Points of Interest | Green Energy News

October 26, 2003 – Vol.8 No.31

POINTS OF INTEREST.

A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.

We may like to think of energy-saving recycling as dropping off our cans and bottles at the recycling center or leaving them at the curb for the trash man. It all seems so nice, clean and simple.

But there’s another side of recycling that most never see. The processing of materials behind the scenes.

Think of machines produced by Metso Mineral of Norway - Non-Ferrous Separators and Double Screw Presses, examples of big machines that have helped allow recycled steel become 50 percent of the raw material used in steel production worldwide.

And think of this. The car you are now driving (and may still be paying for) could meet a machine like Metso’s Lindemann Hydraulic Guillotine Scrap Shear in 10 years or less.

Metso Mineral just announced sales of EUR 23 million (US $27 million) of metal recycling machines to global customers. At one facility Metso’s machines will turn 90 tons an hour of old cars into shredded steel. http://www.metsominerals.com/ .

Visit the Dumills. They generate their own green power. Their domestic greenhouse gas allowance is debited from a smart card since they sell extra green power to the grid. They drive a hydrogen fueled car or use mass transit. Driving is easier, too. Congestion charges have eliminated traffic jambs.

But they live in a world twenty years from now. The West Coast of Ireland is under water. Much of Central Africa is desert. Millions world-wide have had to flee because of climate change.

The fictional Dumills were created by the U.K. Environment Agency - The Way We’ll Live in 2020 - to depict how life might differ as the world changes - environmentally and technologically - in the coming decades. For some life is better - cleaner air. For some much worse - the displacement of whole populations. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ , (search key word Dumills, Match All Words.)