...so that means the biggest blast furnace in the world has a capital cost of approximately $1 billion.
More than likely the cost (in today's dollars) of that blast furnace you're referring to is $100 million, not $100 billion.
Side note: direct reduction furnaces furnaces are usually cheaper from a capital cost perspective and can use natural gas or even hydrogen for producing steel... We may use more of this tech in the future as we move away from coal for sustainability reasons....
The US now produces about 10% of its raw iron/steel using DRI and 90% by blast furnaces and the rate of DRI growth is fantastic (going from 2 million tons in 2017 to 3.4 million in 2018, pdf page 10): https://www.worldsteel.org/en/dam/jcr:96d7a585-e6b2-4d63-b94...
A few years ago, virtually no steel was made via DRI in the US. The fracking boom has changed a lot.
The largest blast furnace in the world is about 5 million tons of iron per year (and was upgraded to that capacity in 2013): http://www.donga.com/en/List/article/all/20130610/406398/1/P...
...so that means the biggest blast furnace in the world has a capital cost of approximately $1 billion.
More than likely the cost (in today's dollars) of that blast furnace you're referring to is $100 million, not $100 billion.
Side note: direct reduction furnaces furnaces are usually cheaper from a capital cost perspective and can use natural gas or even hydrogen for producing steel... We may use more of this tech in the future as we move away from coal for sustainability reasons.... The US now produces about 10% of its raw iron/steel using DRI and 90% by blast furnaces and the rate of DRI growth is fantastic (going from 2 million tons in 2017 to 3.4 million in 2018, pdf page 10): https://www.worldsteel.org/en/dam/jcr:96d7a585-e6b2-4d63-b94... A few years ago, virtually no steel was made via DRI in the US. The fracking boom has changed a lot.