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PC's not eco friendly at all

Quote:

Lived PCs Have Hidden Costs By Stephen Leahy
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,62562,00.html

02:00 AM Mar. 08, 2004 PT

What has the environmental impact of both an SUV and a fridge?

Here's a clue: You're using it right now.

It turns out your computer is a much bigger material and energy hog than previously believed. The most effective way to reduce its oversized environmental footprint is to increase its useful lifespan, according to a new book released Monday, Computers and the Environment, by the United Nations University in Tokyo.

The average desktop PC and 17-inch CRT monitor takes an SUV-sized 1.8 tons of water, fossil fuels and chemicals to make, the book reports.

As for energy use, a computer's lifetime energy impact is about the same as a refrigerator, they report. While a computer doesn't use much energy while it's running, its short lifespan and the large amounts of energy needed to construct it make it one of the more energy-intensive appliances.

With a billion machines already sold and annual sales topping 130 million computers worldwide, computers pose serious environmental problems because of their resource and energy use, and the growing mountains of toxic computer waste, said co-editor Eric Williams.

Today's smaller, faster computers are making the problem worse. The more sophisticated the components, the higher the purity requirements for manufacturing, resulting in the use of more energy and materials, said Williams. "Making a 2-gram memory chip requires 1.3 kilograms (1,300 grams) of fossil fuels and materials."

Computer recycling isn't the answer -- only the metals are usually recovered, and the high-tech components and plastics that took so much energy to make are destroyed. However, reselling or upgrading a computer offers five to 20 times greater energy savings than recycling.

"Extending the life of a computer is the most effective way to reduce its environmental impact," he said.

Computers are becoming less and less reusable, said Sheila Davis of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Incompatibility of components, the need for technical expertise and support, and software-license issues make reuse difficult.

"It's cheaper and a lot easier to buy a new machine now."

Governments, institutions and large businesses are trying to buy greener computers, said Davis. The Environmental Protection Agency is working to create a new "ecolabel" for computers made using less-toxic materials and processes. However, manufacturers are resisting any requirements to extend the life of a computer. "Longevity is a challenge to their current business model," she said.

According to the SVTC, the lifespan of a computer today is just two years.

Mark Newton, Dell Computer's environmental spokesman, said he thinks the lifespan is longer but could not offer an alternative number. Like most of the leading manufacturers, Dell has been refurbishing and reselling computers from its business markets for many years. A recycling program for consumer machines is about 18 months old. For a small fee, Dell will pick up old machines for recycling.

While the long-life, low-impact computer may be a dream, computer owners can do many things to lessen the environmental burden, said Williams. These include using a machine as long as possible, then donating or selling it and buying a used one. Turn off the machine at night and make sure stand-by modes are working -- networked machines are often kept awake by server traffic.

Government incentives are also needed, said Williams. The European Union will require the recycling of all computers by 2005. Though it's a step in the right direction, more needs to be done to increase the sustainability of computers, said Williams. Software license transfers could be made a great deal easier. And tax laws could be changed to allow write-offs for new computers over a longer period of time than three or four years.

"Tax laws ought to reward you for buying a used computer, rather than being penalized."

After I finished reading this, I started to wonder about how the eco-friendly people truly perceive computers. Are the like a car a necessary evil? Do they forgo the computer because of it's inherent badness to reap the benefits of being able to collect and organize efficiently and effectively?

One of the ways to extend the life of the computer, and get more ecological advantage, would be to have the computer manufactuer's set up a program where the used/slower machines could be turned in and shipped to lesser developed countries.
Of course, everyone would have to be assured that the hard drives would be completely erased before forwarding them.
At least then the computers would go thru 2 life cycles, rather than the current system.

I have an old P3 laptop w/ ME and it just sits in the closet, unused. I had planned to upgrade it to XP Home and give it to my cousins daughter, but they got her a new one for Xmas so that was out.
Guess for now, it will stay in the closet til someone gets a real renewable system set up.

Quote:

The average desktop PC and 17-inch CRT monitor takes an SUV-sized 1.8 tons of water, fossil fuels and chemicals to make, the book reports.

i just can't possibly see that. how does that all add up? anyone?

I think a big part of it is in the fossil fuels perhaps? It takes a lot of energy to create the smalle ciruitry and all that in the computer and to make the data storing devices and whathave you, and apparently it's roughly that which it takes to weld an SUV together? Still seems a bit outrageous to me however, considering the number of electronics that are computerized in SUV's...

