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Bench 1 Fall 2008
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by PBworks15 years, 4 months ago
Modern day society greatly depends on technology to function in an ordinary manner. Medical equipment, communications, entertainment, housing, ligthing, and transportation are just a few of the items on the long list of technology dependent areas in the everyday life of modern society. In order to provide all of the necessary demands of technology, a great deal of energy and natural resources are used to produce, power, and dispose of new and old technology. The exponential growth in demand for technology and energy will eventually plateu due to the limiations of nature and the laws of ecology. The laws of ecology state the following: Everything connects to something; Everything must go somewhere; Nature knows best and bats last; There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The effects of technology production and disposal in addition to energy consumption not only affects the human species, but all species living on the planet earth. Measures must be taken to ensure equity of waste production and energy consumption to ensure that negative reprocutions do not occur in the future.
Environmental. The rapid growth and development of integrated circuits and their involvement in various technologies have led to all time high production of new technology and disposal of old technology. End-users and companies constantly buy new products which provide more efficiency while disposing of their older legacy electronic equipment. According to the Hazardous Technical Information Services, “the specific dangers of electronic waste are the effects that lead, cadmium, plastics, PVC, and brominated flame retardants have on human health and the environment.”[1] The adverse effects of scrap electronic material on our environment and human health cannot be ignored.Many of these pollutants attack various systems of the human body and can have fatal effects if ingested in high amounts. These pollutants can remain in the environment for extended periods of time when not electronic equipment is not disposed of correctly and carefully. However, initiatives are being put in place to help reduce scrap electronic waste.For example, IBM developed a process to recycle old silicon wafers for future use of solar panel production. After erasing the data on the silicon wafers, the wafers can be sold to solar panel manufactures. Not only does this process reduce physical waste, it lowers the future carbon footprint by providing a greener source of energy. [2]
Energy. Energy is perhaps one of the most precious yet highly demanded products in the world today. The rapid increase in growth of electronic devices has resulted in an increasing demand in energy. However, new measures hope to increase energy efficiency in electronic devices. Additionally, better energy production (such as solar panels) systems have been designed to provide the world with cleaner sources of energy.Generators in hybrid cars take the kinetic energy generated from fossil fuels and use it as an alternative means of powering the car as well. Although the demand for energy increases daily, new advancements in the field hope to lower energy consumption and production costs.
Economic. The impact of integrated circuits and electronics in general has had a significant impact on lower production and operational costs. Personal records, entertainment, financial records, and medical records represent the numerous amounts of information that have transferred over from physical paper filing to digital filing. The digital storage of these items make it easier and faster to access, require less room to store, and require less energy. Companies can operate more efficiently with more accessible information. In addition, advancement in storage technology has allowed for longer life periods of storage devices, further increasing the productivity of each product per dollar spent.
Equity. The rapid increase in demand for energy has taken a huge toll on our environment. Every individual, corporation, and nation requires different amounts of energy in order to meet their day to day requirements and demands.Since some companies may require more energy than others, guidelines and laws ensure that companies are not creating more than their fair share of pollutant emissions.In order to maintain the integrity of our environment while meeting the high demand of energy, governments nation and worldwide are mandating legislations and bills to help increase energy efficiency and energy production through renewable energy sources. House Bill 3612 is one of the many bills proposed nationwide to help increase energy efficiency.House Bill 3612 requires that facilities operated, purchased, or built by state agencies be either converted or built to meet renewable energy or energy efficiency requirements. [3] Renewable energy lowers pollutant emissions while providing everyone the opportunity to create more affordable sources of energy.
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Comments (6)
Anonymous said
at 6:51 pm on Nov 18, 2008
The Environmental section is fleshed out very well with multiple refrences. Both positive and negative effects mentioned is a plus.
Economics section has merit, but it might do well to mention the additional jobs and the entire market sector created by the electronics industry.
You have good refrences, but you may want to double check the IEEE standard for citing a refrence in text. Often the refrences is simply cited like "[3] states that", however this may not be of much concern.
-JT
Anonymous said
at 10:31 pm on Nov 18, 2008
I also felt that the environmental section is in depth and brings up a lot of relevant points. I particularly liked the part when you gave a solution to discarding silicon wafers. Compared to the rest of the report, the energy and economics sections are a bit weak in providing evidence to your claims. All in all, your sustainability report is successful in covering issues relating to the four 'E's.
