From Coal Locks to Garden-Like Mills: A Concept Note on Steel Transitions

This note argues that “transition” in steelmaking has too often meant relocation and sectoral substitution rather than absolute reduction in extractive pressure. Reading past shifts—from charcoal to coke/coal and from open-hearth to basic oxygen furnaces—through Simondon’s lens, it diagnoses the blast-furnace regime as a resistive concretization that locks technical ensembles, places, and labour into coal-centred operations with enduring social and ecological burdens. As an alternative, it advances inchoative design: an ontological and design program that re-weaves couplings between steel systems and their associated milieus (technotopes). The note anticipates geographic re-sorting of production toward renewable-rich regions, changes in skill profiles (greater roles for electrochemistry and bio-processes), and the possibility to address historical environmental injustices through cleaner processes and tighter integration. Policy is framed as inchoation lifelines that systematically de-concretize coal-bound infrastructures and re-concretize garden-like mills—organisms within a larger ecological garden that cycle materials and energy with far less brute force. The result is a clear, advocacy-driven agenda for a participatory, intensive steel regime.