Sustainability:

Before attending the Focus the Nation event on building a sustainable economy, the class briefly discussed the definition of sustainability, reports (the IPCC report and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) confirming mankind’s irreversible damage done to the earth [1], and stressing the growing importance of systainability issues in technology.

Euston and Gibson's definition of sustainability is "...a condition in which natural systems and social systems survive and thrive together indefinitely." [2] This definition strikes a balance between the demands of the environment, the economy, energy, and equity. [2] Throughout history man has depended fully on the earth to provide for all his needs. Earth and man coexisted in a state of equilibrium because, for the most part, the earth could replenish all that man took from it. However, within the past century man has outpaced the earth's natural ability to heal itself and regenerate its resources. In other words, man could no longer exist in a sustainable way with the earth. Coupled with exponential population growth, mankind cannot afford to standby idly and delay correcting this imbalance.

The semiconductor and electronics industries use vast quantities of physical resources and energy during device fabrication. The fabrication process uses incredible amounts of chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid, sulfuric acid, deionized water, acetone, and isopropyl alcohol (mainly just for maintaining clean substrates!), and this usage has a considerable impact on the environment. The total fossil fuels and chemicals used during microchip fabrication are around 500 times the weight of a 2-gram chip [4], and this statistic doesn't even include the incredible amounts of water, gases, and embodied energy used!  For fabrication, a single 0.25 gram microchip requires around 32 liters of high-purity deionized water (which takes a lot of energy to purify) [4].  Multiply that by the thousands upon thousands of chips that companies manufacture, and it's clear how much resources are used.

Due to the rapid advancement of technology and the consumer's desire for the latest and greatest electronics, we discard millions of tons of electronic waste yearly, 85% of which we never recycle or reuse. [6]  Generally, much of the e-waste is stripped of any valuable metals or components.  This process requires dangerous and expensive labor, so countries like the United States put forth little effort to recover such metals.  After this initial salvaging, we usually just scrap, incinerate, or send the remaining electronics overseas to other countries.  Once incinerated or discarded, the e-waste begins to leech hazardous chemicals into the air and earth, oftentimes destroying the local environment and poisoning the potable water [6].

Within the past two decades the semiconductor industry has made substantial effort reducing this environmental impact, but it can always do more (recycling water [3] and scrap silicon [5], for example).

At the Focus the Nation event in the Chumash Auditorium, we listened to Dr. Peter Schwartz, Lori Atwater, Steven Marx, Dr. Devin Kuhn, Dr. Richard Besel, and Dr. Bud Evans speak on various issues regarding sustainability.

[1] Wikipedia, "Millennium Ecosystem Assessment". Wikipedia, Accessed: February 8, 2009 available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Ecosystem_Assessment

[2] D. Braun, "Teaching Sustainability in Electrical Engineering Lab Courses". Power Point Presentation, Accessed: February 8, 2009 availiable: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/context/susconf/article/1012/type/native/viewcontent/

[3] Sharon Gaudin, "Intel's New 45 nm Penryn Plant goes Green". Computerworld, Oct. 30, 2007, Accessed: February 8, 2009 available: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9044738

[4] E. Williams, "Environmental Impacts in the Production of Personal Computers". Computers and the Environment: Understanding and Managing Their Impacts, 2003, Accessed: February 11, 2009 available: http://www.uoguelph.ca/isc/documents/050602environcs_000.pdf

[5] D. Ho, "IBM gives boost to solar energy; Process recycles scrap silicon". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2007, Accessed: February 8, 2009 available: http://winsonsblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/ibm-gives-boost-to-solar-energy-process.html

[6] J. Johnson, "A Tsunami of Electronic Waste".  Chemical & Engineering News, May 26, 2008 available: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/86/8621gov1.html