Computer Technology itself is based on electronic technology, and thus is inherently ecologically toxic. The primary element of chip design, is the substrate, which is usually silicon, which comes from especially pure silica. While sand is relatively available, pure silica is relatively rare, and the net effect is using up a limited resource.

To this substrate are added doping materials, possibly by gas deposition, and connections between circuits are usually sputtered on, and then lithographically etched using acids which need to be disposed of, once the etching is done.

Once the chip is prepared, the next step is to place it in a carrier, that mixes metal connectors, with a ceramic, epoxy, or plasitc carrier. These parts are then sold separately.

The PCB or printed circuit board, consists of a fiberglass or phenolytic board, often with copper plating on its sides. To print the board, requires the lithographic application of a resist, and etching of the copper, to remove most of it, leaving the copper in suspension in the acid. Recently attempts have been made to make this process greener by use of recycleable etching technologies, but criminals may still dump the solution with the extra copper into the environment rather than reusing it.

Once the PCB board is designed, the electronic components built earlier, need to be attached, and we are still using solder for that. While lead free solder is available it's characteristics tend not to be as good as the 60/40 solder preferred by electronics engineers so there is always a chance of Lead getting into the environment.

Oho ho ! Thanks Graeme Smith

I have an entire technology here. Thanks. still:

What about the benefits? Economical? Comfort/quality of life?

Do the benefits have a good contribution to ecological preservation?

Or we just negative ecological impact from making and using computers and Information technology?

What about the impact upon education ? negative upon children ? Or positive? Both?

How about the impact of computers / computing / networking upon PUBLIC HEALTH ?

Adrian Toader-Williams

Because of the nature of the Marketing around consumer electronics obsolescence is a constant factor in waste, in that in order to sell the next most interesting component, the value of the former component must be culturally degraded. As a result, the product life-time of the electronics, is never fully realized, and often planned obsolescence is built into the circuit in order to limit it's active life. While a culture is growing around "Bending" old technologies to make new ones, E-waste is endless, and culturally "Hacking" old hardware is looked at as socially unacceptable despite the high technical skill required to make useful products.

As a result, electronics waste, has received quite a bit of attention, and shipping it offshore to contaminate other countries is frowned on. As a result, in order to clear the volume created, almost direct shipment to refineries is implemented, and in order to keep illness from spreading, dump-sites at local eco-stations actively discourage re-use.

At the refinery, expensive metals, and rare earths are recovered from the waste, mostly by burning the plastic away from the metals and refining the result as if it were ore.

This produces often toxic gasses from the plastic, which are often released into the atmosphere but at a high enough altitude that they do not directly contaminate the local atmosphere, but have been traced halfway around the world.

On the plus side, all electronics uses recycle-able electrons. Each electron actually only moves a relatively short distance, especially in AC currents, and the net effect of these short hops is a general movement of electricity.

While electricity itself is green, How we generate it, is often not quite so green.

Essentially all that is needed for electricity to be produced is for magnetic fields to pass across wires, in such a way as to induce current in the wires. This is usually done with a D.C. generator or an AC Alternator. Efficiency-wise Alternators have had the best effect, so they are the preferred technique with later rectificiation if D.C. power is needed.

The generation of power is not therefore much of a threat to the environment itself, the problem is that these two devices need some form of energy input, to generate the power, usually in the form of torque on their input shafts. The generators are large devices, and still need some form of mechanical linkage between their components, but at that size, less solder is used, and more physical pressure connections.

It is the generation of the torque that threatens the environment the most.

In essence, while there are relatively green techniques for generating power, the majority of the power generated is still generated by coal and gas powered electrical plants, or alternately by Nuclear Energy. While Nuclear energy itself is relatively green, it results in an un-manageable byproduct, consisting of radioactive waste. Coal and gas powered electric plants add to the carbon footprint of the industry.

The Nuclear Industry has developed some questionable practices about dealing with nuclear waste, but mostly the waste gets stored in underground storage facilities where concerns about leaching into water supplies are still sometimes expressed. Considering the nature of the mechanisms required to form nuclear power, anything within the actual pile, and in contact with radioactivity must be considered to be contaminated. Once the plant is decommissioned this results in years of painstaking deconstruction in contaminated environments, to remove the old pile, before a new one can be built in the same location.

Often when there is a nuclear incident, the area around the nuclear generator is contaminated for miles, and must be evacuated, and the nuclear plant itself coccooned for a significant period before it can be safely dismantled. The development of inherently safe nuclear plants does not eliminate the chance that the plant may be damaged by neglect or poor management, and result in an incident.

Of interest in green production of power, is the Wind, Tide, Wave, and Solar technologies, which still tend to be more expensive than coal or gas based technologies. Wind technologies are often discounted due to their potential to disturb bird migration paths, and solar technologies tend to have high initial installation cost in comparison to efficiency.

Electrical Distribution is the next problem.

