Building Materials: Embodied Energy.

"Embodied energy can be as much as 20 years of the operational energy required in a typical new home." (Australian Greenhouse Office, 1999)

Embodied energy is a complex calculation that determines the total energy used to manufacture, transport and install the materials in a building. This includes the initial collection of the resource, refinement, transport, product manufacture, packaging, advertising, installation, maintenance, refurbishment, and eventual demolition and disposal.

Products with a high-embodied energy deplete supplies of gas, oil and coal reserves and impact on environmental warming by the production of carbon dioxide and carbon emissions. By understanding this, the materials that have a high embodied can often be excluded.

A residential brick veneer steel frame house, when compared to the same house with timber frame, has 35 - 50% more embodied energy in the steel frame. That is about 120 000 MJ.

Construction	Embodied Energy (Mj/Kg)/unit area of typical assemblies
Timber framed roof with terra cotta tile roof and plasterboard ceiling.	271
Steel framed roof with steel sheet roof and plasterboard ceiling.	483
Elevated timber floor.	293
110mm concrete slab on ground.	645
Timber framed wall with timber weatherboard and plasterboard lined wall.	118
Timber framed wall with clay brick veneer, and plasterboard lined wall.	561

LINKS

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/fs31.htm
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/search.html (and then search embodied energy)

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