Steelmaking and the Cosmere

[GudThymes]

I watched a random youtube video the other day discussing the creation of coal on Earth. Essentially, there was a very specific set of criteria that existed around 360 - 300 million years ago that allowed for the creation of all of the coal that exists. I was pondering this when I thought of the ramification it would have on steel production.

How is steel created in the Cosmere?

I've done some research and see that there are theoretically ways to create steel without the use of coal/charcoal, however, we don't have a mass way of creating steel on Earth that doesn't use our standard process (pig iron and coke fuel). Now, it's feasible that Steel is created in the cosmere using coal (and coal is referenced), but where did it come from? Is this an oversight from Brandon? Have I gone down a rabbit hole for no reason? What are your thoughts?

[HSuperLee]

This is the closest we've got.

Quote

Cadmium (paraphrased)

You're in Houston, questions of Oil & Gas and energy sources will be naturally be bandied about.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Naturally.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Is the gasoline on Scadrial a fossil fuel or biodiesel?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Oh. Hmm. Well It's fossil fue... No. What they're using now is mostly biodiesel, I think. It's not something we really talked out.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Ok, we had a whole thread on 17th Shard and even discussed how scientifically fossil fuels could have been put into place during the Catacendre.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, fossil fuels are possible, and I don't want to seem like I'm clearly giving credence to those that believe in a Young Earth, but Scadrial is a relatively young planet. Relatively.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Young Earth doesn't bother me, though I know I'm not the majority.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Where on Scadrial is it being produced? No mention of refineries in Elendel or the Roughs.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Where on Scadrial... Well it's... I'm going to have to RAFO that for now. It starts to touch on questions of the future as they will need more fuels for travel and they'll need to look for different sources.

Calamity Houston signing (Feb. 24, 2016)

 

Now, this might cause some contention I don't mean to cause, but, Scadrial didn't exactly have normal circumstances in regards to its tectonic activity. So I'd argue that with the whole planet being shoved around + volcanic activity + microbes that broke down ash for 1,000 years + the rearranging of everything by Sazed could mean that they've had rapid coal formation due to the unique circumstances the planet has found itself in. I'm not an expert in coal formation (or any geology really,) but my understanding has generally been that they way it happened here on earth is not the only way it could happen and different circumstances could lead to faster or slower or just different development.

 

Alright, now for an actual expert to appear and completely throw everything I said out.

[GudThymes]

9 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

This is the closest we've got.

 

Now, this might cause some contention I don't mean to cause, but, Scadrial didn't exactly have normal circumstances in regards to its tectonic activity. So I'd argue that with the whole planet being shoved around + volcanic activity + microbes that broke down ash for 1,000 years + the rearranging of everything by Sazed could mean that they've had rapid coal formation due to the unique circumstances the planet has found itself in. I'm not an expert in coal formation (or any geology really,) but my understanding has generally been that they way it happened here on earth is not the only way it could happen and different circumstances could lead to faster or slower or just different development.

 

Alright, now for an actual expert to appear and completely throw everything I said out.

Thanks for Sharing this WoB. It's definitely informative.

I see your point about Sazed creating Biofuels etc during the Catacendre. I think that could be the only explanation for Coal existing on Scadrial. A short rundown on coal formation on Earth: At some point in time millions of years ago to have a specific polymer called lignin that supports the cell wall of plants allowing for the creation of wood and bark. For a period of ~60 million years other life on Earth did not evolve to catch up with this change and there was no organism to break down lignin and use it as a food source. Thus, trees that fell were layered on top of each other and slowly buried underground. Then over a long time period pressure and temperatures rise that slowly creates coal.\

 

I'm assuming that at least on Scadrial they are using an alternative source for steelmaking than coal (or else one of the shards would have had to place it there intentionally).   

[HSuperLee]

18 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

Thanks for Sharing this WoB. It's definitely informative.

