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The Environmental Cost of Silicon Chips
Col. Panic writes "Scientific American is running a small story about the amount of material required to produce silicon chips and the potential hazards of associated toxic chemicals." This combined with coltan mining processes sure paints a dark picture of the chip industry.
In line with protecting the environment, I choose to use environmentally friendly products in my cpu, such as compost and renewable timber.
Of course my computer doesnt work, but at least i'm helping the environment.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I'm NEVER buying a CPU from DeBeers' ever again.
a typical two-gram chip takes 1.6 kilograms of fossil fuel, 72 grams of chemicals and 32 kilograms of water Does anyone know if this 'water' is resuable? Is it just for cooling?
Important safety note: When working in such a place, always wash your hands up to the elbows before going to the bathroom, or rubbing your eyes. I've been told that sulfuric on the willy is an unforgettable experience...
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or, more likely--this is a reminder to all that are working on this sort of stuff to consider the environmental consequences of their actions.
basically, you could write the same case about the auto industry 30 years ago. then, people started becoming interested in environmental issues, and attitudes within the industry changed. While we're not at ideal yet, we're at least at where even SUV owners have embedded in their minds somewhere that such gas guzzling is not the best idea.
Complex chemical compounds can be harmful to your health and to the environment! (Wow!)
And, in related news, Bill Gates is incredibly rich and Saddam Hussein may not be such a nice guy after all! (Amazing!)
More information in our next news program... Film at 11.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
while there may be some environmental issues concerning chip manufacture. The benefit that the microprocessor has brought to human society far outweighs any environmental cost.
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Okay, it's not very funny. Don't laugh.
. . Its just like any other period of mass adoption of technology in Human history . . I mean, look at the way England and the United states manufactured materials before the beginning of last century . . Smokestacks belching unfiltered by product into the skies and run-off pipes dumping raw sewage into the rivers and seas . . There's a honeymoon period where everybody's eating up the tech and the whole issue of 'cost' other than the bottom line for materials really isn't taken into account . . Only sometime after the initial binge do people finally standup with that hangover and see the potential damage that the consumption really causes . .Now Environmentalists will kvetch about it for a while and we'll go through the cycle of upgrading the process so its greener . . .Its the beauty of innovation :) . . And plus, its pure entertainment to watch both sides hurl statistics at each other with such vicious aplomb . . ;) . . .
But there won't be any environmentally safe process anytime in the near future.
That's not hardly fair. We have a newly structured govt. in the US that is pushing hard for greener processes. They will cut taxes for big industry, relax emission standards etc...all so our children can have a greener environment to grow up in. Of course green is the color of more than grass.
Don't upgrade. Don't play the very latest games with all the graphics turned up to full. Don't install the latest bloatware OS (I'm remaining very carefully vendor neutral here). Buy fewer products with microchips in them.
Last time I checked, *everything* we do has some form of by-product that could be considered waste. Heck, I can turn a bowl of beans into a mean ol' cloud of gas.
What they fail to mention is the benefit of the chip manufactured. Cost/Benefit - sound familiar?
This article is just reason # 87 why I cancelled my SciAm subscription earlier this year after 15 years of subscribing. They've veered from true science and now feel the need 'preach' environment, evolution, abortion, etc. in the monthly Editor's Perspectives (and various articles).
10 MD
at least from the intel press release :D
The new manufacturing technology enabled by the 300-mm technology also provides significant benefits from an environmental perspective. The chips manufactured in Fab11X will require less water and generate fewer emissions per chip than other fabs. Water and chemical use will be more efficient. When compared to a 200-mm facility Fab 11X will produce 48 percent less volatile organic compound emissions, use 42 percent less ultra pure water and will use approximately 40 percent less energy.
Yes but it doesnt have to be those countries that stand up to them. The consuming countries can do it just as effectively. The US and/or Europe alone could do it by simply saying "Show us an audited trail of how you produced these chips. For every gram of crud you produce thats an extra 10% sales tax".
The manufacturers need these markets. If the markets dont like the manufacturers methodds, they can force them to change.
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
The problem with reports like this is that you never know precisely what the unbias facts are. In a world where the majority of conservationist organizations are run by zealots who practically hate civilization altogether, you never know who you can trust.... and it only hurts their cause. In this case, nobody is going to stop using computers or even pay attention to this article.
The replacement they were referring to in that article is super critical carbon dioxide. It is a viable solution to the environmental problem for chip production and already used for "greener" dry cleaning, but definately won't be ramping up in fabs anytime soon. Chip manufacturers are very slow and recluctant to change processes.
One thing I've often wondered is whether a typical solar cell produces more energy in its lifetime than it takes to manufacture it?
I'm sorry I can't cite a reference, but it was either Home Power magazine or the US Department of Engergy that claimed solar cells pay for their energy (in terms of CO2 emissions) after 2-5 years of use, depending on location. 2 closer to the US Southwest, 5 closer to the Canadian border.
Every time I use conferencing over the internet, I am saving (typically) about 30lb of Diesel (and it would have been nearer 45lb of gas in my last car)
I'm not arguing that we should ignore the environmental costs of technology - places like the former Communist block and Texas are unpleasantly polluted as a result of doing just that - but that we should look closely at the costs and benefits. Given the potential of global warming and the eventual runout of oil, the more we use silicon to reduce the number of boring journeys we have to do, whether by mobile phone, networked computer, or whatever, the better it is going to be for us.
And for those who don't already know - substances like sulfuric acid and HF are widely used in the petrochemical industry. And what happens to all the sulfur they have to remove to get low-sulfur fuel? It surely doesn't get fired into space by a rail gun.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
He means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (TANSTAAFL). This acronym was introduced by Robert Heinlein, who is sometimes also cited as the originator of the phrase as well. It features in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and several of his other books as well. Robert Heinlein was one of the most popular science fiction authors of the 20th century, especially in the US. It's not such an obscure phrase, given Slashdot's audience.
Our entire economy is based on the premise that the lowest bidder is always the best one.
That explains why everyone here drives a Yugo, eats Big Top-brand cereal, and writes their posts from an eMachine.
Someone said elsewhere I was missing the point, and that silicon manufacturing processes need to improve. OF COURSE. But what drives the improvement is that it is invariably CHEAPER in the end to make things using best environmental practice, unless the State gives the manufacturer a dispensation from paying the costs of the environmental damage - a statist subsidy. And it is usually cheaper anyway because of the savings on materials and consumables. As an example, one project I looked at (to prevent the discharge of cesium by monitoring the composition of a bath and reprocessing it) had a payback of about a week based on the cesium savings alone: the management simply didn't know what was going on in their own plant and had accepted the costs blindly. In another project, a closed loop treatment plant turned out to be cheaper than open-loop because the cost of the electronics was more than offset by the smaller outlet holding tank that was required. I could go on and on...but then, I got into the computing business because you can, actually, do much more interesting things with silicon than make Word or Quake run faster.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.