the same time period. The Japanese have never really taken corrosion prevention very seriously before or since. They and the US makes generally take a "we do as good a job as we need to remain competitive but we don't go above and beyond" attitude whereas the Europeans tend to put quite a bit more effort in.
Edit: If you want someone to lie to you to confirm your biases that's not gonna be me.
> The European carmakers lead the way with various degrees of zinc plating and dipped coatings being widely implemented on their products in the 70s and 80s.
Ford developed e-coat in the 50's. Everyone took up this to varying extents during the mid-to-late 70's.
> whereas the Europeans tend to put quite a bit more effort in.
I'm sorry, this just doesn't match my experience looking at mid-80's Japanese, American, and European cars. e.g. Porsche took up galvanizing during the transition from the 911S to the 911SC and further worked to improve coatings leading up to the Carrera 3.2 to attempt to control rust, but 3.2s still fared really poorly in the corrosion department. Ditto for BMWs of the era.
> This is baseless fanboyism.
> Edit: If you want someone to lie to you to confirm your biases that's not gonna be me.
You just made a bunch of unsupported assertions yourself leaning in the opposite direction.
Porsche 944s and 928s are far more rust resistant than most American or Japanese cars of the 80s or even 90s. Likewise with Volvos. The classic 911 was an old design that went through iterative improvements, and the 964 is better rust-proofed than most American or Japanese cars of the late 80s or 90s. Old Audis tend to have minimal rust, and old Mercedes-Benzes like the W126, W124, and W201, while they certainly can and do rust, their bodies tend to far outlast Japanese and American cars of the same era driven in similar conditions. Old W124s still soldier on as daily drivers and winter beaters in the cold and salty environments of post-Soviet states with mostly OK bodies, whereas Japanese cars of the 1980s almost all rotted away beyond repair being worthwhile more than a decade ago.
It is my impression that older Mercedes are pretty good in this department.
I still see so many mid-80's Accords in the US. Yes, there's probably a somewhat smaller share of them that survived than mid-80's BMWs, but there's a lot of factors that go into survival (Honda == cheaper to keep going as a beater; BMW == higher initial value / treated nicer for the earlier parts of its lifespan).
You see so many mid 80s Accords in the US for the same reason you still see a lot of 90s Caddys despite them being objectively crap cars. The people who bought them could afford to keep them nice, not beat the shit out of them and maintain them as they needed it so they lasted. Your average 1990ish Accord commuter sedan lived a far, far, far easier life, at least for the first 10-15yr than your average Ford Taurus or Subaru Legacy family wagon and it shows in the number that are still around today.
This is the same reason you see a lot more Grand Marquis and Town Cars to (non-cop) Crown Vics today than you did back when they were still making all those things. I cite this example specifically to control for literally every variable except the owners.
> Accord commuter sedan lived a far, far, far easier life
I think you've got this backwards when you're looking at the mid-80's. The Accord was very much a bottom-of-the-barrel option that didn't get as nice of care as most cars-- certainly compared to the European imports that you're comparing to. Especially e.g. probability of being garaged.
I came here to mention E-coat, though I'm thinking of it by another name, it's why in dry climates it's rare to see vintage fords rusted out, GM and Chrysler took longer to implement it.
I’ve spent years working on a VW bus restoration, and this is something I’ve thought about so much. Once you’ve had to clean up rust you begin to see it everywhere. It’s like having a disease.
Anyways, yeah it would be fantastic if metal just didn’t corrode. That would be one of the greatest gifts to the world.
There are these world-changing inventions we look back on and marvel at. The Haber–Bosch process, the Bessemer process, rubber vulcanization, etc.
My dream is one for stainless steel. Come up with either a different alloy or an improved process to make corrosion-proof metal from abundant iron. I can't imagine the leap forward if a chunk of stainless cost nearly the same as mild steel. (And didn't have weird failure modes, etc.)
For some applications, plastic fills that role very well. A lot of stuff would probably be made with plastic, and be just as durable, if we didn't have this "Stuff should feel substantial" design mindset.