I wonder how much energy e-mail, online magazines, etc. save over their paper counterparts that must be shipped around the world.

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Originally posted by irseg
I wonder how much energy e-mail, online magazines, etc. save over their paper counterparts that must be shipped around the world.

may have a small impact, but remember the "paperless office"?

and then there's still the rest of it, which is not all the world is connected. There are still some countries where computing isn't prevalent.

*turns on all the computers in his house*

i think the article was saying that it is just so much power to make for such a short lived time. maybe it takes 1/10 the power of an suv but lasts 1/10 the time as well.

my friend built my computer from old parts so i don't feel too bad about this :-P

Quote:

Originally posted by phredgreen
i just can't possibly see that. how does that all add up? anyone?

I'm not quite sure either though I suspect that an average PC and Monitor use in fact a fair bit of refined metals and waht not. I know that there is lead shielding in standard CRT's and that on your average motherboard there are a lot of precious metals all over the place. Couple that with the fact that a new processor such as an Athlon 64 is made in a factory in a fancy clean room and a new video card has millions upon millions of transistors I suppose that a computer and monitor could in fact take that much water.

Most of that material is water, for things like cooling and whatnot. From the Slashdot link...

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According to the study, the manufacturing of one desktop computer and 17-inch CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor requires at least 240 kilograms of fossil fuels, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water. In terms of weight, the total amount of materials used is about equal to that of a mid-size car.

I wonder where the UN got their sources from? How much of that water is recyclable? Are those fossil fuels from power generation? If so, what form of energy generation did they use?

Unless the justifications for each part are provided, this study is useless.

I don't drive a gas guzzling vehicle, I consume very little resources by buying used goods as much as I can. My consumption is lower than most Americans. I'm not gonna feel guilty of my 500w PC running 24/7 or what it cost to build it. I'd like to see the spin rebutted and show another more necessary item's use of fossil fuels and resources in manufacture. They compare it SUVs since SUVs are The Great Satan to environmentalists, but I bet there are many other normal use items that use up as much and maybe more. I wonder what cellphones take up in manufacture, or maybe microwaves. The article is too slanted for me.

I think its not taht its slanted but mroe over that the information is just rather general. I mean if you don't know now you know that water is used in production of basically everything. The way they wrote it yes, it would sound as if a PC is the devil but honestly things that we use everyday took untold resources to use and manufacture. I guess what I'm saying is humanity is evil :)

This is a quotation from Slashdot that puts it into perspective.

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1.5 tons is 1.5 cubic meters of water, which is only about a bath tub full (or two, depending on the size).

So just be a bit more smelly for a day or two and BAM, conscious cleared.

Having worked for a ICU manufacturer I know it takes quite a bit in the means of various fossil fuels, water, and what not just to make the tiny dyes that become a computer chip and are used in our computers/phones/tvs/wireless and so on. Of course those manufacturers try to limit waste of any chemicals but there is an awful lot of gases and chemicals that go into shaping silicone into a data transmitting entity. While I'm not sure I believe fully believe the statistics this article tossed out, I could see how a few thousand chips would eat up if the same if not more than an SUV.

upon rereading the article. i think it says it takes the amount of water an SUV weighs to creatE the PC. ie an SUV weighs 1.5tons.

it didnt say anything about how many materials went into the creating of the suv. i think it would be considerably more.

i worked for a company that made the lithography beam guides. and they are big, use heaps of material and energy, but each one is used to make probably like 100 billion chips so it would be hard to say how much each chip used.

Well I guess it is good I am crawling along on an old PII right now as a type this and my lightning fast PIII still exists at home. Screw upgrading protect the evironment. Nah, if I could afford it I'd have new machines. I mean I still have my old power mac in the closet. Maybe I could break that out and feel really self rightous.

Glad I like computers enough to gather all the parts I can to try to rebuild them into working machines. They may not be used for much, but it beats them filling up landfills and such.

the pcs impact on the environment is not during construction, cause they are about the same as almost everything else.

the impact is when you dump them. so upgrading them is fine, just dont throw out the old one, ie turn it into a linux firewall or something.

I knew this one already, it's why I try not to upgrade very often and I'm still using my OLD 15" monitor (as the secondary)