I see your point about Sazed creating Biofuels etc during the Catacendre. I think that could be the only explanation for Coal existing on Scadrial. A short rundown on coal formation on Earth: At some point in time millions of years ago to have a specific polymer called lignin that supports the cell wall of plants allowing for the creation of wood and bark. For a period of ~60 million years other life on Earth did not evolve to catch up with this change and there was no organism to break down lignin and use it as a food source. Thus, trees that fell were layered on top of each other and slowly buried underground. Then over a long time period pressure and temperatures rise that slowly creates coal.\

 

I'm assuming that at least on Scadrial they are using an alternative source for steelmaking than coal (or else one of the shards would have had to place it there intentionally).   

So wouldn't the age of ash then have killed and buried all the living plants on Scadrial that hadn't been modified to survive the new climate and those plants would then have been allowed to undergo the coal formation process?

[Quantus]

28 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

Thanks for Sharing this WoB. It's definitely informative.

I see your point about Sazed creating Biofuels etc during the Catacendre. I think that could be the only explanation for Coal existing on Scadrial. A short rundown on coal formation on Earth: At some point in time millions of years ago to have a specific polymer called lignin that supports the cell wall of plants allowing for the creation of wood and bark. For a period of ~60 million years other life on Earth did not evolve to catch up with this change and there was no organism to break down lignin and use it as a food source. Thus, trees that fell were layered on top of each other and slowly buried underground. Then over a long time period pressure and temperatures rise that slowly creates coal.\

Keep in mind that Scadrial was created whole in relatively recent times even ignoring all the later meddling by Sazed and/or TLR.  It was more or less blinked into existence with a fully developed ecosystem and sentient population.  So even if a Natural planet needs to have that sort of history and/or evolutionary sweet-spot to generate the right fossil fuels, they could still easily exist on Scadrial if they were part of the earth-likePlanet template used by Ati and Leras (and assumed to be Yolen).  

Quote

I'm assuming that at least on Scadrial they are using an alternative source for steelmaking than coal (or else one of the shards would have had to place it there intentionally).   

Agreed. Steel requires Carbon, but coal is far from the only viable source for that, historically or practically. Coal's real benefit was that it could pull double duty as both the carbon and heat source, and usually do it better than Charcoal (and without additional energy and labor costs to make the charcoal from plant matter).  

8 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

So wouldn't the age of ash then have killed and buried all the living plants on Scadrial that hadn't been modified to survive the new climate and those plants would then have been allowed to undergo the coal formation process?

Nah, those instances of meddling by the Lord Ruler and Sazed are within the last 1300 years or so, no where near the geologic timeframes needed to naturally generate fossil fuels.  

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Quantus

[GudThymes]

59 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Agreed. Steel requires Carbon, but coal is far from the only viable source for that, historically or practically. Coal's real benefit was that it could pull double duty as both the carbon and heat source, and usually do it better than Charcoal (and without additional energy and labor costs to make the charcoal from plant matter). 

Hmmm, I didn't realize. I am far from an expert in steelmaking, and was under the impression that while there are other ways of creating steel using coal was the primary way to do so effectively (and in mass quantities). I know that you could use charcoal too, but what about on a planet like Roshar? I don't know enough about charcoal creation to know whether you even could create charcoal from the plant species there. Although since the plants are carbon based they should be able to create some kind of biofuel substitute for steelmaking, right?

I definitely hear the argument that Ati and Leras could've just popped in some coal reserves when creating Scadrial, but what about the rest of the Cosmere? Is Yolen even old enough for naturally occurring coal to have been generated? There are some excerpts throughout the Cosmere that indicate that coal exists in some places, but how did it get there and if it was placed by an entity, how did they know to place it?

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

Hmmm, I didn't realize. I am far from an expert in steelmaking, and was under the impression that while there are other ways of creating steel using coal was the primary way to do so effectively (and in mass quantities). I know that you could use charcoal too, but what about on a planet like Roshar? I don't know enough about charcoal creation to know whether you even could create charcoal from the plant species there. Although since the plants are carbon based they should be able to create some kind of biofuel substitute for steelmaking, right?

I definitely hear the argument that Ati and Leras could've just popped in some coal reserves when creating Scadrial, but what about the rest of the Cosmere? Is Yolen even old enough for naturally occurring coal to have been generated? There are some excerpts throughout the Cosmere that indicate that coal exists in some places, but how did it get there and if it was placed by an entity, how did they know to place it?