It's amazing how there's such a strong preference for things with size and weight, and how plastic is seen as cheap trash rather than an engineering marvel.
I have a hand cart / furniture dolly that's almost entirely plastic. The only metal bits on it are the axle and the handle. It's perfectly durable and I've used it to cart around items that weigh 600 lbs. (300kg).
It's also a good little example of where plastic is good and where it's not. The axle and the handle get the largest amount of stress, so they remain steel, while the body of the cart can be a trussed plastic mold to achieve the strength needed.
Portable gas cans are another area where plastic wins in my book. It's lighter, more impact resistant, and cheaper to mass produce. And it don't rust! Sure, there are probably niche cases where you want a metal jerry can, but for most applications a blow-molded plastic container is better even if it wasn't also cheaper.
But I still think a cheap, strong, and corrosion-resistant (or -proof!) metal would be revolutionary. For all the structural uses where plastic won't do. Vehicle frames, airframes, bridges, tooling, etc. My holy grail here is something that's basically aluminum, but without the fatigue issues. Oh, and closer to steel in cost.
All-carbon cars seem pretty doable.
Tools and bridges are harder, but there's always dry nitrogen. Not sure why we don't have toolboxes with integrated solid state dehumidifiers yet, or bridge cables in rubber tubes of pressurized dry air.
There's a lot to be said for stainless steel. But look at the price of chromium.
Right. I guess a replacement alloy would be the best bet. No matter how cheap your improved process is, the input costs are still there.
Or an improved process for extracting and refining chromium itself. Aside from cost, I think it’s a dirty process as well?
Yeah, chromium and nickel, two of the chief components that put the stainless in stainless-steel, are rather toxic in most/all oxidation states (Cr3+ is weirdly biologically necessary but toxic in high doses). Their refining process is pretty nasty too - lots of cyanide / carbonyl (monoxide) complexes, and mining is just generally filthy.
Automation and cheaper electricity would drive down the cost of recovering metals from aqueous waste.
These HN posts about Rust are out of control.
With 3% of the world's GDP it's going to be an unstoppable language
the time of the rustaceans is upon us
beginning of the Rustocene layer
This is why I get scared when I see articles about people developing plastic eating bacteria. Sure it is great for reducing waste but it’s a dangerous game to be playing for sure.
Those microbes require very specific conditions: precise pH and osmolarity, high temperature (50-70˚C), long contact times, feedstock that's been literally pulverized, etc.
These probably aren't going to occur anywhere outside of a bioreactor, so our action figures are likely safe...for now!
> These probably aren't going to occur anywhere outside of a bioreactor, so our action figures are likely safe...for now!
This article, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/bugs-acr..., posted here a while back describes evidence that real world evolution is happening. "for now!" indeed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29579337
> The study is the first large-scale global assessment of the plastic-degrading potential of bacteria and found that one in four of the organisms analysed carried a suitable enzyme. The researchers found that the number and type of enzymes they discovered matched the amount and type of plastic pollution in different locations.
With time evolution will widen the conditions, with how much plastic is in the environment.
But wood and paper are also readily biodegrade, and yet by simply by controlling the amount of moisture present we manage to make those last a long, long time. In addition we have treatment options to delay decomposition even in wet conditions.
But right now there's a lot of places that we explicitly choose to use plastic and not wood, because it's somewhere that wood would degrade.
Wood is often protected by plastics. Acrylic wood finish and paint are plastic. Particle boards such as those in many Ikea furniture are covered with a plastic sheet.
If you don't use plastic you need to switch to solutions requiring more maintenance and offering less protection like vegetable oil or pine tar.
FYI, you used an incorrect character for the degree sign.
Should be ° U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN, not ˚ U+02DA RING ABOVE.
Hmmmm...it's whatever Option+k does on macOS. I thought it was the degree sign because it doesn't actually combine, but apparently degree is option+shift+8 instead.
An acquaintance just about had a nervous breakdown recently because they somehow used ˆ (option+i, used for e.g. î) in a regex instead of ^ and couldn't figure out why such a basic thing was failing.
or just option+0, because degree is like a little 0 I guess?
