Green Energy News | October 22, 2000

October 22, 2000 – Vol.5 No.30

ENERGIES... week of October 22, 2000

LASERS FOR RECYCLING. Dramatically reducing the weight of automobiles is the easiest way to improve energy efficiency. Aluminum is being used more and more to lighten cars. Yet extracting aluminum from bauxite ore (smelting) is an energy intensive process.

However, recycling aluminum uses 5 percent of the energy needed to smelt the ore. But most aluminum is actually an alloy - a mixture of metals. Combining one alloy with another while recycling can diminish the strength or durability of the new metal. But if alloys can be sorted before recycling their special qualities are retained. A alloy engine block can become another alloy engine block.

The Auto Aluminum Alliance, through the Aluminum Association, and the U.S. Department of Energy has announced a new method to sort scrap aluminum. With Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) a pulse from a high energy laser is used to clean a small area on the surface of a scrap part as it moves along a conveyor belt. A second pulse in the same spot then vaporizes a small amount of the metal. The highly luminescent plume of plasma is simultaneously analyzed by a technique called Optical Emission Spectroscopy to determine the exact make-up of the alloy. The part is finally sorted with other scrap of the same alloy.

The improved sorting of scrap aluminum for recycling would reduce the amount of new, primary aluminum - and associated energy consumption - needed to produce key automotive parts. Visit the Aluminum Association at http://www.aluminum.org/ .

GREEN POWER TRADING. Two programs have been announced in Europe to accelerate the growth of the renewable power generation.

By 2002 the Danish Energy Agency will have a fully operating marketplace for the purchase and sale of green power certificates. Certificates will be issued by the Agency to producers relative to the amount of green power generated. Customers can then purchase certificates and thus become investors in renewable energy. The Agency’s system makes use of legislation in Denmark that obliges end users to purchase 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2003.

Another scheme - the Renewable Energy Certification System (RECS) - will be open for business on the Internet in 2001. The system, set up voluntarily by 50 companies, also issues certificates based on qualified green power production. However, since the scheme is market based, not helped (yet) by government legislation, the initial attraction to the system for producers would be for an environmentally friendly public image. Visit RECS at http://www.recs.org/ .

THE GREENING OF INDUSTRY. BASF Corporation is taking a closer look at the impact products and production processes have on the environment by introducing its eco-efficiency analysis tool into North American operations. With the tool, the full life-cycle of products and processes will be examined to identify those that consume less energy, produce fewer emissions and less waste, while at the same time maintain or improve commercial value.

The analysis tool looks upstream to examine the environmental impact of raw materials produced by others, then to products and processes under BASF control, and finally downstream to when products are in the hands of end users and later disposed of. Products and processes are then compared with competing ones for economic viability. Visit BASF at http://www.basf.com/ .