Sustainability Issues:

 

 

Bench 5: Ilya Schulz, Anh Nguyen, Sheng Da Zhang

 

Key concepts in this lab relate to sustainability both directly and indirectly.

 

 

Definitions of Sustainability:

 

- The ability for a system to perpetually renew and stabilize itself.

 

- “A development is sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[6]

 

- Sustainability in its simplest form describes a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. [7]

 

- The characteristic of being able to coexist with another system indefinitely, without either system being damaged.[8]

 

 

Four “E’s” of Sustainability:

 

Energy:

 

Due to cost, most chips used in student labs are cheap and often more power consuming than others used in industrial and commercial devices. This energy consumption can be improved by replacing with chips such as the ones developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas Instrument that consume even less power. [4] This experiment does not analyze power consumption and focuses more on the functionality of latches and flip-flops, but it is still important to factor power into the design process.

 

 

 

       More saved energy results in less consumption of resources in order to supply the energy. Power plants that supply the power could consume less fossil fuel. Renewable resource plants can supply more people with the same energy. This in turn supports the environment as plants produce fewer emissions. The lowered cost for the energy suppliers result in a more efficient economy and makes energy more affordable for all individuals.

 

Environment:

 

According to Natural Capitalism, the IC production industries consume large amounts of silicon and other resources in their creation process. [1] When ICs break down and stop functioning correctly, they are discarded and pile up in landfills. This problem can be improved by reducing the amount of resources needed to create the chips and using a greener production process that leaves less waste byproducts. [2] Also, some ICs use an excellent dopant called Arsenic, but it is a toxic element. The process to introduce the Arsenic dopant to a silicon chip uses Arsenic gas, which becomes harmful to the environment. Smaller, longer lasting, and more reliable chips reduce the amount needed to be created. Recyclable chips are another option, but that only works if the recycling process does not produce more waste then it recycles. IBM has started to recycle their ICs and hopefully more companies will follow. [3] More efficient ICs produced help lower emissions produced. [5]

 

A more sustainable environment helps produce more resources. These resources can then be used to generate a better economy and be used to make more energy efficient chips. However, we must take care to not draw too much from the environment or else it will slowly diminish and collapse. A better economy in turn supports social and political equity.

 

Economics:

 

Taking environment into consideration, a green IC production process and an efficient resource recycling system help promote the economy. [1] With lower waste production and resource intake for each chip, the amount of produced ICs can increase. It lowers both the production cost and the increase in supply lowers the sales price of the chips. Recycling ICs efficiently removes the excess work needed to mine or gather the resources from nature. [3]

 

A more sustainable economy generates more jobs for the people as well as reduces excess wastes produced in production. A reduction in waste products generates a cleaner environment. More jobs and higher paying jobs help distribute wealth more evenly amongst the people allowing better social equity. A more advanced and sustainable economy thrives more on knowledge than wealth. This provides political equity by reducing the importance of money in politics.

 

Social and Political Equity:

 

Cheaper and more efficient ICs allow for an increase in the creation of more advanced and faster computer systems. This in turn can drop the price of these computers for the average consumer. With such power machinery in the hands of average citizens, knowledge could be delivered faster and more efficiently. Knowledge is power, and greater knowledge helps communities stand up against inequity caused by money and violence.

 

Greater social and political equity allows the wealth gap between the rich and the poor to close. As more of the poorer masses gain wealth, their posterity will be better educated and informed of the situation with the planet. This helps promote environmental and economical awareness. As more skilled workers operate in the field of electronics, their combine creativity and imagination helps create better, faster, and less energy consuming ICs.

 

Relation to the Four Laws of Ecology (Formulated by physicist and ecologist, Barry Commoner):

 

1) “Everything connects to everything else.” - Everything is part of a giant spider web. Changing one part of the web affects everything else. Conserving every bit of energy in the ICs, for example, aid the environment by reducing the overall energy consumption of mankind. Reduction in production waste and recycling used ICs decrease the amount of resources needed to make new ICs or clean up environmental pollution. A more sustainable environment produces more sustainable resources for humanity to use and appreciate. Reduction in production costs from more efficient ICs and a more efficient production produce leads to a better economy. Fewer resources are needed for future productions and environment cleanup. More social and political equity results in laws that favor the majority as opposed to current laws that favor the rich top minority i.e. corporations and corporate leaders.

