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In this episode of Stirring the Pot, we’re having a kōrero with Michael Allison, a civil engineer asking what it would really take to close the loop on steel in Aotearoa New Zealand.
In this episode of Stirring the Pot, we’re having a kōrero (conversation) with Michael Allison, a civil engineer and Cambridge University MPhil graduate who researched steel circularity in Aotearoa New Zealand with HERA.
Michael grew up in Christchurch, studied civil engineering in Auckland, then spent several years working in commercial construction across hospitals, schools and mixed use residential before heading to Cambridge to study an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development. His dissertation, supported by HERA, mapped the flow of steel through Aotearoa New Zealand’s economy and put hard numbers on what it costs us to keep sending scrap overseas.
In this conversation, Michael walks through what a material flow analysis of New Zealand’s steel industry actually revealed, why the 600 kilotons of scrap we export every year ends up being processed on grids up to six times more carbon intensive than ours, and what the electric arc furnace coming online at Glenbrook really means for our emissions. He also explains why improving domestic scrap collection is a bigger lever than cleaning up the grid, what needs to change for structural steel reuse to become a genuine option for engineers and fabricators, and what anyone in the industry can do right now without waiting for new standards or government policy.
The technology is largely solved. The system around it is not yet.
Research commissioned by HERA.
Resources and links
- Learn more about HERA’s Industry 4.0 rangahau: https://hera.org.nz/research/industry-x-0/
- Subscribe to our podcast: https://www.hera.org.nz/podcasts/
📬 Got questions or feedback? Reach us at info@hera.org.nz
