Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 205 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.
Environ Sci Technol. 2011 Jan 1;45(1):182-8. doi: 10.1021/es102273t. Epub 2010 Dec 1.
A dynamic material flow model was used to analyze the patterns of iron stocks in use for six industrialized countries. The contemporary iron stock in the remaining countries was estimated assuming that they follow a similar pattern of iron stock per economic activity. Iron stocks have reached a plateau of about 8-12 tons per capita in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, but not yet in Japan, Canada, and Australia. The global average iron stock was determined to be 2.7 tons per capita. An increase to a level of 10 tons over the next decades would deplete about the currently identified reserves. A subsequent saturation would open a long-term potential to dramatically shift resource use from primary to secondary sources. The observed saturation pattern implies that developing countries with rapidly growing stocks have a lower potential for recycling domestic scrap and hence for greenhouse gas emissions saving than industrialized countries, a fact that has not been addressed sufficiently in the climate change debate.
采用动态物质流模型分析了 6 个工业化国家在用钢材存量的变化模式。假定其余国家也遵循相似的经济活动用钢存量模式，据此估算了它们当前的钢材存量。美国、法国和英国的人均钢材存量已达到约 8-12 吨的稳定水平，但日本、加拿大和澳大利亚尚未达到这一水平。全球人均钢材存量为 2.7 吨。未来几十年，如果人均存量增加到 10 吨，将消耗目前已探明的大部分储量。随后达到饱和，将为长期从主要资源转向次要资源利用创造巨大潜力。目前的饱和模式表明，钢材存量增长迅速的发展中国家，其国内废钢回收的潜力以及对温室气体减排的潜力均低于工业化国家，而这一事实在气候变化辩论中并未得到充分体现。
