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Manufacturing 1 PC Takes 1.8 Tons Of Raw Material
remy writes "Although most of it (1.5 metric tons) is water, a study from the United Nations University details the raw materials used in the manufacture of a PC and 17" CRT. That's an incredible environmental cost per PC, and a very strong argument for trying to leverage older equipment, not to mention upgrading rather than replacing."
Wow, now I don't have to feel bad about running the tap for a couple seconds before filling my glass....
has a high environmental impact. I'm somewhat sure that it's at least 50 gallons of water to get one gallon of tap water.
The advertisement for the article is pushing an overpriced IBM "e-server".
The study is, of course, published on dead trees.
Oh, the irony.
i got an eeny weeny 14" CRT display.. :d
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
PC, and a very strong argument for trying to leverage older equipment
/. , some people here still keep their houses warm with the idle drone of their VAX clusters ;)
This is
Seriously, I still have my 386sx kicking around. All it has is DOS 5.0 and old games, but hey, I'm using it.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
How many "tons" of water do I use to shower? And I do that everyday. I certainly don't buy a computer everyday, however. You may as well consider the air and food consumed by the factory workers if you are forced to follow the causal trail so far to get the desired dramatic number. How many fossil fuels are used to till the fields that grow the crops that feed the workers that make the computers? Clearly, this is an ecological disaster. Our only option is to start killing people, or at least keep them from being born. That is where this trail of logic will eventually lead you.
Sadly, the cost of a single KVM switch is around 1/8th of the rainforest.
You monster!
I am a filthy pirate.
Yeah, and consider also the reason they're used for so much longer. With all the money people spend on Macs, they can't afford SUVs or coal-burning MP3 players or cigarettes, thus helping to save the environment.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
> Unless you like your drink with heavy metals? :-)
I personally like it with punk rocks
"Yes, this definitely falls into the "lies, damned lies and statistics box." They are claiming it takes 240 kilograms of fossil fuels to create a 17" CRT that currently sells for $125. Now, coal is about the cheapest fossil fuel out there and it costs about $30 per metric ton of coal. So, that's $7.50 in the price of a 17" CRT just for coal. Now, in that $7.50 1/4 metric ton of coal, there are 5.1 million BTUs of energy. Comparatively, total annual energy consumption per capita is about 250 million BTUs. So, does it really strike you as plausible that the fossil fuel energy required to make your CRT is 2% of your consumption? That is to say, if you have 5 monitors (I do), that's equal an entire month of your total energy consumption? As a comparison, it takes about 250 kilos of gasonline to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. So, they are positing that it takes as much energy to produce a CRT as to propel 1.5 tons of metal and flesh 2800 miles at 70mph. Not. Bloody. Likely."
What do you mean? An African or European CRT?
I bet it takes WAY more material to make a stupid user. Why not cut the fat there instead of going after the little guy? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
> The amount of water required to make a ton of steel is less than, equal to, or greater than 100 tons.
Incredible. And that's not all. In China, the amount of water it takes just to cook a single grain of rice is less than, equal to, or greater than all the water in the Pacific Ocean!!!
And in India, the amount of water used by a single red chili, from seedling to mature pepper, would be enough to, or not enough to, or more than enough to dwarf the planet Jupiter!!!!!
We should get these bar stewards before they destroy the entire Universe!!!!!!!
The two tons of bullshit it takes to sell a Mac.
And it still takes only pennies on the dollar to pay workers overseas to put them together.
I've seen the cartoon, and it takes an entire tree to make a toothpick.
Less than 5% and yet you think of us constantly... :^) Bet you can't go
24 hours without thinking of the USA.
Want to try again?
Again? Oh just give up!
Shutup with your silly metricks system. My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that the way I likes it!
Fortunately, many people regularly fail to shower, bathe, brush their teeth, wash dishes, or use the bathroom because of their PCs.
Oh come on, it's not that difficult to convert terms in the English systems.
What could be easier than 65mph = 1.048 Mfpf (Mega Furlongs per Fortnight)?
And perhaps you ignorant foreigners should realize that theu U.S. does NOT use metric usually, so information coming from the U.S. should be looked at in this light.
Dude, stop making Americans look like idiots. The original poster said "metric ton", which anyone who's taken high school level physics or chemistry should know is 1000 kilograms.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
if it takes so much water to make the damn thing then why does my keyboard die every time i spill a beer on it?
> You'd need your own power plant just to read /.
Yeah, but considering how many people were on the Internet back in the 1950s, just imagine how often you'd get FP!
> passanger cars have not improved their efficency that much.
Don't get me wrong, fuel inefficiency is one of my pet peeves, but I think actual passenger car efficiency has improved. For example, you couldn't buy a Corolla in 1950 that gets 30 or 40 miles to the gallon. However, average efficiency of all the cars on the (US) road hasn't improved that much due to things like the Dodge trucks with "V8 Hemi" you see making the heavy-duty trip to the cleaners and the bank, or the Hummers that spend all of their time sitting in traffic. Those people should die.
Actually, 65 mph is 174.72 kilofurlongs per fortnight.