Needing to correct people about the often exagerated environmental impact of this mateial can be exhausting. I had to correct my udergraduate professors often enough to know.

The spectre of “resource extraction” that James alludes to above refers to the energy intensivity of Aluminum production. Basically, it takes more energy to synthesize one unit of aluminum than it does to synthesize one unit of carbon steel. And it (presumably) requires an attedant increase in fossil fuel use as a result. What’s missing from this narrative is the understanding that this greater intensivity in the metal’s energy requirements is highly localized to the point of it’s initial extraction from ore. It doesn’t require the same commitment of resources every time the raw material is reformed industrially. In fact, Aluminum’s malleability, ductility and strength to weight ratio contribute to making it marginally less energy intensive throughout it’s life cycle. The relative mechanical ease with which it can be recycled contributes to this. It’s precisely because aluminum is already reasonably abundant in the industrial landscape in it’s post-refinement form that it’s primary energy requirements are not the anathema to the environment’s health they are often treated as .