Ha! I had been thinking Option-K like Kelvin (also a unit of temperature--but ironically one that isn't properly a "degree". Maybe that should have been a hint!)
Option-zero has a tiny underbar for me, which I think is in Bulgarian(?) abbreviations.
º U+00BA MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR, I guess?
> feedstock that's been literally pulverized, etc.
Even if hypothetical rogue bacteria can't dissolve plastic parts to goo or cause structural damage, or there's still potential harm in the form of surface changes. Discoloration, flaking, etc.
Imagine a product nobody wants to buy because it looks damaged, or a medical device that can't be as easily/thoroughly sterilized anymore.
F1 does, perhaps, but what about F2, F3, F10^7452?
It doesn't seem like a problem to me. Wood rots, but wood furniture and even buildings can easily last for centuries if cared for.
I wouldn't worry. Lignin (in wood) is a bit more reactive than polyolefins. It was effectively indigestible for eons until fungi figured out how to break it down, and even then, wood only breaks down in certain conditions.
No, plastic was the mistake. That was the dangerous game, those plastic eating bacteria are one way to restore some of the natural order and hopefully at some point they'd run out of food.
How is “plastic was the mistake” any more reasonable than “electricity was the mistake”
Plastic is indispensable just like electricity.
Plastic is indispensable completely unlike electricity is indispensable.
Plastic is a huge pollutant, with breakdown stats that make you cry once you start thinking in terms of tons of absolutely indestructible stuff that makes it into our environment every day. Only a very small fraction of that stuff really needed to be made from plastic. Mostly it is just done because it is cheap and mechanically well understood. And because - tadaaaa - it lasts longer than most other materials. But the result is that the plastic invariably outlasts everything else, and it is super hard to recycle it efficiently unless it was expressly made to be recycled, which it rarely is.
Electricity is a highly fungible form of energy, in every way that matters unlike plastic and for which we do not have any alternatives that come close to having the same kind of properties for everyday use.
What do you see as the material that could have been used, or could be used, to replace plastic?
In many applications glass or treated paper was used prior to plastic and it usually worked well enough to give a reasonable service life. Lots - and I mean really lots - of applications where plastic is used today it could still be replaced by either paper, glass or sometimes wood. Using plastic for the remaining use cases would be fine by me. But plastics for 'economics' reasons is just a temporal form of externalization.
Btw, since this is a common misconception: the cost for repairing / replacing corroded metal actually increases GDP. It's not clear from the article what they mean by 'costs' (they could also mean how many other goods weren't produced because of corrosion damage, which would be lost GDP), but that's something to be aware of.
... came here to say this.
I have spent so much more money on stainless and galvanized parts and taken many expensive precautions, followed expensive building practices, etc. due to rust.
This was increased economic activity.
Not saying it was morally positive but it certainly increased GDP ...
You’re falling victim to the so-called ‘broken windows fallacy’ here. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fa...
A soviet-era book on machining I recently read stated that up until that point, about 40% of the total steel and cast iron production since 1890 has been lost to corrosion.
Wrt to salt water corrosion, having been around folks involved with boats and boatbuilding all my life, the 'best' material for building a boat or yacht is an ever-green topic with no resolution in sight. Of course, for factory-produced boats made in large series, GRP reigns supreme, which is why most boats out there are GRP, but for one-offs it's still hotly debated. Steel, aluminum, wood (in all kinds of variations), GRP all have their pros and cons. People even made yachts out of ferrocement, though it seems the popularity of that method has waned.
GRP => Glass Reinforced Plastic
I imagine a substantial part of this is the rusting of rebar in concrete structures. The problem of rebar has fascinated me, and one German company has begin making carbon fiber reinforced concrete instead of steel, with amazing results. You can reduce environmental waste by having structures last longer and you use less concrete. I'm looking forward to this becoming more ubiquitous.
https://www.aboutcivil.org/carbon-reinforced-concrete-buildi...
AFAIU GRP rebar has become somewhat common lately, though this carbon fiber rebar seems to be a higher end step. Interesting to see how it'll develop.
