The energy costs of producing copper and aluminium from secondary sources

Chapman, P. F. (1973). The energy costs of producing copper and aluminium from secondary sources. ERG Report 2; Energy Research Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

Abstract

The reclamation of useful materials from waste and scrap has been advocated for serval different reasons. Clearly reusing waste avoids polluting the environment with the waste, it also avoids using natural resources of the material reclaimed. The theme of this report is that the reuse of materials can also represent a considerable saving in energy consumption. The production of new materials requires the expenditure of energy, whether the materials are obtained from ores or from waste. It has been argued that the availability of energy will ultimately limit the rate of production of new materials. If this is correct then the rate of production of materials can be maximised by maximising the recovery of material from waste, since recovery from waste requires considerably less energy than recovery from ore.

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