Anonymous said
at 11:11 pm on Nov 18, 2008
I like how the Energy and Environmental sections relate, you make a good point that while new technology reduces energy usage, getting rid of old technology increases waste. It would have been interesting to go more in depth into this, but I suppose that isn't really the purpose of a sustainability report. I like the outside information you brought in about the various regulations we have. IBM's plan for the silicon recycling for solar cells was pretty interesting, but I think the comment about hybrid cars was a little too vague to really add anything to the report so it might be better off without that.
Anonymous said
at 10:21 am on Nov 19, 2008
i like how you laid out the four E's of sustainability to make sure each one was covered and had a reference for almost all of them. The only negative thing i would have to say is watch the be forms when writing the sustainability since we are suppose to use the paramedic method
Anonymous said
at 5:35 pm on Nov 19, 2008
I believe that your environmental section deals with a very relevant topic and is well presented by clearly identifying the problem, causes, effects, and specific solutions. There are a few minor proofreading errors that need corrected.
Your energy section makes a good connection with the environmental section. Again, there is clear identification of the problem and solutions, specifically the need for both increasing efficiency (thereby decreasing demand) and increasing sustainable production.
For the economic section, I agree that IC’s and electronics in general have had a profound impact on the way businesses manage their information and data systems and that this has resulted in a many fold increase in productivity, efficiency, and reduction in resource usage such as paper. This translates into substantial increases in their profits.
In your equity section, I agree that to maintain our equity we must do two things: produce more and consume less. The first must be done responsibly with concern for mitigating environmental impact and the second must be done while maintaining economic and social growth.
Anonymous said
at 2:53 pm on Nov 20, 2008
Overall, your general information for each section is very thorough and concise. However, like in the environmental section, I would recommend referencing some specific examples to demonstrate the point(s) that you are trying to make. Perhaps try to find another source or two, as well, but this could be combined with the example that I mentioned and then you would have excellent information!
You don't have permission to comment on this page.
Comments (6)
Anonymous said
at 6:51 pm on Nov 18, 2008
The Environmental section is fleshed out very well with multiple refrences. Both positive and negative effects mentioned is a plus.
Economics section has merit, but it might do well to mention the additional jobs and the entire market sector created by the electronics industry.
You have good refrences, but you may want to double check the IEEE standard for citing a refrence in text. Often the refrences is simply cited like "[3] states that", however this may not be of much concern.
-JT
Anonymous said
at 10:31 pm on Nov 18, 2008
I also felt that the environmental section is in depth and brings up a lot of relevant points. I particularly liked the part when you gave a solution to discarding silicon wafers. Compared to the rest of the report, the energy and economics sections are a bit weak in providing evidence to your claims. All in all, your sustainability report is successful in covering issues relating to the four 'E's.
Anonymous said
at 11:11 pm on Nov 18, 2008
I like how the Energy and Environmental sections relate, you make a good point that while new technology reduces energy usage, getting rid of old technology increases waste. It would have been interesting to go more in depth into this, but I suppose that isn't really the purpose of a sustainability report. I like the outside information you brought in about the various regulations we have. IBM's plan for the silicon recycling for solar cells was pretty interesting, but I think the comment about hybrid cars was a little too vague to really add anything to the report so it might be better off without that.
Anonymous said
at 10:21 am on Nov 19, 2008
i like how you laid out the four E's of sustainability to make sure each one was covered and had a reference for almost all of them. The only negative thing i would have to say is watch the be forms when writing the sustainability since we are suppose to use the paramedic method
Anonymous said
at 5:35 pm on Nov 19, 2008
I believe that your environmental section deals with a very relevant topic and is well presented by clearly identifying the problem, causes, effects, and specific solutions. There are a few minor proofreading errors that need corrected.
Your energy section makes a good connection with the environmental section. Again, there is clear identification of the problem and solutions, specifically the need for both increasing efficiency (thereby decreasing demand) and increasing sustainable production.
For the economic section, I agree that IC’s and electronics in general have had a profound impact on the way businesses manage their information and data systems and that this has resulted in a many fold increase in productivity, efficiency, and reduction in resource usage such as paper. This translates into substantial increases in their profits.
In your equity section, I agree that to maintain our equity we must do two things: produce more and consume less. The first must be done responsibly with concern for mitigating environmental impact and the second must be done while maintaining economic and social growth.
Anonymous said
at 2:53 pm on Nov 20, 2008
Overall, your general information for each section is very thorough and concise. However, like in the environmental section, I would recommend referencing some specific examples to demonstrate the point(s) that you are trying to make. Perhaps try to find another source or two, as well, but this could be combined with the example that I mentioned and then you would have excellent information!
You don't have permission to comment on this page.