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Environmental Impact of the Ubiquitous Microchip
TimWeigel writes "The Japan Times is reporting the results of a study by the United Nations University on the environmental impact of michrochip production. We've already seen the impact of disposal practices, but is the manufacturing more environmentally friendly? Turns out it ain't necessarily so - according to the study, producing and using a 32MB DRAM chip weighing 2 grams requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 g of elemental gases, and 72 g of other chemicals, many of which are hazardous. I'm no environmentalist, but this looks like it might add up to more bad news when you consider that these things are cranked out by the millions each year."
Update: 01/26 16:31 GMT by J : Yep, it's a dupe.
What's the alternative? I seriously doubt microchip production will be shutdown because it is environmentally unsafe.
Hey, CmdrTaco, I found a site you might want to read sometime.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Say what yoyu will about CmdrTaco, but at least he's consistent. Every story he posts is a duplicate!
-Aaron
-Mark
We need a solution to the site maintainers duping!
Who here wants to jump into the SlashCode source with me and code in moderation on maintainers so we can fire current ones and get better ones? :)
Unless mankind redesigns itself
This was a coincidental article to read when I was browsing the morning circulars today looking for printer cartridge replacements. Why bother with $35+ a piece cartridges (one for black and one for color) when I can just get a NEW printer for $60, trashing the old printer and adding about a cubic foot of trash, and god knows how much in invested energy/resources. At least they're starting to recycle cartridges now, but if they're going to remain this expensive, why bother? In the interest of Gaia, I think I'll bite the bullet and buy the cartridges... Damned social conscience...
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
'Pollution is inherent in the system!'
'Pollution is inherent in the system!'
'Help! Help! I'm being contaminated!'
'You saw him contaminating me, didn't you?'
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
guess what else porduces and uses harfull chemicals in its production?
:)
Chemicals are: Sulfar, Nitrogen, Nitrate, Slicon, Oxygen, and etc..
Whats your guess?
Try the Hman body and its cells..
Just becasue something is manufactured with harmful chemicals doesn't in of itself mean tis harmfull to the environment at alarger amount or lower amount than the biological creatures who already use this earth...
You guys need to wake up and anlyze soemthing once in awhile
Don't Tread on OpenSource
According to the EPA, advanced technologies designed for the elimination of duplicate stories could reduce the environmental impact of Slashdot by up to 50%. I urge you all to write your Congressional representatives and let them know of your concern on this issue.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
OMG CHEMICALS NO! I HATE CHEMICALS! THOSE FUCKIN THINGS! THERE'S 700 CHEMICALS IN CIGARETTES! I HATE DHMO THE MOST! HERE IS MORE INFO ABOUT DHMO:
Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.
Should I be concerned about Dihydrogen Monoxide?
Yes, you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better known chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and saccharine), DHMO is a constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful.
What are some of the dangers associated with DHMO?
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment.
BAN DHMO TODAY!
http://www.dhmo.org
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
you mean "dupe of URL".....
So, what to do with all the spare parts then? I know, make cool high tech looking clothing! For example, I have an archaic ram chip as a pendant... (So that's where that weird rash-burnish thing is coming from...)
producing and using a 32MB DRAM chip weighing 2 grams
...
And storing 32 MB of data. In the '60s (decades into the computer revolution) 32 K by 36 bits cost around a million bux (in '60s currnecy, of which $24 would buy a troy ounce of gold) and worth every penny. It occupied one standard IBM 70x cabinet - roughly 3' x 6' by 8' or maybe more, just barely fitting into a standard elevator car, CHOCK FULL of circuit boards soldered with lead and wired with copper
requires 32 kg of water,
And what happens to that water? Is it disintegrated into its compoent subatomic particles and beamed into outer space, never to be heard from again? Is it sealed into a vault with the radioactive waste and buried for geologic time? Or is it cleaned up back to super-purity and reused to make ANOTHER chip, and ANOTHER ad-infinitim, until it finally evaporates and comes back as rain?
1.6 kg of fossil fuels,
3 1/2 pints of fuel oil - enough to make about 1 3/4 pints of gasoline. Call it five chips to the galon. You probably burned more gas per chip just to GO PICK 'EM UP the last time you upgraded your RAM.
Of course that's assuming all the energy came from fossil fuels - which are still used because they're so abundant that they're cheaper than most alternatives. But the last time I looked the windmills at Altamont Pass were still spinning, and the hydroelectric dams were still generating, etc.
