II. Sustainability Issues

            Nature provides us with all the resources we need to live. The many ecosystems of the world, known as the biosphere, have sustained human life for thousands of years. As the industrial revolution kicked into gear, we began polluting the environment by burning waste, creating landfills, and dumping chemicals. As population continues to grow and industrialization spreads, the amount of pollution continues to increase. The ecosystems naturally clean pollution, but we have exceeded their ability to replenish themselves [10].

            Sustainability represents the ability and condition of a natural and social system surviving and thriving together indefinitely [11]. To achieve this, a society must live in a way where the ecosystems replenish resources more quickly than the society consumes them. Failing to do this places a burden on future generations who will inherit the pollution and damaged ecosystems left from the present. Society now recognizes our problematically unsustainable condition, and wants a change. Some companies are making efforts to become more sustainable such as IBM, who introduced a method to save wasted silicon for conversion to solar panels [12].

Electricity generation currently is not sustainable. A large portion of electricity comes from coal and fossil fuels, which are not renewable resources and will eventually be depleted from the earth. Humans use a large amount of electricity generated for lighting, much of which is incandescent [13]. If we replaced all lighting with LED technology, over a 10-year period energy savings could be over 18,000TWh, effectively eliminating the need for 280 power plants [13]. LEDs are up to 13 times more efficient than incandescent, and up to 3 times more efficient than florescent [13]. Reducing electricity consumption constitutes just one portion of moving toward sustainability. We must also account for creation and disposal of the devices used. Standard silicon processing (or similar elements) to create conventional LEDs involves many harmful chemicals and conditions, decreasing the sustainability of creating them [14]. At the end of their lifetime, they prove difficult to recycle, which has caused ever-increasing amounts of electronic waste [15].

OLEDs emit light with high efficiencies, and they have a relatively clean production process. OLEDs can assist us in creating a more sustainable society by decreasing the electricity used for lighting, creating a cleaner production process, and easing disposal at the end of their lifetime. Currently, OLED lighting is still in its infancy, and only recently companies revealed the first OLED lamps designed specifically for lighting. We must continue to develop OLED technology so that we will move toward a sustainable future.

References:

[10] Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends, Volume 1, Eds. R. Hassan, R. Scholes, & N. Ash, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005, p. 827-838. “MA Findings Animated slides,” Available: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/SlidePresentations.aspx, [Accessed February 9, 2009]

[11] S. R. Euston and W. E. Gibson, “The Ethic of Sustainability,” Earth Ethics 6, 1995 p. 5-7. Available: http://www.iisd.org/sd/principle.asp?pid=31&display=1. [Accessed February 9, 2009].

[12] David Ho, “IBM gives boost to solar energy; Process recycles scrap silicon,” in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 30, 2007 Tuesday Main Edition.

[13] J. Kim, E. Schubert, “Transcending the replacement paradigm of solid-state lighting,” in OPTICS EXPRESS, Vol. 16, No. 26, 22 December 2008.

 [14] E. Williams, “Environmental impacts in the production of personal computers,” in Computers and the Environment: Understanding and Managing Their Impacts, R. Kuehr and E. Williams, Eds. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003, pp. 41-72.

[15] Jeff Johnson, “A Tsunami of Electronic Waste,” in Chemical & Engineering News, Vol. 86, No. 21, pp.32-33. May 2008. Available: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/86/8621gov1.html. [Accessed Feb. 9, 2009]