Yamaha Motor first to use green aluminum in motorcycles

Impressive work by Yamaha. They make a quality motorcycle.

Great beginnings for riders all over the world...

I smell a bit of greenwashing here. Where do they get the power from to melt down and clean up the recycled Al? Since smelting and refining uses a lot of energy that must be from a reliable supply, which renewables like solar and wind are not, I'm guessing that they get it from fossil-fuelled or nuke plants and then buy some of those "carbon credits" or plant a few trees to assuage their guilt or tick the right ESG boxes.

Hi Algernon

Re "Green aluminum" is aluminum that is refined using renewable energy sources to emit less CO2 in its manufacture.

Green electricity is produced and can be purchased in Japan.

Here is a guide to sources and pricing.

Expensive, but you will see the continuing decline in prices.

https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2022/0325_004.html

I understand your suspicion of "greenwashing", but the market is open to households and you can jump in and make a contribution to "ESG", too.

https://www.jst.go.jp/lcs/en/proposals/fy2017-pp-15.html

Some companies are all mouth and some are actually taking steps to reduces CO2 emissions.

Hard to tell one from the other.

Re, This introduction of green aluminum is meant to complement this and will be employed for parts that still cannot be manufactured with recycled materials.

This would imply that recycled aluminum is not as high a grade a newly refined stuff. Interesting.

The specific alloys required for certain components may not be reliably available in the recycled metal stream so they must be manufactured new. Yamaha has some advanced metallurgy in its engines.

I smell a bit of greenwashing here. Where do they get the power from to melt down and clean up the recycled Al? Since smelting and refining uses a lot of energy that must be from a reliable supply, which renewables like solar and wind are not, I'm guessing that they get it from fossil-fuelled or nuke plants and then buy some of those "carbon credits" or plant a few trees to assuage their guilt or tick the right ESG boxes.

New Zealand's Tiwai Point aluminum smelter has a dedicated hydroelectricity power station to supply all its energy needs (The Manapouri hydroelectric power station). Although solar and wind are not always reliable for constant manufacturing processes, like smelters, hydroelectricity is a lot more controllable. Of course, you need a lot of land, and to dam a river, etc.

Hydropower from the Bonneville Power Authority on the Columbia River powered the US aluminum industry during WWII. Who knew green aluminum helped win WWII?

New Zealand's Tiwai Point aluminum smelter has a dedicated hydroelectricity power station to supply all its energy needs (The Manapouri hydroelectric power station). Although solar and wind are not always reliable for constant manufacturing processes, like smelters, hydroelectricity is a lot more controllable. Of course, you need a lot of land, and to dam a river, etc.

Fair point, I can see how this would work, and hydro is good in areas with reliable rainfall and suitable terrain. On a side note, if you want to see how NOT to do hydro, check out the fiasco with Australia's Snowy 2 project. It'd be hilarious if it weren't such a massive waste of resources.