700 g of elemental gases,
Yeah - liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen. And any that doesn't end up in the chip itself (i.e. the oxide layers), like, say, the liquid nitrogen used to supercool gas traps or purge ambient air and its contaminants, eventually goes back to the air from which it was extracted.
and 72 g of other chemicals,
2 1/2 ounces.
many of which are hazardous.
And some of 'em (such as the doping gasses, used in microscopic amounts) are SO hazardous - both to humans and to the next step of the process - that any excess is destroyed at the end of the step where it is used. Others (like the cleaning solvents and etchants) can also be supercleaned and reused, destroyed, or disposed of in other safe ways. That's where a lot of that energy goes. Want to cut its use?
Of course if some cheapscate wants to dump used solvent, that's what the threat of the EPA is for: to make it more expensive to dump it than to deal with it properly. Meanwhile, the solvents are the same class of stuff that your auto mechanic sprays on your (toxic!) brake pads every time you get a brake job. Any bets on whether the chips in a 1/4G SIMM, built by a hypothetical scumbag manufacturer who dumps ALL his used solvent, would pollute the environment more than your last brake job?
And how much modern RAM would it take to match the pollution and resource consumption of building, or operating, that '60s-era 32Kx36 RAM box?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That thing you stick in your computer is a module which features multiple chips.
So much for my Karma, but what the hell is it good for anymore?
/. /. /. front page /. and contribute some material. Googles for articles and finds 3 or 4 really good articles in the google cache from wired.com, posts them /. and post some cool articles found earlier in that day, after all, they don't remember posting since before dinnertime. /. and after reading through for a couple of minutes, yells "What the hell is with all the dupes on /. today!??!! f'ing editors!"
7:55am, Alarm goes off, Snooze
8:04am, Alarm goes off, Snooze
repeat several dozen times
11:14am, Alarm goes off, crawl out of bed, hit the head
11:18am, load up wired.com, glance over headlines
11:19am, without having read any, copy and paste 3 or 4 of them over to
11:20am, back to bed
1:32pm, wake up, crawl out of bed again, eat cold pizza from the LAN party the night before
1:41pm, load up wired.com, glance over headlines
1:42pm, without having read any, and not remembering having done it before, copy and paste the same 3 or 4 articles to
1:49pm, read through hate-email from people complaining about dupes, and from paying subscribers who feel short-changed
2:24pm, meander to the "office" for the 1pm staff meeting
3:08pm, meet with editorial staff to discuss that afternoon's postings
4:11pm, CmdrTaco, timothy, and Hemos decide on 3 or 4 really good articles from wired.com that are worthy of the
4:55pm, after a long day at the office, calls it quits and heads home
5:15pm, arrives home after stopping by Starbucks, Ikea, the BMW dealer, and the natural food store
5:45pm, decides to check up on
6:12pm, after having exhausted that day's supply of Mountain Dew and Pringles, decides to meet some friends at Outback for dinner.. brings laptop, of course
7:11pm, seated in the 802.11 section of Outback with michael, Hemos, and timothy, and his pseudo-quasi-girlfriend that he met on IRC, who, having just gotten her first driver's license, drove out from Raleigh in her parents' 1971 Pinto, without their permission
7:15pm, orders a Mountain Dew to drink
7:24pm, fires up laptop and the gang looks for good material for the front page. Collectively, they find 3 or 4 really good articles on wired.com to cut and paste. Decide to post an article from The Register just for the hell of it.
7:29pm, server asks if they're ready to order. The gang asks if they have Pizza - but settles for burgers and beer (At Outback)
7:57pm, after a few beers, decide to check up on their darling blogger and post some relevant "News for Nerds, stuff that matters"... they find some really good articles on SLASHDOT to post to the front page
8:11pm, finishing up gobbling down the burger, having gone through 38 pitchers of mountain dew and the equivalent of a case of Meister Brau, they head to CmdrTaco's apartment for that nights UT LAN party
8:21pm, pick up a case of Meister Brau, a case of Mountain Dew, and a case of Miller Light on the way home
8:46pm, arrive at CmdrTaco's place, decide first thing to check
9:11pm, timothy, rip-roaring drunk, logs onto
Here's and idea I just thinked:
One of the perks of having the highest karma ratings on Slashdot could be that the top 50 users could see a story for the first 5 minutes before comments could be taken on that story. So that we can eliminate these pesky dupes once and for all, those users could be given a "this looks like a dupe" button. If the button is pressed by one of the chosen few, then the story could return to the poster for review and possibly cancellation, saving both time and embarrassment.
I like my idea, however I cannot foresee what the negative astroturfing aspects of this feature might wind up being.
I definitely wrote this before coffee, so all standard disclaimers apply.