> carbon fiber reinforced concrete
Obligatory mention of Basalt rebar as well.
For those who want a deeper dive into this subject read the book “Rust: The Longest War" by Jonathan Waldman.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Rust/Jonathan-Waldman...
Isn't this like corrosion engineers validating their own industry? I mean it's a fair talking point but also like asking VCs how good their returns are?
Reminds me of the perennial reports from the American Society of Civil Engineers talking about how the US's infrastructure is degraded and everyone had better hire a lot of civil engineers to fix it.
Exactly - right?
> https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/11/15/...
> …Public investment in U.S. infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The World Economic Forum now ranks the United States 13th when it comes to the overall quality of infrastructure...
I'm not saying it isn't right, I'm just pointing out the inherent bias. Infrastructure in the US is woefully lacking.
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
Stainless steel is not 'rust proof' it is mostly rust retardant, it has a chromium coating that reduces oxidization but does not stop it completely. The more chromium, the better the rust resistant properties.
https://www.pennstainless.com/resources/product-information/...
Is pretty good stuff and
https://www.cralloys.com/alloys/17-chrome/
is possibly better still.
If you want (much) better rust resistance than that you are going to be into coatings or active protection such as cathodic protection using a sacrificial material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathodic_protection
Coatings work well as long as there is no mechanical abrasion of the coating, cathodic protection works very well until you run out of sacrificial material.
I was not familiar with these grades, very interesting reading and finding out about them. The most common grades of stainless I have encountered in the marine industry is either 316 (best) or 304 (budget, requires regular cleaning to keep rust free). Both have issues with crevice corrosion and are also very expensive compared to zinc-plated equivalents (which I would never use on a boat since they will effectively disintegrate over a few months). Marine grade stainless often suffers from crevice corrosion and hard to detect failures which is sort of terrifying when you really think about it (things look OK until one day they break without clear visible warning).
For bridges or large-scale industrial applications where you dont care how the metal itself appears, I agree that coatings (especially galvanization) is the best bang for the buck. All of my insights are purely anecdotal though, as a hobbyist...
I worked for a sailmaker in the Netherlands who also did rigging. You really get to appreciate the difference if you see saltwater exposed rigging after a year or two from slightly different steel formulations, one still pristine, the other looking as though someone is pulling a bad joke on your with rust colored paint. Also: maintenance made all the difference, people that would immediately fix a small issue were often able to arrest it without further damage. But ignore it for a while and one thing leads to another.
edit: as to your point regarding crevice corrosion: yes, that is very nasty indeed, especially because a visual inspection will typically turn up nothing out of the order, all it takes is a bit of trapped moisture and some time.
What would u use for a floating scaffolding or buoy that you want to last in sea water?
(Yes, we can tow it to shore for inspections, but would rather not)
> that you want to last in sea water?
How long?
Under what kind of load?
Well, the payload has a 20 year life time.
Solar panels, navigational lights, etc. Hopefully very little physical contact with other man made objects.
A decade of sea life before some sort of land refurbishment would be a nice value for the excel.
Is aluminum an option for your structural loads? If so I would pick that before I'd even look at steel. Check out 6061 if that will work for you.
Here is a nice little article comparing two common marine grade aluminum alloys:
https://www.marinealu.com/a/marine-grade-aluminium-5083-vs-6...
thanks!!
So many helpful responses here.
most objects like this I have passed in the water seem to be made of some sort of painted steel. I think this is a good combination of durability vs economical. I suspect your electronics will go long before anything corrodes away to nothing, since in my experience its always the electronics that fail first (even when properly sealed for marine use).
Note that the main issue with any barrier coating (assuming there are no collisions) is going to be due to sea life living on/underneath your object and slowly breaking down the material. A copper based metal (read bronze) could be interesting (but expensive) since it tends to stand up fairly well in marine environments and has biocidal properties that prevent fouling/growth. Also very clear to visually inspect since green means good and red means bad which I always thought was very easy to remember.
edit: re-reading your initial comment it looks like you are describing an autonomous vessel of some sort. I used to work at a company that produced such devices and they were made out of composite plastics (which have their own issues that cause them to break down eventually in the water as well).
