CONWAY, S.C. - On the outskirts of this sleepy coastal town, Rob Reed is waging war against the entire American electricity and steel sectors.
He operates Metglas Inc., along with 150 employees. They make thousands of tons of ultra-thin steel - called amorphous metal - annually in an industrial facility far from the hulking plants of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those steel giants have churned out traditional steel for over 100 years.
The Metglas plant is also a world away technologically speaking. But the Biden Administration thinks its product will help expand the electricity grid and curb greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.
Reed’s company is creating the non-traditional steel that is used to form the cores of distribution transformers, which are the ubiquitous electrical equipment typically fixed on electricity poles or platforms that transfer power from higher-voltage transmission lines to residential and business lines.
The South Carolina native says amorphous cores waste far less electricity than the traditional steel industry competition, making his product more environmentally friendly.
But Metglas is fighting most of the power industry and steel companies in America, which say Reed’s technology could exacerbate the crippling transformer supply chain crisis and stall the administration’s push to electrify more of the country.
At issue is a Department of Energy proposed regulation that could force transformer producers to use amorphous cores, benefiting Metglas, the nation’s only producer of the technology.
DOE says the efficiency proposal is a big win for climate change, but critics challenge that assertion.
In May, EPA unveiled an aggressive power sector regulation that, if finalized in current form, would force electricity producers to shift toward carbon capture, hydrogen and renewables. (Energy Wire 06/23/23) Meet the metal that could transform the grid - E&E News (eenews.net)
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