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A comment on Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017. Parent comment

Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by low_battery on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @03:57PM (#13118271)
Why? Aluminum production needs a lot of electricity but if you recycle back, costs goes down, total aluminum energy cost of Apple is likely much lower than all those servers running throughout the year.
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Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by dredmorbius on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @12:19AM (#13120638)
Recycling rates are generally pretty low. I think the highesst rates have been ~80% for lead (batteries). For aluminium in the US, it's closer to 40% IIRC.

USGS has online reports.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/recycle/rec... 40% ~2001

For 2015, it looks as of 30% of supply came via recycling: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/aluminum/

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/aluminum/mc...

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