6 ms·

Saudi Arabian Neom project 'uses one fifth of world's steel'

25 points by Ozarkian 2y ago

paxys 2y ago
Ah yes, one fifth of steel. Makes perfect sense.
- alexander2002 2y ago
  Without looking into the article ,I would assume they meant 1/5 of the world supply?
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    How is refreshing to read a comment reply easier than reading the first damn sentence of the link ?
    - stavros 2y ago
      Some of us don't read the articles because the comments are more informative and useful.
      - alexander2002 2y ago
        I often dont have the competence and time so selective comments are often more informative for me
    - alpaca128 2y ago
      Maybe they got the same UI bug as me, where the entire article was squished to a width of about 2cm somewhere on the side and almost invisible between the links to other articles, making it seem like there's only the headline and nothing else.
  - csomar 2y ago
    I think he was being sarcastic because of the "broken" English in the title.
    - ginko 2y ago
      When there's a broken title on HN there's a good chance that it's been mangled by HN's scripts.
- dash2 2y ago
  "One fifth of world's steel" makes sense, was it something else before?
  - alexander2002 2y ago
    It said "One fifth " initially when posted.This was probably due to a bug or mis-spelling
- zeofig 2y ago
  >A fifth is a unit of volume formerly used for wine and distilled beverages in the United States, equal to one fifth of a US liquid gallon, or 253⁄5 U.S. fluid ounces (757 milliliters) So it's really not that bad /s
shafyy 2y ago
Meanwhile, the world is burning and flooding. But sure, build your fucking vanity project while disrespecting every human right on the planet.
- omer9 2y ago
  [flagged]
- dinobones 2y ago
  There’s this guy on every comment. The vast majority of human experience has been tough. Arguably the vast experience of most life is pretty cruel. Should they just donate the wealth of their country to some other one? Would you like to donate some of your personal income to the nice homeless people outside? The leaps from people build dumb glass city => world is bad => people building dumb glass city are bad because world is bad aren’t obvious to me.
  - throw310822 2y ago
    Agree; however it's true that building a city with the most inefficient possible shape in a hostile environment doesn't sound like a good use of money in any case. I really don't understand the project, it makes no sense at all. Does anyone have an idea of what might be the thinking there?
- wruza 2y ago
  A bigger picture is them spending this money on building is infinitely times better than spending it on war.
  - Sporktacular 2y ago
    Because those are the only two choices.
    - wruza 2y ago
      Because nothing motivates them. It’s mostly chinese money but also US. Stop giving them it and find a better use, simple. Or say something like “I’ll buy it, if you do X”. That’s motivation. They will say “nah, if we do X, Y, you just don’t understand”. Etc etc. It was probably all said before and we are just exploring naive ideas on how the world should work. I’d just take penis city over war any day of week and thank them sincerely.
A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
> "The Neom giga-project in Saudi Arabia is currently using one fifth of all the steel produced in the world, an official said on Monday." So nearly 400 million metric tons. (Over a year -- and Neom's construction is a multi-year project.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro... That's more than India, the US, Japan, and Germany produce -- combined. This seems wildly implausible. The World Trade Center famously utilized 200,000 tons of steel -- 0.05% of what Neom claims to be using. (Annually, or however they reckon it.) I think "an official said" is doing quite a lot of work in that opening statement.
- csomar 2y ago
  The Line is a 150km or so project (at the moment). You can appreciate the scale here: https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0609943,35.2178942,63268m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0609943,35.2178942,63268m/da... At first, I thought it was one of these sci-fi concepts that governments talk about but never execute. But they are doing the project (although they have scaled it down considerably). Have nothing to say really.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    The line was never going to be built. 150km long with a massive cross-section is unrealistic. It has been massively scaled down to realistic proportions since, as expected.
  - Oarch 2y ago
    They've done some groundworks for the entire length, but that's shifting sand about mostly for PR reasons. I believe the plan is to build the first 2km as a test. Which is still 500m high so just nuts. The project Corviale in Rome is 1km long as a reference.
  - Sporktacular 2y ago
    "They have scaled it down considerably" Right, so it's no longer "a 150km or so project". It's actually a 1.5km project. This doesn't need more hype. So many people said this would be BS and they were right. The 1% remaining is a face saving gesture.
ks2048 2y ago
I suppose it will never be built, but it says the planned area is 26,500 km2 (10,200 sq mi). Have they said the expected/desired population? Riyadh is by far their biggest city with 7M people on less than 2,000 km2. Where would these people come from? I'm sure they can bribe some people to move there, but how many?
Sporktacular 2y ago
"an official said on Monday." Why would a chief investment officer lie about a wildly overhyped project?
Sporktacular 2y ago
Shocking and depressing how easily they've been able to find overcharging consultancy firms and willing spruikers ready to hype up what is obviously a stupid and unrealistic vanity project. At 1% of it's planned length, it's already going to be nothing like the shiny CGI videos. And the Howeitat had to be removed or jailed to build even that. Shameful.
euroderf 2y ago
The smart money is betting on: 22nd Century Superslum
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
alephnil 2y ago
Steel production causes around 8% of the worlds CO2 emissions, so if this is right, this project alone is causing emissions around two thirds of all of the worlds aviation.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Probably pales into insignificance compared to all the oil Saudi Arabian is pumping out the ground, but meh.
BillFranklin 2y ago
This would be a tremendous amount of steel for the size of building they are creating. Crude steel production in 2023: 18.88 billion mt. 20% = 3,776,000,000 metric tons. If you just laid that on the ground in 1 meter square blocks it would cover a 481km² area (steel mass=7850 kg/m³). If you made a 1m² block tower, it would be enough to reach the moon, wrap around it, and start heading back. Their original planned area is 26,500 square km, though this has been scaled back to 1.5km long. I struggle to see how 481,019 m³ of steel will fit in an area 1.5km square without being the largest and tallest building ever constructed. If you just made a block of pure steel in that 1.5km square area it's going to be 320m high (about half the height of the world trade center across an area the size of 40 Manhatten blocks).
dave333 2y ago
How is transport handled? Even with a high capacity subway with stops every mile you could still be 1/2 mile from your destination. Also if a train stops everywhere even if only on demand it will still take forever to get from one end to the other. Maybe a fleet of robotaxis.
- dave333 2y ago
  Design of a 100 mile subway might be 2 lines in each direction a fast and a slow. Fast might stop every 10 or 20 miles and run in the center. Slow would run in an outer track that shares the other side of the fast track station platforms and would pick up and drop off at 1000 numbered stations on demand depending on what passengers enter on their smart phone ride apps.
kkfx 2y ago
Neom is simply the perfect representation of why smart-cities are failures like original Fordlandia. Arkadag, Innopolis are others good one.
tim333 2y ago
I think not. They probably mean the planned project would use one fifth of the world's steel but it is currently just a hole in the ground and the project is kind of ridiculous and won't get built as planned - even the Saudis don't have enough money. Patrick Boyle had an entertaining youtube on it https://youtu.be/Ak4on5uTaTg https://youtu.be/Ak4on5uTaTg

