Technologies for smelting iron ore and magnetite sand (of which around 10% contain 60 to 66% iron) using electric furnaces are now mature, with joint venture or turnkey plants available for sale in the 1st World. Such technologies combined with trillion-watt level power from Philippine geothermal and mini hydro sources as described in previous posts can make the Philippines a major producer of basic carbon steel (iron + 2% carbon). Carbon steel mixed with nickel, chromium and other metals from 1% to 20%, then melted in electric furnaces produce stainless and alloy steels which may be formed by molds, sheet-making machines and machine tools into all manner of machinery parts, sheets, tubes, bars, etc. Assembled in certain ways, such alloyed parts become factory machines, home appliances, vehicles, ships, heavy equipment, construction steel and all manner of steel-based products. The technologies applied to the Philippines can transform the country from near-total importer of steel products to world-scale exporter of steel and alloyed products.
What will greatly help to realize the dream is the country's billion-ton level reserves of iron, magnetite sand and copper ores, and hundred million-ton level deposits of nickel, chromium and molybdenum, Gold reserves stand at 2 billion metric tons, and silver at 4 billion+, both potential financing aids for rural industrialization. Joint venture agreements between hundreds of 1st World CSR companies and thousands of mega co-ops and local corporations will create the thousands of metalworking mills and factories that will fully industrialize the Philippines.
How may the dream pan out into reality? As 1st World build-operate-transfer companies set up hydropower and geothermal plants that produce trillion-watt level power, joint ventures between other 1st World companies and mega co-op consortia may build mini steel mills and metal products manufacturing plants. The attractors for the 1st World partners: a) copious, eternal electric power; b) low-cost electricity prices due to the hydro and geo plants' 'free' water and steam fuels; c) CO2 sequestration thru replacement of Philippine coal and petrochemical-fed power plants with clean generating systems; d) more CO2 sequestration thru (likely) transfer or expansion of 1st World CSR factories fed by power from coal and oil-fed plants to the Philippines where power is clean; e) sale of carbon credit certificates by said factory transferees, proceeds invested in Philippine mega co-op joint ventures for dividend income and more profits out of investor shares' price increases in stock markets.
What's the ideal financing scheme? Billion-dollar climate change Funds and 1st World State Aid agencies may provide 75% of project cost per project, payable ten years per tranche at low interest for the sake of global CO2 mitigation. Capital requirements at 25% of project cost are to be provided 60% by a consortium of 100 or so Philippine mega co-ops and local public and private corporations, and 40% provided by groups of 20-30 1st World companies plus several steel-making and steel products manufacturing partners which will provide the required facilities and technologies. Mini steel mills cost from $300 million to $500 million each, while parts-making plants cost $50 million to $100 million. Installment purchase of the mills and factories will require just a few million dollars in quarterly repayments per plant two years after startup, assuming such grace period is included in the loan terms. Sales in pesos may arise right after startup, for the mills and factories will be expected to offer lower prices versus imported steel products, considering the low prices of local electricity (the major operational cost) generated by the country's new hydropower and geothermal plants. Sure markets and high profits that create 'loan repayment power' should serve as persuaders for the lending institutions' approval during planning stage, especially since resultant interest income will help expand such lenders' budgets towards financing more clean and green projects.
Loan repayments will come from the metal mills' and plants' local and export sales. Local sales may come up to billions of pesos yearly, for the Philippines imports nearly all metal-based products and basic steel raw materials (pig iron) it requires. In early 2000s, out of the country's $6 billion or so monthly foreign exchange receipts (from exports, expatriate remittances, local business processing companies' earnings, etc.) some $5 billion speedily left the economy each month in great part due to imports of oil and metal products. By producing equivalent metal products locally thru mega co-op joint ventures, all the electricity-powered steel mills and parts-making factories will produce and sell to full capacity. A major percentage of the country's outgoing dollars for imports will be conserved for use in other development purposes even as the mills' and plants' dollar loans get paid. As the new steel-based factories begin to export much of their production, the State will be holding even more dollars which will raise its credit worthiness, qualifying it to sell more billions of dollars in sovereign bonds for lending to more mega co-op joint ventures in other industries.