Roashar has soulcasters.

[StanLemon]

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Roashar has soulcasters.

They would still need to know what steel is in order to produce it in the first place

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

They would still need to know what steel is in order to produce it in the first place

They came from Ashyn which was much closer to earth like.

[+Oltux72]

2 hours ago, GudThymes said:

I watched a random youtube video the other day discussing the creation of coal on Earth. Essentially, there was a very specific set of criteria that existed around 360 - 300 million years ago that allowed for the creation of all of the coal that exists.

There is coal from other geological eras, after the evolution of wood. China has large deposits from the Jurassic for example. Cretaceous coal is found in Africa and Siberia.

2 hours ago, GudThymes said:

How is steel created in the Cosmere?

On Scadrial presumably like we did it in the early 20th century.

On the other planets with charcoal and preindustrial methods. (Or however Taldain looks at the time of SA)

Roshar is the great unknown. However, that the Shin specifically buy metals showing the forms of the stuff they were soulcast from as opposed to stuff that desecrated rock, proves that the process of refining ores is known.

2 hours ago, GudThymes said:

Thanks for Sharing this WoB. It's definitely informative.

Technically it is on oil and gas. And it may just mean that the Elendel basin has no oil.

They need to heat a city of gigantic size. They are smelting steel to build armored cruisers and steel framed high rises and so on. You don't do that from charcoal. Scadrial has coal mines. They also have other mines. Presumably Ati and Leras created the planet with coal deposits.

52 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

I definitely hear the argument that Ati and Leras could've just popped in some coal reserves when creating Scadrial, but what about the rest of the Cosmere? Is Yolen even old enough for naturally occurring coal to have been generated? There are some excerpts throughout the Cosmere that indicate that coal exists in some places, but how did it get there and if it was placed by an entity, how did they know to place it?

Both Roshar and First of the Sun show a lot of evolution. They must be dozens of millions of years old counting from the introduction/development of life. Time enough to form coal deposits, at least as lignite.

[Karger]

Technically steel is just an alloy of iron and carbon with some other stuff thrown in.  Assuming you know how to generate enough heat you can easily extract carbon from plants or limestone.

[Brgst13]

I also wonder if the "coal" on Roshar is one of those translation moments.  Just as any bird is a chicken, could any carbon source be "coal"?  Especially if it could be burned?  Roshar seems to be perfectly primed to generate large amounts of limestone, given that most animals, both sea and land, have shells.  Does anyone with a more solid chemistry background know if carbon could be released from limestone if it was the vessel for a charcoal fire?

[+Krox]

So pupils, settle down. Class is now in session! Todays topic, steelmaking!
Side note: I'm a metallurgist and not a geologist, so I'll side-step the geological considerations of the creation of coal completely and rather give you a short introduction on iron and steelmaking!

Iron: a base element
Pig iron/wrought iron/cast iron: Iron with more than 2.1% carbon
Steel: Iron with less than 2.1% carbon

So, what's up with the carbon?
When you make iron alloys you usually start with iron ore Fe2O3 (or Fe3O4, or a combination depending on your source). Now all this oxygen is rather pesky and clings to the iron making it into a stupid rock and not a usable metal. So we need to get rid of it!
What does oxygen love? CARBON!
So we add carbon, about 200g/kg of Fe2O3, of pure carbon. Now the soruce of this is kind of irrelevant as long as the carbon is available to react with the oxygen in the ore. It can be coal (as found naturally), carbides (metal-carbon substances, not that suited however), CO-gas (not really applicable to the Cosmere as we know it), charcoal (natural, or man-made from trees/plants), or anything else really. Diamonds even, but they are really strongly bonded and not really going to e very efficient.
Heat this mixture of ore and carbon up and you start making iron! (Heat generally makes reactions faster, it also melts the ore and the iron (not the carbon though!) making the contact surface bigger and more suitable for reaction. 2000C should do the trick by far! This can be done by burning the carbon source, or by other ways of heating).
Iron ore will react with carbon in this way: Fe2O3 -> Fe3O4 -> FeO -> Fe

Now you've got some good old liquid iron, but also heaps of exess carbon, which starts dissolving into the molten iron similar to how sugar or salt dissolves into water. Molten iron can dissolve ALOT of carbon!
And suddenly you have a whole lot of carbon in your molten metal, and if you cool it down and cast it at this point it forms as cast iron! Dammit, no steel yet...