25 points by Ozarkian 2y ago

paxys 2y ago

Ah yes, one fifth of steel. Makes perfect sense.

alexander2002 2y ago
Without looking into the article ,I would assume they meant 1/5 of the world supply?
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  How is refreshing to read a comment reply easier than reading the first damn sentence of the link ?
  - stavros 2y ago
    Some of us don't read the articles because the comments are more informative and useful.
    - alexander2002 2y ago
      I often dont have the competence and time so selective comments are often more informative for me
  - alpaca128 2y ago
    Maybe they got the same UI bug as me, where the entire article was squished to a width of about 2cm somewhere on the side and almost invisible between the links to other articles, making it seem like there's only the headline and nothing else.
- csomar 2y ago
  I think he was being sarcastic because of the "broken" English in the title.
  - ginko 2y ago
    When there's a broken title on HN there's a good chance that it's been mangled by HN's scripts.
dash2 2y ago
"One fifth of world's steel" makes sense, was it something else before?
- alexander2002 2y ago
  It said "One fifth " initially when posted.This was probably due to a bug or mis-spelling
zeofig 2y ago
>A fifth is a unit of volume formerly used for wine and distilled beverages in the United States, equal to one fifth of a US liquid gallon, or 253⁄5 U.S. fluid ounces (757 milliliters) So it's really not that bad /s

shafyy 2y ago

Meanwhile, the world is burning and flooding. But sure, build your fucking vanity project while disrespecting every human right on the planet.

omer9 2y ago
[flagged]
dinobones 2y ago
There’s this guy on every comment. The vast majority of human experience has been tough. Arguably the vast experience of most life is pretty cruel. Should they just donate the wealth of their country to some other one? Would you like to donate some of your personal income to the nice homeless people outside? The leaps from people build dumb glass city => world is bad => people building dumb glass city are bad because world is bad aren’t obvious to me.
- throw310822 2y ago
  Agree; however it's true that building a city with the most inefficient possible shape in a hostile environment doesn't sound like a good use of money in any case. I really don't understand the project, it makes no sense at all. Does anyone have an idea of what might be the thinking there?
wruza 2y ago
A bigger picture is them spending this money on building is infinitely times better than spending it on war.
- Sporktacular 2y ago
  Because those are the only two choices.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Because nothing motivates them. It’s mostly chinese money but also US. Stop giving them it and find a better use, simple. Or say something like “I’ll buy it, if you do X”. That’s motivation. They will say “nah, if we do X, Y, you just don’t understand”. Etc etc. It was probably all said before and we are just exploring naive ideas on how the world should work. I’d just take penis city over war any day of week and thank them sincerely.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago

