to reinforce our nation.
Which is why we alone produce almost 200,000
tons of it every day.
More than enough to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge
two times over.
And these days a great deal of that
comes by way of recycling.
In fact, steel is actually the most recycled
material on the planet.
More than aluminum, copper, paper, glass
and plastic combined.
And with a development boom sweeping the nation,
Gerdau Steel in Midlothian, Texas is
moving more than their fair share of that
to keep up with demand.
But turning America's scrap steel
into brand new billets is not without its challenges.
> Woo.
There she is.
> Something inspector Mark Bell knows better than most
from his daily search for impurities.
And most recently he seems to have sniffed out
one of the more combustible kind.
> That's a big, big problem here, is fuel.
We get cars that come in that didn't puncture the tank.
So they still got gas in them.
What happens then is it hits the shredder.
I mean that's just metal on metal, just sparks.
So it'll cause an explosion.
[EXPLOSION]
Burns belts and it damages the shredder.
And it'll be a thousand pound deduction.
> To render the car safe for shredding,
Mark uses his near-surgical grappling skills
to take care of the remaining fuel.
Got it. It's empty now.
> But Mark's job here isn't just to sleuth out impurities.
> But it's also to do anything needed to keep
Gerdau's steel shredder running.
> But it appears that Mark's fellow workers
have beaten him to the problem.
> Get it.
> Stuck in the feed chute cross mag.
> With 200 yards of belts, wheels and pulleys
jams like these are inevitable.
But the important thing is that the system can
now get back to the task of shredding
and sorting recyclable steel.
> There's three points for the materials to picked up.
There's mag one and mag two on the towers up there.
And this is the cross mag.
And it'll pick up whatever ferrous material is left.
That the main two magnetic towers might have missed.
As the belt makes the corner,
it hits a dead spot where it's not magnetized
and it falls into that chute.
Which is where our bar was stuck a few minutes ago,
holding up that material.
And then it'll go right up that belt
that's heading out to the shred hill.
The good shredded material that's going on
down to the melt shop.
> Back at said melt shop, and with 100 tons of said
scrap already in the furnace, operator Jeff Rose
steps out of the 100-degree heat
and into the control room while a second load of
scrap is dropped.
> Going 330,000 pounds of scrap this time.
Uh, about 150 tons.
Liquid after it's all processed.
And then we'll swing in and start arcing on it
> Ah yes, the arcing process.
Through which graphite rods are lowered
into the scrap and shocked with one-half
the heat of the sun.
Jeff prefers to stay in the control room for that too.
[SIZZLING]
> That's a lot of electricity.
About 70,000 amps to phase going through three electrodes.
Touch the scrap, makes it hard,
a real hot flame comes out of it.
Melts it down.
[MUSIC]
> But once the fireworks subside, Jeff has to head
back out onto the melt shop floor to conduct
some critical testing.
> When it comes to steel production
carbon content is everything.
Too much of it and the steel will come out brittle.
Not enough and it'll be too soft.
So Jeff uses a probe known as a catfish pole
to see where this batch stands.
> We're looking to get our carbon down to about 500 PPMs.
It's a range that we have to meet for the chemistry
of the grade.
[ALARM BEEPING]
> Yeah, we got a little problem.
We got too much carbon in the furnace.
So we have to quit running on it so it doesn't get too hot.
> While Jeff troubleshoots the carbon issue
not far away another of his colleagues is responding
to a different kind of problem.
Because it takes a total of 11 cranes working in unison
to keep Gerdau Steel fully operational.
And right now one of them is reportedly acting up.
And when that happens it's the job of crane mechanic
Brian Buckley to get it back in working order.
> The crane shop is important to Gerdau.
Especially the melt shop.
Because it is the main mover of all our materials.
It moves the raw materials into the furnace,
it moves the liquid steel out of the furnace
into the casters to be able to be cast
and sent out to the mills to make bars out of.
> All that to say cranes are essential
to every part of the steel production process.
So getting this one working properly
is priority number one for Brian and his partner, Lance.
> Got a report saying we're missing
some speeds on the hoist.
So he's not able to make a correct pick.
We're gonna go assess and see
what's going on with the crane.
> To do that Brian must journey 80 feet
above the melt shop floor.
Where on a summer day like today temperatures
can surpass 160 degrees.
And since that's plenty hot enough to cook a chicken,
company policy dictates that he can only be up there
for 15 minutes at a time.
Hopefully long enough to diagnose the crane's problem.
> For that Brian will have the operator
put it through its paces while he looks for
anything out of the ordinary.
> Let's take your main hoist
now stepping it out, first point.
[MUSIC]
> Uh, he lost a point, good point.
I'm just trying to figure out what it is.
I'm not seeing it up here.
Must be down in the E house we'll have to check it out.
> Yeah, it's real hot.
> Well the good news is Brian won't have to go back up.
But he and Lance are still no closer to diagnosing
their crane issue.
Something they'll get right back to
just as soon as they've cooled down.
> Eighty-five, 90 degrees out here right now and
it feels like air conditioning after stepping out of that shop.
[MUSIC]