All throughout, trillions of pesos will flow among the Philippine masses and organizations that own shares in mega co-ops that are part-owners of metal-based joint venture factories. More trillions of pesos will flow among millions of local poor who become employees of the mills and factories as well as the upstream and downstream industries such joint ventures create. Inter-racial CO2 sequestration on such grand scale thereby generates a happy side effect: the imminent end of mass poverty in the Philippines.
What will greatly help to realize the dream is the country's billion-ton level reserves of iron, magnetite sand and copper ores, and hundred million-ton level deposits of nickel, chromium and molybdenum, Gold reserves stand at 2 billion metric tons, and silver at 4 billion+, both potential financing aids for rural industrialization. Joint venture agreements between hundreds of 1st World CSR companies and thousands of mega co-ops and local corporations will create the thousands of metalworking mills and factories that will fully industrialize the Philippines.
How may the dream pan out into reality? As 1st World build-operate-transfer companies set up hydropower and geothermal plants that produce trillion-watt level power, joint ventures between other 1st World companies and mega co-op consortia may build mini steel mills and metal products manufacturing plants. The attractors for the 1st World partners: a) copious, eternal electric power; b) low-cost electricity prices due to the hydro and geo plants' 'free' water and steam fuels; c) CO2 sequestration thru replacement of Philippine coal and petrochemical-fed power plants with clean generating systems; d) more CO2 sequestration thru (likely) transfer or expansion of 1st World CSR factories fed by power from coal and oil-fed plants to the Philippines where power is clean; e) sale of carbon credit certificates by said factory transferees, proceeds invested in Philippine mega co-op joint ventures for dividend income and more profits out of investor shares' price increases in stock markets.
What's the ideal financing scheme? Billion-dollar climate change Funds and 1st World State Aid agencies may provide 75% of project cost per project, payable ten years per tranche at low interest for the sake of global CO2 mitigation. Capital requirements at 25% of project cost are to be provided 60% by a consortium of 100 or so Philippine mega co-ops and local public and private corporations, and 40% provided by groups of 20-30 1st World companies plus several steel-making and steel products manufacturing partners which will provide the required facilities and technologies. Mini steel mills cost from $300 million to $500 million each, while parts-making plants cost $50 million to $100 million. Installment purchase of the mills and factories will require just a few million dollars in quarterly repayments per plant two years after startup, assuming such grace period is included in the loan terms. Sales in pesos may arise right after startup, for the mills and factories will be expected to offer lower prices versus imported steel products, considering the low prices of local electricity (the major operational cost) generated by the country's new hydropower and geothermal plants. Sure markets and high profits that create 'loan repayment power' should serve as persuaders for the lending institutions' approval during planning stage, especially since resultant interest income will help expand such lenders' budgets towards financing more clean and green projects.
Loan repayments will come from the metal mills' and plants' local and export sales. Local sales may come up to billions of pesos yearly, for the Philippines imports nearly all metal-based products and basic steel raw materials (pig iron) it requires. In early 2000s, out of the country's $6 billion or so monthly foreign exchange receipts (from exports, expatriate remittances, local business processing companies' earnings, etc.) some $5 billion speedily left the economy each month in great part due to imports of oil and metal products. By producing equivalent metal products locally thru mega co-op joint ventures, all the electricity-powered steel mills and parts-making factories will produce and sell to full capacity. A major percentage of the country's outgoing dollars for imports will be conserved for use in other development purposes even as the mills' and plants' dollar loans get paid. As the new steel-based factories begin to export much of their production, the State will be holding even more dollars which will raise its credit worthiness, qualifying it to sell more billions of dollars in sovereign bonds for lending to more mega co-op joint ventures in other industries.
All throughout, trillions of pesos will flow among the Philippine masses and organizations that own shares in mega co-ops that are part-owners of metal-based joint venture factories. More trillions of pesos will flow among millions of local poor who become employees of the mills and factories as well as the upstream and downstream industries such joint ventures create. Inter-racial CO2 sequestration on such grand scale thereby generates a happy side effect: the imminent end of mass poverty in the Philippines.
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