> "The Neom giga-project in Saudi Arabia is currently using one fifth of all the steel produced in the world, an official said on Monday." So nearly 400 million metric tons. (Over a year -- and Neom's construction is a multi-year project.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro... That's more than India, the US, Japan, and Germany produce -- combined. This seems wildly implausible. The World Trade Center famously utilized 200,000 tons of steel -- 0.05% of what Neom claims to be using. (Annually, or however they reckon it.) I think "an official said" is doing quite a lot of work in that opening statement.

csomar 2y ago
The Line is a 150km or so project (at the moment). You can appreciate the scale here: https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0609943,35.2178942,63268m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0609943,35.2178942,63268m/da... At first, I thought it was one of these sci-fi concepts that governments talk about but never execute. But they are doing the project (although they have scaled it down considerably). Have nothing to say really.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  The line was never going to be built. 150km long with a massive cross-section is unrealistic. It has been massively scaled down to realistic proportions since, as expected.
- Oarch 2y ago
  They've done some groundworks for the entire length, but that's shifting sand about mostly for PR reasons. I believe the plan is to build the first 2km as a test. Which is still 500m high so just nuts. The project Corviale in Rome is 1km long as a reference.
- Sporktacular 2y ago
  "They have scaled it down considerably" Right, so it's no longer "a 150km or so project". It's actually a 1.5km project. This doesn't need more hype. So many people said this would be BS and they were right. The 1% remaining is a face saving gesture.

ks2048 2y ago

I suppose it will never be built, but it says the planned area is 26,500 km2 (10,200 sq mi). Have they said the expected/desired population? Riyadh is by far their biggest city with 7M people on less than 2,000 km2. Where would these people come from? I'm sure they can bribe some people to move there, but how many?

Sporktacular 2y ago

"an official said on Monday." Why would a chief investment officer lie about a wildly overhyped project?

Sporktacular 2y ago

Shocking and depressing how easily they've been able to find overcharging consultancy firms and willing spruikers ready to hype up what is obviously a stupid and unrealistic vanity project. At 1% of it's planned length, it's already going to be nothing like the shiny CGI videos. And the Howeitat had to be removed or jailed to build even that. Shameful.

euroderf 2y ago

The smart money is betting on: 22nd Century Superslum

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

alephnil 2y ago

Steel production causes around 8% of the worlds CO2 emissions, so if this is right, this project alone is causing emissions around two thirds of all of the worlds aviation.

rich_sasha 2y ago
Probably pales into insignificance compared to all the oil Saudi Arabian is pumping out the ground, but meh.

BillFranklin 2y ago

This would be a tremendous amount of steel for the size of building they are creating. Crude steel production in 2023: 18.88 billion mt. 20% = 3,776,000,000 metric tons. If you just laid that on the ground in 1 meter square blocks it would cover a 481km² area (steel mass=7850 kg/m³). If you made a 1m² block tower, it would be enough to reach the moon, wrap around it, and start heading back. Their original planned area is 26,500 square km, though this has been scaled back to 1.5km long. I struggle to see how 481,019 m³ of steel will fit in an area 1.5km square without being the largest and tallest building ever constructed. If you just made a block of pure steel in that 1.5km square area it's going to be 320m high (about half the height of the world trade center across an area the size of 40 Manhatten blocks).

dave333 2y ago

How is transport handled? Even with a high capacity subway with stops every mile you could still be 1/2 mile from your destination. Also if a train stops everywhere even if only on demand it will still take forever to get from one end to the other. Maybe a fleet of robotaxis.

dave333 2y ago
Design of a 100 mile subway might be 2 lines in each direction a fast and a slow. Fast might stop every 10 or 20 miles and run in the center. Slow would run in an outer track that shares the other side of the fast track station platforms and would pick up and drop off at 1000 numbered stations on demand depending on what passengers enter on their smart phone ride apps.

kkfx 2y ago

Neom is simply the perfect representation of why smart-cities are failures like original Fordlandia. Arkadag, Innopolis are others good one.

tim333 2y ago

I think not. They probably mean the planned project would use one fifth of the world's steel but it is currently just a hole in the ground and the project is kind of ridiculous and won't get built as planned - even the Saudis don't have enough money. Patrick Boyle had an entertaining youtube on it https://youtu.be/Ak4on5uTaTg https://youtu.be/Ak4on5uTaTg