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How to Escape From the Iron Age?
(solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Charcoal steel is actually better, as charcoal is generally purer, and steel suffers from phosphor and sulphur impurities. The problem is that it's costlier.
I think that it would be viable to at least reduce the carbon used in steel production just to impregnate it, and conduct the bulk of the reduction through another process.