 

2) "Everything must go somewhere." - All the byproducts of the ICs and their production process must go somewhere. The energy dissipated by individual ICs leak into the air as heat. The heat combined from the systems that employ hundreds to thousands of ICs. The ICs also generate carbon emissions, which with the dissipated heat contributes to global warming. [5] Factories dump waste products of IC production into landfills or directly into nature through rivers or streams. Some of the waste goes through sewage. Lower wastes reduce the pollution of nature and area of landfills needed. Recycling the waste back into resources for further production reduces the overall resources needed. ICs that are outdated or thrown away and end up in landfills or worse, littered in parks, rivers, or roads. These ICs can be recycled for their materials or remodeled as a stepping stone for newer ICs.

 

3) "Nature knows best" - The pointless pollution of nature through the IC industry contributes to the destruction of the planet. Emissions from the factories and ICs cause global warming. Wastes pollute the land and water of the planet. The industry currently consumes more than nature can sustainability supply and emits more than nature can recycle. This leads to not the destruction of nature, but the destruction of humans. Polluted land and polluted water become unfit for use.  This reduces the amount of land and water available to humans. Global warming causes drastic climate changes, melting of the ice caps, and rise in temperature. A more haphazard and violent climate results in the destruction of the planet and loss of human lives as shown by the 2005 South East Asia Tsunami, earthquakes, fires, and higher frequencies of violent storms, most noticeably, hurricanes. The rise in temperature melts the ice caps near the poles. This massive influx of fresh water will flood the coastal regions of the continents. The fresh water also can stop ocean currents that circulate around the world, reducing the amount of warm ocean water that will be distributed to the northern and southern parts of the planet, potentially causing another ice age. The result would be the extinction of the human race. Nature will eventually repair itself through millions of years of sustainable self recycling as it has done for hundreds of millions of years. Humans cannot defeat nature and should coexist peacefully and sustainably with it.

 

4) "There is no such thing as free lunch" -  All energy in the universe must be conserved as stated by the First Law of Thermodynamics. Energy does not come from thin air. The energy used to power ICs and logic systems are supplied from power supplies which draw their power from the power lines. The power lines receive their power from the power plants which generates the power by converting the energy from natural resources, e.g. coal, gas, uranium, water, air, the sun. Higher energy consumption causes the plants to use more resources to meet the demand. More resources used and wasted in production require more resources to be supplied at the beginning of production. More waste results in more land used to pile them or more resources used to clean up. 

 

References:

 

[1] Hawken, P., Lovins, A., Lovins, L.H. Natural Capitalism. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999, pp. 39-50, 57-58

 

[2] Ho, David. "IBM Process Recycles Silicon". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 20 October 2007.

 

[3] Gaudin, Sharon. "Intel's New 35nm Penryn Plant Goes Green". Computerworld. 20, October 2007

 

[4] Mutschler, Ann Steffora, Senior Editor. "MIT, TI develop proof-of-concept, energy-efficient microchip". Electronic News. 3, January 2008 

 

http://www.edn.com/article/CA6518372.html

 

[5] Matters of Scale - Pointless PC Pollution, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/2981

 

 

[6]Andreas Koehler and Claudia Som, Effects of Pervasive Computing on Sustainable Development, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 2005 p. 15-23, Available: http://www.ieeessit.org/technology_and_society/free_sample_article.asp?ArticleID=1

 

 

 

[7]wikipedia.org , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

 

[8]thinkquest.org, library.thinkquest.org/22403/data/other/glossary.html

 

 

 

Braun's comments:

Your statement "A more sustainable environment helps produce more resources" is counterintuitive and requires revision or further justification.

The statement "This leads to not the destruction of nature, but the destruction of humans" confuses me, since it follows several examples of how pollution harms natural systems AND humans.

Also, please repair minor grammar errors.