Reducing Energy Consumption, while Protecting the Environment - Energy and Climate: How to Achieve a Successful Energy Transition - page 64

which aimat protecting the environment and preserving natural resources
(energy, matter, raw materials).
Green technologies are to be found in all sectors of the economy. They
also include antipollution technologies that are used to tackle any air,
water and soil pollution.
An important application area for green technologies is waste treat-
ment, in order to avoid polluting the environment and to recycle the
maximum amount of raw materials which are used.
Wastes, which represent a risk for the environment, can therefore
become a resource:
. They can be used for generating energy, either directly in incineration
plants, or after transformation into a fuel (biogas, pyrolysis oil or
second generation biofuel).
. Raw materials can be recycled; while avoiding the pollution which
would result from dumping the waste in the environment, this
recycling helps to preserve the raw material thus recovered. It also
represents a way to reduce energy consumption, as the amount of
energy required for recycling the material is usually lower than the
amount required for the initial transformation.
Recycling of raw materials is already widely practised. The supply of
iron for the production of cast iron and steel was ensured in 2004 by
using 1100Mt iron ore supplying 695Mt of iron and 400Mt of
scrap iron supplying 300Mt of iron. Excluding CO 2 emissions
resulting from the generation of the electricity needed for the trans-
formation process (which depends upon the energy source), the quantity
of CO 2 generated is 2200 kg per ton of steel in the case of a production
pathway starting from iron ore (blast furnace and oxygen converter)
and only 100 kg when starting from scrap iron. This means that
emissions reduction is huge especially if using electricity with low carbon
content [49].
A better use of resources is to be based both upon recycling (or
'circular economy') and 'functionality'. Functionality consists of
supplying a service rather than selling equipment, which results in better
use of the equipment and necessary resources while recycling any used
component [50].