> autonomous vessel of some sort.
Actually just a large floating shed to support all those panels.
But yeah, there are multiple moving pieces (floating?!) involved.
Would love to chat in the future and brain storm, if u want to leave your details in my profile puppet mail.
are you constructing a floating tower to mount microwave panels for HFT?
I'd look at the nickel alloys, Inconel 625 and Hastelloy C22 would be a good start. They should be orders of magnitude more corrosion resistant than stainless steel and still have respectable strength. Of course they are more expensive and harder to fabricate.
The tooling alone will cost a small fortune though.
"Stainless steel is not 'rust proof' it is mostly rust retardant, it has a chromium coating that reduces oxidization but does not stop it completely."
Just to be clear ... you can indeed coat things with stainless steel.
However, most stainless steel objects (like screws or bolts or tools, etc.) are stainless throughout - you cannot abrade or scratch into a non-stainless inner core.
This is unlike, for instance, galvanized hardware which is merely steel with a coating over the top. Galvanized items can, indeed, be mechanically altered to reveal non-galvanized material underneath.
As for my grandparents question:
You can, indeed, buy stainless steel beams, rebar[1], etc. They have all the fantastic properties you imagine and are, again, not merely coated like (for instance) galvanized rebar. They are also extremely expensive.
Even stainless steel throughout objects can and do rust.
Here is a pretty good article on what goes on when the passivation layer is compromised:
https://www.alliagesunifies.com/blog/does-stainless-steel-ru...
So this isn't about 'objects coated with stainless steel' it is about objects made entirely from stainless steel. Have a look at what a typical all through stainless steel terminal on an ocean going ship looks like after a couple of years. Especially when they are made from lower grades of stainless (such as for instance 304) vs better ones. Not all stainless is made equal when it comes to corrosion resistance.
Yes and yes. Stainless is expensive. It's stronger than some types of steel but not as strong as others. It's also difficult to weld. Plus, it's not 100% corrosion resistant - it only offers partial protection.
more difficult than most steel, but still easier to weld than aluminum... also less rust resistant than aluminum... I'm not sure what my point is.
Almost all metals oxidize. You could build something out of gold or maybe platinum and avoid oxidation, but it would obviously be expensive. The U.S. navy does have some very large aluminum ships such as the Independence Class[1]. These ships are apparently having some teething issues, but it is quite the feat to have a 414 ft long aluminum ship that can go upwards of 50 knots.
[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_littoral_co...
> Almost all metals oxidize.
> The U.S. navy does have some very large aluminum ships
Unfortunately aluminum also rusts, it just happens to be a chemically stable and resistant rusting - but not in a stable enough manner to be mechanically/abrasive resistant, that's why you don't see them deployed in widespread use at stressing conditions like internal combustion engine blocks or fast ship hulls.
From said cited Wikipedia article:
> In February 2020 it was announced that the Navy plans to retire the first four LCS ships. On 20 June 2020, the US Navy announced that all four would be taken out of commission in March 2021, and will be placed in inactive reserve, because it would be too expensive to upgrade them to match the later ships in the class.
Very interesting - I’ve always been confused by why aluminium is often stated as being rust-proof, but doesn’t appear to be as useful in the real world.
Aren’t there quite a few aluminium engine blocks in cars though? For example, the LS small block is now aluminium.
Or do you mean used in marine applications, where rust is an issue? That would probably make more sense (and may actually be implied by the context).
sorry I annoyed you. I thought I covered both in my post. Feels like you have to walk on egg shells around here least someone correct you.
> least someone correct you.
lest someone correct you.
...Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Haha
Those large aluminum ships crack because aluminum has poor fatigue performance when subjected to repeated cycling. Small aluminum boat? You're probably fine for a lifetime. 400ft aluminum boat? Good luck with that.
In addition to other comments, it's also difficult to weld. Stainless steel retains heat, so prolong welding can warp it. Also unless careful, welding can destroy the Chromium coating, so the area are the weld will rust quicker than the bulk material.
