RESOURCE EFFICIENCY WRAP PROJECT
to dismantle products that contain precious materials at the end of life and reclaim the materials in their pure form. But lamps are complex products with a wide range of materials that are hard to reclaim at the end of life. Some manufacturers are now working to
reduce their reliance on rare-earth minerals in LEDs and are developing new products, such as organic LEDs (OLEDs), which have the potential to use no rare-earth elements4
.
So does this mean we are going to have a stock-pile of used lamps, and what happens to these lamps at the end of life?
Cooling There is an opportunity to drive down heat gains in buildings to reduce the need for cooling, and therefore to reduce the resources required to generate that cooling. From a resource efficiency perspective, larger chillers mean using more materials, rare metals, and so on. Can the installed capacity of cooling be
Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah (above) is one of the biggest man-made excavations on earth
Finding ways to use fewer precious materials and resources in systems – and reducing waste when repairing and replacing them – could generate considerable cost savings
building services sector by working together.. This goes beyond simply substituting one component for another or specifying a different product. It would require a step change in the way that building services are delivered. (See box, Opportunities for resource efficiency, page 39).
Questions for industry A key aim of this project is to engage with the industry to identify the barriers, challenges and opportunities for resource efficiency. The project is focused on lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, lifts and escalators (see table on page 26). As we embark on this project, a series of questions have been raised in this article for the industry to consider and for subsequent research to address. The aim would be to answer these questions and others that will arise and to develop the findings into a CIBSE guidance document.
Lighting It is widely known that fluorescent lamps contain mercury, but perhaps not so well known that they use rare-earth phosphors. LEDs also contain rare-earth phosphors as well as gold, silver, aluminium and copper. Can we design-out the need for rare-earth elements in lamps? Ideally, we should be able
26 CIBSE Journal May 2013
further reduced by challenging design assumptions? High efficiency chillers with magnetic bearings use less energy in operation and do not require oil for lubrication, which then has to be disposed of or treated. However, magnetic bearings use rare-earth magnets such as neodymium iron boride. Can these high efficiencies be achieved without using these rare-earth elements?
Ventilation Materials, furniture and surface finishes emit pollutants such as formaldehyde and VOCs, and equipment such as photocopiers emit ozone and other potentially harmful pollutants. If these pollutants were more tightly controlled, then perhaps ventilation rates could also be reduced. This would then mean less ductwork, fans and other equipment. Can ventilation rates be reduced if indoor pollutants are reduced or removed? Galvanised steel is typically used in ductwork, which both has a high embodied energy and requires zinc, a fast-depleting resource. Reducing the amount of ductwork required, or using alternative materials, will cut costs as well as reduce the environmental impact. Can we design systems to use considerably
less ductwork, and use ductwork made from alternative materials?
Heating Heating demand in many types of commercial building has been driven down by improved fabric performance.
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