Environment

Facing the future with a clear conscience

The typewriter I’m using contains aluminium, probably from Jamaica or Surinam, iron from Sweden, magnesium from Czechoslovakia, manganese from Gabon, chrome from Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe), vanadium from the USSR, zinc from Peru, nickel from New Caledonia, copper from Chile, tin from Malaysia, cobalt from Zaire, lead from Yugoslavia, molybdenum from Canada, arsenic from France, tantalum from Brazil, antimony from South Africa, silver from Mexico as well as traces of other metals from remote spots of the world.

The paint may contain titanium from Norway; the plastic parts are made of mineral oil which comes from the Middle East and which has been cracked by catalysts won from American mined rare earths; they contain chlorine that was separated by using mercury from Spain. The moulding sand for the cast metal frame comes from an Australian beach, the machine tools for the production contained tungsten from China, the coal for the required energy came from the Ruhr district – and the final product is now consuming too many Scandinavian spruce trees in the form of paper.

Thus wrote Armory B. Lovins, Head of the Rocky Mountain Institute in the USA in his book “Openpit Mining” in the year 1973. Already then he was aware of what has been proven in many studies today:

There are products which use up extremely many resources and therefore cause serious environmental issues in the end. Unfortunately, audio power amplifiers also fall into this category. Copper which is used for transformers and chokes may serve as the best example: For the extraction and production of 1 kg of copper we have to spend 1.18 tons of materials and resources.

The extraction of copper (Cu) takes place in several production phases. On the mining level (mines) coppery ore is lifted in surface (about 2/3) or underground mining (1/3). The mined crude ores have a very low copper content between 0.5% and 4%. This low copper content of the crude ores necessitates a considerable use of energy during production and refinement.

For every ton of copper an average of 219 tons of mining waste accrue.

During the processing stage the crude ores are enriched to form concentrates with a copper content of mostly 25% to 35%. This is followed by other beneficiation processes and hence more consumption of energy and resources and more emissions to provide copper for the production of e.g. transformers and chokes. Likewise, for the production of aluminium and steel frightening figures could be presented. To this we still need to add the routes of transportation between mining, extraction and processing which also devour energy and are therefore pollutive.

By these examples it becomes clear very fast that digital high-performance power amplifiers which don’t require heavy transformers and heat sinks and which also have a small frame size, go easy on the resources of our Earth.

The Hoellstern® audio amplifiers help to keep the emissions and the consumption of resources needed for their production and during their operation as low as possible.