• Question: What is the strongest renewable and unrenewable metal or resource

    Asked by Gandy to Caoimhe, Colin, David, Katie, Lisa on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: David Taylor

      David Taylor answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      All metals can be renewed: that’s to say they can be recycled from scrap. But some are easier than others. Steel is quite easy to recycle – most of the steel in a car these days has been recycled from other cars. To make steel really strong you have to add some special elements like chromium and vanadium which are expensive because they are quite rare and difficult to reclaim from waste.

    • Photo: Colin Keogh

      Colin Keogh answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      The strongest resource is the sun, it powers everything.Every hour, the sun radiates more energy onto the earth than the entire human population uses in one whole year. Thats everybody in the world, for a whole year.

    • Photo: Katie Mahon

      Katie Mahon answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      Coal is not renewable but it’s one of the most popular energy sources. It’s very good at providing energy but it creates loads of carbon emissions which is not good! Renewable energy like sun, water and wind are the way of the future, so every year engineers are trying to make them cheaper to produce and more reliable.

    • Photo: Caoimhe O'Neill

      Caoimhe O'Neill answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      I’m working with a product called Basalt Fibre Reinforced Polymer, it’s a bit of a mouthful so we call it BFRP, it’s basically made from little bits of Basalt rock (the Giants Causeway is made from this) glued together and is very strong. There are ,uch stronger materials out there but for my job BFRP gives plenty of strength.

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