So what does carbon love? OXYGEN!
And this is where things get a bit silly, because after you've removed all the oxygen from the iron ore you start blowing oxygen back in to remove the exess carbon!
Most efficient is of course using pure oxygen, but air should do the trick.
Blow air into your liquid mixture all until you achieve a carbon-leven below 2.1% and you've got yourself a batch of steel!

Cast it, cool it, grind it to a powder and ingest it you crazy Mistborn!

 

Bonus nerd photo, iron-carbon phase diagram with the different molecular structures (the greek symbols) and physical structure (images) of iron+carbon alloys at different temperatures.

This was horribly simplified, and more than a little silly, but hope you enjoyed this class and if you have any further questions do not fear - the metallurgist is here!

Another note: Being a metallurgist both makes reading about Scadrial gives pure joy and stupid agony, but sometimes you just got to assume some spiritual mumbo-jumbo came into play and taught people how to make the metals..!

Edited September 16, 2020 by Krox
Photo dissapeared...

[Frustration]

13 minutes ago, Krox said:

Another note: Being a metallurgist both makes reading about Scadrial gives pure joy and stupid agony, but sometimes you just got to assume some spiritual mumbo-jumbo came into play and taught people how to make the metals..!

Because they have zinc so quickly?

or the proportions right?

[+Krox]

22 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Because they have zinc so quickly?

or the proportions right?

The purity of some metals is also very hard to achieve without complex processes, which is some of what bugs me.
The proportions must have come from Leras, as I remember they have to be very specific according to Kelsier or Vin (it's been a while since I read it, re-reading now).
Or it could be not so specific compositions in our eyes, but still quite specific for a society at their level of technology (ie. 5% off might still be good).

Pure metals are generally really hard to make without modern refining technologies, but one have to assume having a Shard guiding you will help. We did make alot of the metals (if not entirely pure) used in the series in the middle ages though.
Pure metals:
Zinc, not very usable without Allomancy but could be made in middle ages
Copper, made in the middle ages
Iron, made in the middle ages
Tin, made in the middle ages

Alloys:
Steel, iron and carbon alloy, some occurance from metorites and random happenstance where the ore is suitable (ie Damascus steel)
Pewter, lead and tin alloy, probably made from an ore containing both (not uncommon)
Brass, copper and zinc alloy
Bronze, copper and tin alloy

For era 2, everything advances alot and let's not get into that now!

[StanLemon]

@Krox it would make sense if Leras guided them, after all the Terris were pretty knowledgeable about the true state of the world and metalminds require the same metals as Allomancy 

Also love the thought of having an actual metallurgist add their input 

Edited September 16, 2020 by StanLemon

[+Krox]

14 hours ago, StanLemon said:

@Krox it would make sense if Leras guided them, after all the Terris were pretty knowledgeable about the true state of the world and metalminds require the same metals as Allomancy 

Also love the thought of having an actual metallurgist add their input 

My thoughts exactly, I would like to know more about society before The Ascension - everything since is obviously obscured by Rashek...

Don't flatter me though, I might go ahead and make more of these!

[Mage_914]

I would assume they just use charcoal. It functions effectively identically as they are both just big lumps of carbon. When making steel you just need something to use as fuel that burns super hot and releases carbon into the iron. We already established that charcoal is almost exclusively carbon and I can tell you that it burns plenty hot. I use charcoal almost exclusively in my forge and I've never had issues with temp.

[+Krox]

5 hours ago, Mage_914 said:

I would assume they just use charcoal. It functions effectively identically as they are both just big lumps of carbon. When making steel you just need something to use as fuel that burns super hot and releases carbon into the iron. We already established that charcoal is almost exclusively carbon and I can tell you that it burns plenty hot. I use charcoal almost exclusively in my forge and I've never had issues with temp.

Charcoal should be plenty enough to make steel, but steelmaking in the degree of extremely specific content is difficult! Question falls back to the definition of specific