When choosing a metal material, it's important to consider not just its innate properties, but it properties during join. Welding can melt the metal surrounding the weld, which can undo many heat treatment or mechanical processes previously used to get the material to the desired specs.
Stainless can also be a pig to machine due to work hardening.
There is a steel called Corten where the rust develops a protective layer similar to aluminum and won't rust all the way through. The only issue is it isn't good when exposed to constant water as the rust will wash off and not protect.
The USX Tower ("The Steel Building") in Pittsburgh is made entirely of Corten, designed to showcase the material when it was first developed. Other than turning all the sidewalks black when it was first weathering it seems to work great, as long as you're into the industrial aesthetic.
Some may also find the rusted patina look less than ideal. Personally I don't mind it at all.
some people use it as an architectural element. they'll build planters, roofs, siding, fences...
IIRC stainless isn't actually rust proof, especially in applications where there is a lot of interaction with odd chemicals and things like sea water, so bridges may not be an ideal use for the product.
I have heard the same. Actually making rusting proof stuff is very hard. Specially if there is any chance of things like acids being involved. Coatings could help, but even then why not just paint regular steel.
Now other thing I wonder is how structurally sound some of the stainless alloys are? Do they have similar characteristics to steels now used?
IIRC, Coated rebar can actually fail faster or in less predictable and therefore worse ways. The coating is often damaged during install, but even perfectly coated bar forms cracks eventually. The entire system's galvanic potential is focused on these small exposed areas, causing extremely fast rusting. The coating tends to fail in higher stress areas, which means that not only does the bar fail, it fails in the worst possible locations.
Don't confuse stainless steel with galvanized steel. The latter is just normal steel dipped in melted zinc, once you're past that thin coating it'll rust just like normal steel does.
Stainless steel is an is an alloy, you can saw apart a beam made of stainless 316 and the inside will be just as stainless as the outside.
Fiberglass rebar is the future: high strength and won’t rust.
You can also add glass fiber to cement to increase strength but it’s not nearly as strong as rebar.
According to http://www.kastenmarine.com/metalboats.htm, mostly cost plus other drawbacks that sound like they would not be blockers if the cost were lower. That author thinks monel would be even better than stainless, but it's even more expensive.
Cost, primarily. I'm not certain but I believe joins and welds also need further attention to ensure the corrosion protection isn't impaired.
Anyway, O&M is the problem for the guy trying to get the next decade's budget approved so if the upkeep is more expensive, hey at least I got this thing built.
Yes, this is called electrochemical cleaning. If you don't do that then the weld will be more vulnerable to oxidization because the protective layer that forms on stainless steel will be damaged and upset by the welding process leaving some of the iron in the steel directly exposed to the environment. This then can cause pitting of the surface, which is the beginning of the end.
For such a process to be effective it has to be done immediately after welding. You can use it to try to repair something that is already rust damaged but in my experience the gain from that is mostly a stay of execution, not a perfect solution.
This is why democracy, while far better than the alternatives, still absolutely sucks.Anyway, O&M is the problem for the guy trying to get the next decade's budget approvedIt's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted. There is massive disincentive to produce systems and infrastructure that will actually work some distance into the future. The only incentive for politicians is either (a) merely look like they're doing something (b) produce the fastest, cheapest possible thing that they can take credit for when they're up for re-election.
Democracy would only really thrive if the public valued the future, and had some reliable way of judging how our politicians' solutions actually benefit the future. (ex: I value the future, but if we build a bridge today I have no way of judging if it's built to last for 5 years or 500 years)
> ...democracy... It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.
It's not explicitly designed for that. It's designed to avoid concentration and abuse of power, peaceful transition of power, and to create some level of fairness.
Democracy wasn't designed to produce the best society or the most wealthy society.
Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)
That said, we often seem to think that we can optimize for something beyond the short term. It's a seductive thought. But experience with communism/central-planning, suggests that maybe it's best to optimize for the short term. At least that works, and produces results in the meantime.
