Green Energy News | January 20, 1997

January 20, 1997 – Vol.1 No.42

ENERGIES... week of January 20, 1997

COMMITTED TO MAGNESIUM. Ford Motor Company, the Australian Magnesium Corporation and the Australian government have joined forces to provide a steady supply of this strong, light-weight, energy-saving metal for use in automobiles well into the next century. Ford will invest some $30 million in a new plant in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia that will convert magnesite ore from a mine in Kunwarawa into high-quality magnesium.

Magnesium makes up about 2.5% of the earth’s crust and is the eighth most abundant element on the planet. However, most magnesium is extracted from sea water as magnesite through a desalinization process. The mine in Kunwarawa is a concentrated deposit of magnesite from an evaporated inland sea.

Ford now uses about 14,000 tons of magnesium in its cars and expects to triple that amount because of the partnership with the Aussies.

PLASTIC BRIDGES. The use of polymeric materials as well as glass, carbon and polypropylene fibers in bridge and bridge deck construction will be discussed at a one-day symposium at Michigan State University in Lansing. One of the speakers is responsible for a steel-free polymer reinforced bridge deck on the Trans Canada highway. Another has designed a plastic reinforced bridge deck that will be built over the Rouge River in Southfield, Michigan.

Aside from being corrosion resistant, plastics typically consume less energy to produce than steel.

WARMER THAN YOU’D THINK. According to numbers just released in Britain, the planet is still getting warmer. Despite a cold winter and spring over much of the Northern Hemisphere, 1996 was still the eighth warmest since record keeping began in 1860. Much warmer temperatures in eastern Siberia, northern Africa, and the oceans moderated the cooler temperatures elsewhere. A cooling “La Nina” current off the shores of Peru replaced the warming tendencies of the “El Nino” current. On average the planet was 0.21C warmer than the 30-year average.

The average was compiled from data from more than 1000 weather stations and an equal number of ships and buoys around the globe.