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From: BGB <cr88192@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: the power of junk, Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What
 Can You Do About It?
Date: Sat, 24 May 2025 16:54:15 -0500
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On 5/24/2025 4:45 PM, Michael S wrote:
> On Sat, 24 May 2025 20:36:50 -0000 (UTC)
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> 
>> According to BGB  <cr88192@gmail.com>:
>>>> Don't forget to factor in energy costs.  The energy costs
>>>> to refine and produce virgin aluminum are very high, relative
>>>> to the costs of recycling aluminum.
>>>
>>> Granted, but possibly depends on the relative cost of energy.
>>>
>>> But, likely, as more total aluminum is produced the relative cost of
>>> aluminum would go gown. While recycling aluminum makes sense, it
>>> does come with the tradeoff that recycling aluminum reduces the
>>> relative cost of aluminum (and thus the value of producing new
>>> aluminum would go down), so is less likely to be favored by the
>>> primary producers (where a relative scarcity is better for profit
>>> margins, ...).
>>
>> Aluminum is produced from bauxite which is around 40% aluminum and
>> needs a multi-step energy intensive process to turn into metallic
>> aluminum.  But aluminum scrap is already metallic aluminum.  My
>> impression is that we are about as far down the experience curve as
>> we are likely to get, and using scrap as a source will always be far
>> cheaper than bauxite.
>>
> 
> Aluminum from bauxite is almost pure aluminum. Aluminum from scrap
> contains significant and unpredictable amounts of magnesium, copper and
> silicon. Removing them is hard, in case of copper very hard.
> 

Possibly why aluminum cans are "more favorable" for recycling, as the 
alloy the cans are made of is pretty much pure aluminum.

Vs, say, 7075 which is more of an aluminum-zinc-magnesium-copper alloy.
   So, roughly 90% aluminum, 10% "other stuff".


But, either way, recyclers aren't that inclined to pay one all that much 
for the contents of ones' chip buckets.

Maybe does a little better at least if one has decent sized chunks of a 
known alloy, say; large drops of pure 6061 or similar.




>> Your profit margin thing is backwards -- producers charge whatever
>> the market will bear for the product (plus tariffs these days which
>> is a separate issue) so the more scrap they can use, the lower their
>> costs so the more money they make.
>>
>>
>>
> 
>