I would like to add that there are a lot of issues to look at when thinking
about lessening our impact, embodied energy is just one of them.
If one is building small, doing our best to use local materials, keeping
our on-site energy use to a minimum, etc. i would be more concerned
about toxins than embodied energy for many of the materials used.
The homes Howard and i have helped build have all been lime and earthen
plasters since we learned about them in 1996, and partly that is due to
embodied energy in concrete, but to just look at embodied energy one could
draw conclusions that PVC might be a better material to use than say copper
for water pipes. Heavy metals are pretty bad for our health but they
aren't carcinogens.
Hi All,
Huff 'n' Puff Constructions wrote:
[snip]
> How sustainable is recycling steel?
While everyone is firing up their flame-throwers....
...I thought I'd just add some data to to pot ...
Here is the embodied energy for a few materials (MJ/kg):
Steel virgin: 32.0
Steel recycled: 10.1
Portland cement: 7.8
Concrete, ready mix (30 MPa = 4300 PSI): 1.3
Adobe, cement stablized: 0.42
Adobe, bitumen stablized: 0.29
Straw, baled: 0.24
I got this is from:
http://www.arch.vuw.ac.nz/cbpr/embodied_energy/files/ee-coefficients.pdf
Yes, I know this isn't the whole story with respect to
the environment and producing/recycling steel.
And no, ... I'm not going to draw any conclusions from
this data...
