Slashdot Mirror
First "Carbon-Free" CPU Fights Global Warming
An anonymous reader writes "VIA is doing its bit to fight Global Warming by introducing the 'world's first carbon-free' desktop PC processor. The RoHS-compliant C7-D consumes 20W at 1.8GHz, and is accompanied by a 'Clean Computing Initiative' that aims to offset the chip's environmental cost. According to a LinuxDevices report, VIA has pledged that atmospheric carbon released during generation of the power needed to run the chip throughout its expected life-cycle will be offset by regional conservation, reforestation, and energy programs initiated or contributed to by VIA."
If I understand sustainability targets correctly, the total environmental payback period for chips is supposed to include compensating for the power/etc. used in manufacture, not just in operation. This is a great step, though; let's hope more industries take it and start looking at the next one.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
i think they're forgetting the heavy metals cost of gold, the industrial waste cost of the wafer fab process, the energy it takes to run a whole semiconductor assembly operation, and the huge environmental 'fixed cost' of constructing the buildings that make these processors. i wonder if there are plans to distribute these environmental costs and offset them as well.
but it is a start, and more companies could adopt the same attitude.
I'm certainly concerned about this stuff. (I'm reading this after returning from walking around the floor turning off lights in empty conference rooms.) But this "carbon-neutral" business, where those who can afford it can consume as much as they desire as long as they pay for it with offsets based on some extremely nebulous calculation, and those who can't have to do without -- reminds me of papal indulgences more than anything else. You can be a good person by sacrificing, or you can be a good person by giving money to a sanctioned recipient.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
No you won't. You'll find something else to complain about.
It's the power supply not the CPU that makes the difference. My power supply separates the electrons made fomr non-renewable sources and returns those to the mains for the rest of the ignorant world to use, and then uses only the ones generated by renewable sources.
I also contribute to reforestation efforts in China - each $50 funds a slave laborer who can plant 100 trees a day as part of his "reeducation".
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Back in the '70's the big scare was Global Cooling. We were told that we would all freeze to death. Now the big scare is Global Warming. We're all going to overheat, melt the icecaps, and drown.
Weird, because when I was in school in the 80s, they were telling us about global warming (and the ozone hole). Of course global warming has been warned about since then, non-stop.
These are all part of nature's climate cycles of cooling and warming trends. To say that man's activity is warming the earth is unproven.
Yes there are natural cycles, although the amount of carbon in the atmosphere seems to coniencide with global warming treads (as CO2 amounts rise, so does the temp). We're now pumping carbon into the atmosphere, more than has ever been present in the atmosphere. It stands to reason that more carbon will help warm the earth. To deny that is foolish.
However, under the name of "Global Warming", there are large power-grabs between nations. Notice that China, the world's largest polluter, is excluded from the Kyoto agreement, yet the US is supposed to follow it.
I can't speak to China and the Kyoto agreement, but just because one big polluter doesn't follow doesn't mean the other big one shouldn't. A reduction is a reduction. FWIW, nations have to agree to sign the Kyoto agreement. I doubt they'd not ask China. The US refused to sign.
I'm a conservationist. There are many ways to conserve the environment and have full economic activity. That is in stark contrast to the environmentalists and Global Warming theorists who want us to reduce and/or stop our economic growth.
This is perhaps one of the stupidist comments I've ever heard. They aren't trying to stop / reduce economic growth, they want that growth to happen in an environmentally friendly way. You seem to forget that something which slows growth in one area may trigger larger growth in others. For example, if you need some kind of filter on your smoke stacks, someone needs to build those.
You want to conserve only when it doesn't inconvience you in some way. I assume you have similar attitudes as those that tried to justify dumping any chemical waste into rivers. We've cleaned those up, and the economy hasn't tanked. Get a grip.
A quick check of several carbon neutral sites, where they propose to offset your carbon output for a fee dependent on how much driving you do etc..., left me feeling as if it were a scam of some sort. They offer no real assurance that your money is being placed into long term land/biomass projects. IE, the data is not publicaly verifiable. Its just their word. "pay us 88 dollars and you are Carbon Neutral!!" The sites/entities proclaming carbon offsets should be required to have verifable data to those that join.
I saw no evidence of that, and it is needed.
So some digging was in order. A quick call to the Chicago Carbon Exchange, and subsequent dialog with a nice enough bloke in charge of the offsets regarding the siging up of our ranch up in carbon offsets struck me as odd. The exchange currently favors pine plantations with poplars, vs native hardwoods. Native hardwoods live longer and are a a climax species for my area (East Tennessee).
The fellow said that our pine planataion could qualify for listing with the carbon exchange, but they really want actively managed plantations vs. unmanaged tracts of woodlands (even if they are recoverving from clear cutting).. I tend to disagree on the track of these offset schemes, because even the Carbon Exchange wants the timber to be harvested.
The whole process is just getting started I will admit, but it needs some serious thinking through on their part. The trees when mature are harvested. Which emits C02, and then proccessed, and then that carbon slowly degrades back into the atmosphere.
It really doesn't make sense. They should really be trying harder for longer term preservation with native species into climax ecosystems, with selective logging.
Now, about the late comment, I would have posted earlier but I have been running a business all day, and came home to plant yet another acre of white pines for a seperate christmas tree thing we are trying at the homestead...(yep /me = hippie, geek, rancher, musciaion type)
So please folks treat it as more than just feel good, pass the buck public image/advertising.
And demand verification from the offset folks, don't just take thier word on it.
Peace out, D