It's the same with waterfall software development vs agile software development. Optimizing for the short term and iterating is usually better than to try and plan the future top-down.
I'm not sure what else we'd call a system where elected officials have zero incentive to do anything other than look good for their re-election campaign in a few years.It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.Clearly, many politicians have gone above and beyond that and accomplished useful things. But there is zero incentive baked into the system for them to do so.
It's good at that when implemented well, though most aren't.Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)Generally it seems you wind up with oligarchs/corporations effectively owning politicians unless there is an extreme level of vigilance, etc.
This is a false dichotomy. Clearly there are things that benefit from a short-term, MVP-style, iterative approach.But experience with communism/central-planning, suggests that maybe it's best to optimize for the short term. At least that works, and produces results in the meantime.There are also clearly things that benefit from a longer view: climate change, infrastructure, etc.
> I'm not sure what else we'd call a system where elected officials have zero incentive to do anything other than look good for their re-election campaign in a few years.
We call it a side effect. Democracy certainly wasn't designed with short sightedness in mind. That's a side effect of the far more important design goals around preventing abuse of power.
Democracy may be short-sighted, but not by design, rather as a side effect of the design.
Assuming we buy the idea that democracy is indeed short sighted.
Every considered that as long as democracy avoids establishment of dictators/kings, repression and the unavoidable civil wars that follow, then given time free market forces will produce good results.
One could reasonable argue democracy is just very very long sighted.
> Generally it seems you wind up with oligarchs/corporations effectively owning politicians
This isn't new, and yet we have built infrastructure before. Fought world wars. Irradiated deceases. Walked on the moon.
On the scales of history large corporations tend to slide into irrelevance over time.
The tech giants of today, will be rubber barons of tomorrow. Sure we might seem them around in the future. But a hundred years from now they might not seem so big.
For a plane you want to reduce weight as much as possible, and steel isn’t particularly lightweight.
A lot of commercial aircraft have switch to composite materials to reduce weight even further than would be possible with just metals, though that approach has its own drawbacks.
Cost, basically.
Even if it was built, you'd also probably see people stealing parts of the structure for scrap value... Not a good thing to have happen.
Probably just insanely expensive. Just the welding process for stainless alone would add so much.
Stainless steel is ~5x the cost.
An extremely important topic, especially since I've been hearing about it all my life (disclaimer, my father, past president of the International Corrosion Council (ICC) and 2022 recipient of the Corrosion Awareness Award from the World Corrosion Organisation (WCO), the European Federation of Corrosion (EFC) and the Chinese Society of Corrosion and Protection (CSCP) https://corrosion.org/Awards.html). For those who want to learn a little more about his insights and the summary of a long career, 2 years ago he set up this free blog just about corrosion: https://news.materials.business. For example, he talks about how he calculated the international cost of corrosion damage for 2019 to be USD$4.8 trillion. And only a fraction of that amount represents the cost of steel that had to be replaced due to corrosion problems. (https://news.materials.business/19/01/2021/engineering-mater...)
Nothing more annoying than having a car slowly depreciate only because of rust and not having any type of other issues
Rust - The Longest War; is a book about this topic, very insightful read.
https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Longest-War-Jonathan-Waldman/dp/...
Rust's a Must, by T.R.B. Watson:
""" Mighty ships upon the ocean
Suffer from severe corrosion
Even those that stay at dockside
Are rapidly becoming oxide.
Alas, that piling in the sea
Is mostly FE2O3
And when the ocean meets the shore,
You'll find there's FE3O4.
'Cause when the wind is salt and gusty
Things are getting awful rusty
We can measure it, we can test it
We can halt it or arrest it
We can gather it and weigh it
We can coat it, we can spray it
We can examine and dissect it
We can cathodically protect it
We can pick it up and drop it
But heaven knows, we'll never stop it.
So here's to rust: No doubt about it,
Most of us would starve without it. """
I have a song about this (in French) sung from the vantage point of near future robots.
https://soundcloud.com/user-876103472/lennui-cest-loxyge-ne
Long story short: screw the meatbags, let's get rid of atmospheric oxygen...
