Carbon footprint.......

The production of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of steel, for instance, generates 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs.) of CO2, while the production of 1 kg of carbon fiber yields nearly 30 kg (66.1 lbs.) of CO2, Reinert says in a presentation at the Automotive News World Congress.

http://wardsautoworld.com/ar/auto_new_face_cafe/

thats way too much to create a frame and a fork.... isnt it....

at Sunday, June 15, 2008  

1 comments:

Ryan said... Thu Jun 19, 01:37:00 PM 2008  

The way you are using this statistic is misleading.

You are not factoring in the process of making raw steel into the version that would be used for a bicycle, which is typically some variant of chromium-molybdenum steel.
Then you need to draw the steel into pipe followed by the shaping and butting process to get the desired tubing.
Then you need to Heat Treat the raw tubing typically through an annealing process in order to stabilize the material so it is easier to work with.
Then, if you plan to join the tubes using a TIG welder and the variant of steel you are using, there may need to be a finial Heat Treatment process to age the material and restabilize the the area that absorbed the high heat from the weld.

If you add all that up, I would bet the difference in Carbon Footprints would be much closer, and it would be quite possible that Carbon may actually come out ahead.

- Ryan

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