I was wrong (about recycled aluminium) | Auto Expert John Cadogan

I was absolutely wrong about recycling aluminium in my last report on zero emissions and the car industry. Sorry about that. This video is here to set the record straight on that.

I did claim in that report that recycling aluminium (as opposed to manufacturing it from bauxite, the ore) doesn’t really save you that much CO2/energy. That was categorically wrong.

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“At present, the global average of CO2 emissions for both virgin and recycled aluminium is 11.5 tons of CO2 per ton of aluminium.”

That’s from AluminiumInsider.com - and clearly it does not mean that virgin and recycled aluminium are roughly the same in terms of embodied energy or CO2 emissions. My fault entirely.

The number quoted there is in US tons, obviously, and I converted that to metric, but several of you pointed out my fundamental error of false equivalence in the comments. Thank you very much for that. I’d rather be corrected than enduringly wrong. I investigated this following your comments, and - yeah - it is far more energy intensive to manufacture aluminium from bauxite than it is to recycle the stuff.

Official claims about recycling aluminium are a bit vague - usually citing ‘up to’ 95 per cent of input energy, which can be saved by recycling. Weasel words like ‘up to’ always scare me in claims such as this. Like, OK, dude, ‘up to 95’, but what is it really, in practice, mostly?

According to Terry Norgate at the CSIRO, in his 2013 report entitled ‘Metal recycling: The need for a lifecycle approach.’ there are:

“Inconsistencies in the use of recycling metrics in reports and publications giving metal recycling data.”

So 95 per cent saving is probably an over-blown best-case claim, for recycled aluminium, and the reality of energy saving is probably somewhat less.

But because of the ‘reverse-thermite’ energy volume thingo, aluminium is definitely one of the best candidates for metal recycling. And I was pretty wrong about that.

Mr Norgate adds:

“If the principles of sustainability are to be incorporated into metal recycling systems and processes, it is essential that lifecycle assessment methodology be used to assess these systems and processes.”

Lifecycle analysis always makes green initiatives look worse, because it forces you not to ignore any segment of a process - which might otherwise be ignored for green convenience - and of course every segment involves the burden of energy/CO2.

This is exactly what carmakers do when they refer to BEVs and FCEVs as ‘zero emissions’ vehicles. They ignore the tremendous amounts of energy and CO2 embodied in the manufacture of those vehicles, as well as end-of-life costs and mid-life maintenance.

I’d also suggest that it would be a mistake to conflate recycling aluminium with this being any kind of clean process. It’s actually pretty filthy.

Видео I was wrong (about recycled aluminium) | Auto Expert John Cadogan канала Auto Expert John Cadogan