New Zealand Steel

On the evening of Monday, June 21st, 2004, a woman named Tracey Donnelly was sitting in her parents' kitchen near Auckland, New Zealand, anxiously staring at the landline telephone, waiting for her husband's friend, Steven, to call her back.

So earlier that day, Steven, the friend, had called her and said that he had tried to reach her husband, Jim, at the Glenbrook Steel Mill where he worked, but Jim's coworkers had said he wasn't actually at work.

Apparently, he had arrived at work around 6:30 AM like usual.

He had dropped his lunch on his desk and changed into his work uniform like he's doing all the normal things.

But the first thing she did is she ran to her parents.

She's at their house, and she, she told them what's going on, you know, as best as she could understand it, and then asked them to look after the kids, you know, her kids, while she figured out what to do next.

Later that evening, Tracy was now sitting in the boardroom of the Glenbrook Steel Mill, and she was totally nervous.

Her heart's racing, her hands were trembling.

Before that, an awesome one from Joni Mitchell, one of my favorites, Help Me, from Court and Spark.

big thank you to everybody texting in and calling in shout out to glenbrook steel mill wayuki thanks for listening guys always love to hear from you here's a great uh live version of a lydia loveless song i love this is really want to see you from live at documentary 2021 you listen to border radio

I was just thinking about you.

Now you got married last June.

And as yet, they haven't found anything to replace it.

And yes, we've probably heard about the high-profile businesses like Glenbrook Steel Mill and Spates Brewery in Dunedin, who have transitioned to electric arc furnaces and electric boilers, respectively.

But for a huge number of businesses, a shift is not yet technically or financially possible, but the gas is going to run out.

They can't say, we'll just keep it going until we transfer over, because when it's gone, it's gone.

Exactly.

And there is core national infrastructure, not owned by the country, but making a lot of money for the country, and things like, uh, the Glenbrook Steel Mill or the Tiwai Point Aluminum Smelter, if they have an electricity disruption that's quite short, they are stuffed.

Yeah, that's right.

And, and, and, and so that's vast am- uh, uh, costs from a short disruption.