June 9, 2026

CHANGE: Once on the Brink, U.S. Steel’s Oldest Plant Is Getting a Big Renovation.

Tokyo-based Nippon Steel, which bought U.S. Steel last year in a controversial deal, said it expects to spend $2 billion to $2.5 billion at Mon Valley Works over the next three years to replace the equipment that rolls steel. The investment is more than double Nippon Steel’s original cost estimate for the project.

Replacing the current 88-year-old hot-strip mill at Mon Valley will lead to more domestically produced steel. The work is expected to generate as many as 6,000 jobs and up to $1.7 billion in economic activity for Pennsylvania, company executives said.

“The Mon Valley project will go a long way to make people feel like there’s a future here,” U.S. Steel Chief Executive David Burritt said in an interview. “We’ve got great partners with Nippon Steel. These investments would not have been able to happen without it.”
…
Burritt said U.S. Steel on its own couldn’t afford the costly upgrades and maintenance needed at Mon Valley, which consists of three plants in separate towns south of Pittsburgh.

In early 2025, then President Biden blocked the sale to the Japanese company over potential national-security risks. President Trump resurrected the deal and approved it on the condition that Nippon Steel increased its investments in U.S. Steel’s existing plants to $11 billion.

The White House also gets a veto over “plant closings, the transfer of production out of the country and other operational changes,” which in theory should prevent the industry from getting re-hollowed out.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

Posted at 8:19 am by Stephen Green

ATTENTION LOYAL INSTAPUNDIT READERS:  If you have a X/Twitter account, please help me out by liking and retweeting this post.  It’s my last chance to convince the California state senators on the committee considering the bill that would gut Proposition 209 that the public will be against it.

We are fighting an uphill battle at this point.  But hope springs eternal.  The only upside is that I managed to convince the senators that putting this referendum on the 2026 ballot would be ill-advised, because we’ll only be halfway through the Trump Administration and the Trump Administration could respond with a thorough Title VI compliance investigation.  As a result, they amended the bill to put the referendum on the 2028 ballot instead.  That at least will give me the opportunity to take care of the various things wrong with house before diving back into this.

I am resigned to the reality that I will be fighting to preserve California’s Prop 209 and its various clones in other states for the rest of my life.

Posted at 7:50 am by Gail Heriot

SPACE: A Falcon 9 booster turns 5 years old—and just set a remarkable reuse record.

A little more than five years ago, a shiny white Falcon 9 rocket made its debut flight, boosting a Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. Over the next year, it would launch a pair of astronaut missions and a handful of commercial spacecraft.

But since then, this first stage booster, designated B 1067, has mostly flown Starlink missions. It has launched them one after another, always returning safely to a drone ship before undergoing refurbishment and flying again. Sometimes it has flown twice in a single month.

On Monday morning, B 1067 once again took to the skies, launching 29 Starlink Internet satellites into low-Earth orbit from Florida. Upon landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, the vehicle completed its 35th mission overall, retaining its title as fleet leader for SpaceX.

The successful launch brings SpaceX closer to its most recently stated goal of qualifying its Falcon 9 first stage vehicles to support 40 missions each. Since that goal was outlined more than two years ago and the company has continued flying its experienced boosters safely across dozens of missions, SpaceX may be intending to push past 40 missions.

To date, the only company in the world breaking SpaceX’s records is SpaceX.

That aside, the goal is to get Starship up to hundreds of flights with minimal refurbs in between. The lessons really only SpaceX has learned (the hard way) on reusability for Falcon 9 ought to be a huge leg up on the second generation of reusable rockets.

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

FROM HOLLY CHISM:  Normalcy Bias: Look closer…things aren’t always what they seem to be. 

#CommissionEarned

Look closer. The things that you’re assuming you’re seeing? May not be what you think. Is that really a mouse, or is it a Brownie? Is that really an owl? Is that polished gemstone a stone…or an egg? We take so many things for granted. Some of them may be harmless, but many are a lot less so. I wonder how many people ignore red flags every day, because they only see what they expect to see? This collection takes what’s “normal” and asks “What if it’s something more?” Contains a Liquid Diet Chronicles prequel short story.

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt

EXACTLY:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds