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Environmentally Profitable
lemmingEffect writes: "Came across this NYT article about how many companies are finding unexpected cost-savings for using more environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and materials. Kinda like getting paid to clean your room--sure would have made me happier as a kid. =)"
Do you know why steel is outlasting aluminum in cars and even regaining ground?
Steel is more environmentally friendly to produce! Just ask the folks behind the Ultra-Light Steel Auto Body project. Steel releases a lot less CO2 during its manufacture than aluminum. Once again, established big industry maintains its edge over new fangled competitors.
Because a desktop machine is not well-suited for producing the entire side of a car in a single stamping operation from steel sheet and repeating that 300 times an hour. Big, messy industrial processes replaced cottage industries for a reason: they're cheaper in the long run.
As desktop manufacturing gets cheaper, so do the big industrial processes. A desktop machine that can produce some make believe "diamondoid" economically can also produce a lot more steel even more economically and easily! Operating temperatures are lower, formability requirements are lower, ability to rework the steel product is higher, etc. And since steel does the job just fine, why switch over to a more expensive, troublesome, low production rate material like diamondoid?
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0801/mcd /index.html
About architect William McDonough who's designing 'green' factories for Ford and offices for Adidas.
He's also (with chemist Dr. Michael Braungart) been reponsible for technological feats such as a swiss textile factory waste water is actually cleaner than the tap water that comes in and a few buildings so energy efficient that they actually produce a surplus.
He's of the belief that it's not enough to minimize environmental impact -- one must maximize environmental (and cost) benefits. The savings that his energy-efficient designs provide them companies he builds them for can pay construction costs in a matter of a year or two.
I sincerely hope this kind of thinking represents the future of big business.
I was a GM dealership automotive technician for many years and I worked my way through college in an independent garage for 4 years. I can tell you that the problems with cars manufacutered by the Big Three had nothing to do with technology and everything due to the fact that the bean counters seemed to be in control of the engineering department. The Japanese imports had to conform to the same emissions standards as their American counterparts yet suffered none of the reliability problems. For instance, the materials used in the American cars were absolutely inferior. After about 2-3 years the old barrel-type coolant sensor connector on a GM car would crumble in your hands. My wife's 1988 Celica's coolant sensor connector, and for that matter the vacuum hoses, radiator hoses, and many other platic parts that are subject to strain and engine heat are still original equipment and in seemingly good condition after 188,000 Mi. The American counterparts would all tend to be brittle and/or broken at this age and mileage. Another example is gasket design and material. The Japanese had gone to rubber/neoprene type gaskets for things like valve/cam covers where the US cars were still using cheap cork or RTV compound. For that matter the Japanese cam covers (of course the Japs had OHC engines that were also much more advanced than the rewarmed 1950's and 1960's OHV relics that GM was using) themselves were molded aluminum as opposed to the cheap American stamped steel valve covers that would bend as you tried to pry loose the leaking RTV (Actually, I got really good at sealing these things, but it is an art). These problems also were present in the fuel systems, the electronics, the ignition systems, etc. So really this has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with underengineering and putting profit above product quality.
Aluminum weighs 35 to 40% less than steel, when manufactured to the same strength requirement.
Steel endures much more flex without failure, whereas aluminum reaches its flexibility endurance limit faster. The failure mode of aluminum (bend some and break and absorb energy) is actually safer in the realm of automobile construction.
Aluminum space frames can be manufactured in a single piece, which makes prediction of their real-world behavior much easier to predict through computational models, requiring less physical testing.
Aluminum's lower weight makes it cheaper to transport throughout all phases of automobile manufacture.
If and as the cost per pound can come down enough that the benefits outweigh the costs, or the benefits become more important, we can expect aluminum to have a stronger presence in automotive manufacture.
recently, aluminum has gained ground in niche automotive products like pickup truck tailgates, hood assemblies, engine blocks (with GM introducing their first aluminum block truck engine in 2002)... areas where consumers can see the direct benefits.
I'm not an aluminum grandstander by any means. I just think the "steel is cheaper" argument is way too simple... it's really just a matter of time.
There's a really good book that gives several hundred pages of real world cases where being environmentally friendly proved to be significantly more profitable than not being environmentally friendly. It's called "Natural Capitalism". I forget the authors names, but the bibliography is about 50 pages long. Very good book, very well researched. I highly recommend reading it if this subject interests you.
-D