If you aren't yet attuned to this specific aspect of life on Earth, owning an Atlantic-facing beach house on the Florida coast will teach you that lesson real quick.
Sounds like a startup idea/thesis?
For the spin-off of a university's material science department, sure.
But it's not like it's an obscure problem that nobody does anything about, lots of companies, universities and governments spend a lot of effort and money on finding better ways to deal with it.
I found it remarkable that the term “corrosion”, which underpins the whole work, was never defined.
I live somewhat near the beach. How can I prevent my electronic gadgets to rust?
There are a number of different coating that are used to protect electronics. See e.g. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/395999
Got any examples of rusted gadgets?
Floating metal in salt water. Yeah?
With a dry dock, paint, and enough labor that doesn’t have to be a huge problem. Just look at Navy salvage operations returning sunken ships to service.
The environmentalists killed a zinc mine in my state due to pollution concerns. Of course every pound of zinc not mined meant more steel without zinc protection, and hence more rust and more mining of iron ore. Arguments like this were completely lost on them.
You can greatly reduce pollution associated with mining by taking various precautions, but they all have one thing in common: they're expensive to implement. For example, ore-hauling trucks in Alaska could use covered trailers to transport ore to reduce lead/cadmium dust, which gets into local food chains, for example in Alaska:
> "A 2001 National Park Service report documented elevated levels of lead, cadmium, and zinc in vegetation along the road, as well as near the storage area by the port. Concentrations of lead and cadmium, the National Park Service report stated, exceed levels found in “many of the most polluted countries in Central and Eastern Europe and all areas of western Russia.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/most-toxi...
Usually mining companies respond by saying that requiring them to implement such solutions ('regulation') is anti-free-market and makes them uncompetitive, as they then have to sell their ore on global markets at higher prices or accept much lower profit margins.
I've never actually seen an industrial pollution problem that didn't have a technical (if sometimes expensive) solution. Making those solutions the norm (kind of like requiring all homes to have toilets, etc.) is the reason why regulation is a good idea, it flattens the markets so noone can undersell using dirty methods.
So you mean that the mine should be allowed to pollute so long as the pollution is offset elsewhere?
Depends on the offset.
It's the environmental version of the trolley car problem, except you have an unknown number of people on each part of the train tracks.
Is it a 1:10 offset, where (holistically speaking) the zinc mine will cause 10x environmental damage as it prevents? Then maybe it shouldn't happen anywhere.
Is it 1:1 offset and we're merely insisting that the environmental damage should happen in a poorer country instead of our own?
Is it 10:1 or 100:1 where every kilogram of zinc means that's 10kg or 100kg of steel that won't prematurely rust and need to be replaced, with another 10kg of 100kg of iron ore being mined elsewhere and transported at great environmental cost to replace it? Then from an environmental standpoint it's a huge win and we should probably do it.
It's extremely difficult to know.
Well yes - maybe not offset.
But if mining zinc lowers pollution from other stuff then yes.
Is it that the argument was lost on them, or that there are better ways to mine for zinc and better locations to mine for zinc than the one in question?
You can recycle rusted parts though, so the loss is not as big as you would think.
Environmentalists are often short sighted and more interested in scoring political points than saving the environment. In a large part, they are responsible for global warming by killing off the nuclear sector.
Or just mine the zinc elsewhere?!
Eventually we'll run out of elsewhere.
Like pushing our pollution into the developing world is both immoral and harmful to our economy.
How much is pushed vs pulled?Many resource extraction projects are cancelled because they wouldn't be economical with all the added costs to ameliorate pollution. Perhaps if the developing world had higher standards and better enforcement, it would cost more and thus not undercut local production.
Sounds like a race to the bottom. If a poor community upheld its dignity and required additional costs to keep the environment from harm, it would get outbid by a more exploitative seller.
Absolutely. Add in some greed, corruption and ignorance and you've got a recipe for where we are today. And yet people blame environmentalists?
Plus if they put it into the ocean, the pollution will flow back to us.