Re: the power of junk, Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do About It?

On 5/24/2025 10:25 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> writes:

On 5/23/2025 12:43 PM, MitchAlsup1 wrote:

On Fri, 23 May 2025 16:57:57 +0000, Stephen Fuld wrote:

 

>
But, it almost stands to reason in a way:
Aluminum, Silicon, and Oxygen, are among the most common elements in
Earth's crust; the world isn't going to run out of glass and aluminum
anytime soon.
>
So, it likely comes down to the relative cost of mining and processing
of new material, vs transporting and reprocessing existing material.

 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, ...).
I am aware though they are apparently building a new aluminum plant / refinery somewhere in the area (near Inola). Will apparently be the biggest aluminum plant in the US once finished.
Looking it up, seems the current going rate for power (for commercial/industrial use):
   $0.05 / kWh (general)
   $0.02 / kWh (off-peak)
I guess the area is known partly for having comparably cheap electricity, vs current US average price of $0.19/kWh.
Looks it up, most of the local power plants are using natural gas.
Looks up more, apparently Oklahoma also has cheaper natural gas, at around $5 per thousand cubic feet, vs $13 (US average). Apparently Oklahoma and Texas are among the top producers of natural gas in the US (well, besides Pennsylvania; which also makes a lot).
...
For a lot of the CNC stuff I am doing, aluminum is one of the most common metals used (primarily 6061, sometimes 7075 and similar), followed by carbon steel.
Sometimes stainless steel, but stainless steel is both more expensive and a pain to work with.
Theoretically, one could melt and recast aluminum, but less likely to be considered as "acceptable" (as the quality and metalurgy properties are less likely to be the same as newly bought metal).
Say, if one goes and melts down the contents of their chip buckets (and probably getting some ambiguous mixture of 6061 and 7075 and similar).
But, AFAIK, the aluminum chips and drops are mostly not being recycled around here.
Like, if one brings in a big trashcan of aluminum chips to the recycler and maybe gets $8 or $12 or similar, not necessarily worth the hassle in this case.
...