Induction Heater

[Welsh cake]

The electricity can produce extreme high temperatures.

The process can, but the current furnaces available to industry for mass-production cannot reach those sustained temperatures. They've only been able to reach higher temperatures in laboratory conditions.

The advantage of Induction heating is more controllable transfer of amount of heat energy - unlike fossil fuels such as coal.

Which requires an INSANE amount of power to run for induction or electric arc furnaces. We're talking millions of gigawatts here for a steel works. Electricity is not cheap. They're only around 70% efficient even when running at optimum capacity. The nation grid in the UK will not allow any such technology to operate during the day, only at night.

Ever heard of Anglesey Aluminium? Its the only example I know of near where I live. Their aluminium smelters were aforementioned induction heaters. The plant was powered from the National Grid, receiving most of its electricity from Wylfa nuclear power station in North Wales. The only way the plant could function and remain commercially viable was to have cheaper power, that deal ran out, and the joint venture could no longer afford the staggering electricity bill to run induction, even with government grants to keep the business afloat.

The plant closed on 30th September 2009, much to the dismay of the people of Anglesey. It was all over the news at the time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglesey_Aluminium

For your information, there is steel producing electric arc furniture - which means, the fossil fuels are not necessary to push the temperatures to melting point of Iron.

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Electric arc furnaces reprocess scrap metal back into new steel. Blast Furnaces are chemical reactors. They do NOT make steel, they make molten iron. Neither of them make steel. NO furnace anywhere has ever made steel. Argon oxygen decarburization (BOS) takes place afterwards to make steel.

Furnaces cannot be shut down once they are started up. They need a constant source of energy to stay operational. They NEED fossil fuels such as gases, coke from coal to run.