Thursday, June 16, 2005
Alcoa Forecasts Aluminum to be Greenhouse Gas Neutral by 2017; First Industry in the World to Establish Claim
I gotta say, this is kinda neat. One wishes it was sooner than 2017 (I'll probably just be retiring then), but it's neat anyways.
A few years back, I visited another stamper (they made big stampings and wanted us to make some small ones) that stamped soup pots and fry pans out of aluminum. They, of course, stamp big circles and generate a lot of scrap. They took the scrap aluminum, crushed it slightly so it took up less space while waiting, then fed it into their own little furnace, melted it down and re-rolled it. Total turnaround time - less than a day until the scrap re-appeared as new coil on their stamping line.
The furnace was inside their facility. It was hot in that area, but nothing you couldn't stand near for a while.
Try doing that with steel ...
Press Release
Alcoa announced today that its researchers have developed a global sustainability model that forecasts the use of additional recycled metal and the use of aluminum in the transportation market will make aluminum greenhouse gas (GHG) neutral by 2017 - making the aluminum industry the first in the world that can establish the claim.
[Randall M. Overbey, president, Alcoa Primary Metals Development, said] "Given the great attributes of aluminum - it is easy to recycle, strong and yet lightweight - the industry will be able to reach a climate neutral state by 2017. There's no other industry that we are aware of today that can make this claim, which will help solve global warming."
A few years back, I visited another stamper (they made big stampings and wanted us to make some small ones) that stamped soup pots and fry pans out of aluminum. They, of course, stamp big circles and generate a lot of scrap. They took the scrap aluminum, crushed it slightly so it took up less space while waiting, then fed it into their own little furnace, melted it down and re-rolled it. Total turnaround time - less than a day until the scrap re-appeared as new coil on their stamping line.
The furnace was inside their facility. It was hot in that area, but nothing you couldn't stand near for a while.
Try doing that with steel ...
Press Release
Alcoa announced today that its researchers have developed a global sustainability model that forecasts the use of additional recycled metal and the use of aluminum in the transportation market will make aluminum greenhouse gas (GHG) neutral by 2017 - making the aluminum industry the first in the world that can establish the claim.
[Randall M. Overbey, president, Alcoa Primary Metals Development, said] "Given the great attributes of aluminum - it is easy to recycle, strong and yet lightweight - the industry will be able to reach a climate neutral state by 2017. There's no other industry that we are aware of today that can make this claim, which will help solve global warming."
