thanks guys. i endedup figuring it out: what you need to do in order to make steel in feed the beast beyond is this: macerate coal to get coal dust, macerate iron ingots to get iron dust, and then put both of them in the iron alloy furnace at a 1:1 ratio. cook it using fuel (i use charcoal) and you get steel blend. steel blend can be cooked in order to make steel ingots, which then act like any other ingot.
it does not appear that there is an electric version of the iron alloy furnace in ic2. techreborn has an electric alloy furnace but it uses FE for power and i don't know what that is.
thanks for the help, and on to the next thing that's messing me up: I remember long ago when buildcraft had redstone engines. they would do a tiny amount of work very slowly without needing fuel or power, just a redstone signal (like an adjacent redstone torch). i can't find that in the build gui - does an equivalent item still exist?