Essentially to get electricity from plants which are almost always outside urban areas due to worries about contamination of the Urban Environment, there needs to be a transmission system that can convert the power into a form that transfers easily across distance, and then back into a useful and safe form for local use at the user level.

While Broadcast power has been looked at, for almost a century, it is still impractical to send large amounts of energy through the air, so the tendency is to use cables of metal to move it.

The nature of power transmission today is outside my current training, but suffice it to say that the fact that PCB's are still an issue in the environment long after they have been banned, is that they were used in oil cooled transformers, in energy distribution technologies that still haven't been properly recycled, or decontaminated. The recent contamination of animal feed by criminals in Germany has indicated that some of the recycling needed has been covered up rather than actually managed.

Here in Canada, there are rumors that PCB's were dealt with by spraying them on gravel roads, thus contaminating significant portions of the farming areas, instead of properly dealing with them in the proscribed expensive manner required.

The electricity arrives at the users place of consumption, in the form of Three Phase, Two Phase, or One phase power. Usually consumer electronics are designed for one phase power, or battery power. Larger computer centers are powered by two phase power, and industrial locations are often powered by three-phase power.

While converting between these different types of power is usually merely a matter of segregating the phases, and recombining them according to need, there are two main technologies that define the actual voltages and phase angles of the circuits, and these can be seen as market penetration from one of two companies General Electric and Westinghouse, in the original market thus setting the standards ever since.

Conversion of power from 1 phase AC to the D.C. needed to run most consumer electronics, is achieved by some form of "Power Supply" consisting of either a large box in the back of the computer, or a small box that depends from the wall socket and has been affectionately named a "Wall Wart".

The relative size and efficiency of these power supplies is determined by the technology by which they are made. The large box in the back of the computer is usually designed using Switching Technology that reduces the metal needed for the transformers, and increases the relative efficiency by using high technology to change the nature of the A.C. current during its conversion from a low frequency (usually 50 or 60 hz) to a high frequency, and then using the relative efficiency of rapidly fluctuating magnetic fields to reduce the size of the wires needed to convert from the relatively high voltage supplied (120-240V) down to the more useful 3-5 volts most circuits use today. Due to increased component packaging capabilities, these voltages are dropping lower, and new circuits are beginning to show up with 1.5 -1.7 volt requirements.

The Battery is of course a natural alternative, in that it frees the circuit from the mains, and thus makes it more moveable. However, batteries tend to require chemistry which has some environmental impacts that are questionable, and are still, somewhat limited in their capacity versus size. As a result, they tend to be less recycleable, and more likely to result in waste than a computer hooked up to the mains.

Thanks Graeme Smith

Now that we have discussed the Technology, we can discuss it's social impacts, and how networks have grown, and impacted society.

At first the "Paperless Office" was thought to be impossible to achieve. Many legacy systems required large amounts of paper which in turn required lots of pulp, which often involved toxic chemicals in its production, and storage of the paper involved. Killing trees to make paper was a growing industry, and it's impact can be felt still today, when we look across the denuded hills where often immature trees were stripped from the land in swaths to feed the paper demand. Electronic and Optical Storage technologies were relatively inefficient and expensive, and their market penetration was relatively small.

the Encyclopedia Britannica is an example of a profligate use of paper. This 28 volume set consisted of a relatively small subsection of knowledge about the world, and was sold door to door. The same documentation fit neatly onto 25 CD's and could easily fit on 5 DVD's.

It would hardly dent the storage capabilities of a modern Terrabyte level disk drive.

It cost nearly $1000.00 and a slightly larger collection of information is now freely available via the internet and Wikipedia. In fact, many University students have to be weaned from over-reliance on Wikipedia in order to get them to actually look for more original sources.

The integration of the Internet, a computer and a phone, has resulted in the new generation of smart phones. The potential to look up information while on the go to somewhere else, seems at first glance to be of benefit, until you realize that the window onto the information is curtailed by the size of the screen, and that the temptation to confirm any and all assertions, is also likely to reduce conversational flexibility and act as a damper on information transfer via normal conversation.

The other factor of course is that the concentration needed to get a smart phone to cough up the specified information, also results in reduced concentration on the environment with safety aspects that are often ignored.

One net effect of electronics in general and computing in specific is the sedentary nature of the life-style it imposes on the user. Essentially tied to a screen for significant periods of time, the user, tends to spend more time sitting or lying down with posture implications and relative lack of exercise, which is one factor in the obesity epidemic. As well, the electrical fields surrounding the computer often fluctuate at high frequencies, and as a result, may have a general impact on neural processes, as they induce currents within the human body.

Luckily most computers are moving away from the Cathode Ray Tube as the primary monitor technology, as this technology, includes focussing an electron ray on the observer, and the production of X-Rays which need lead integrated into the glass of the CRT tubes to keep from contaminating the environment with harmful radiation.

I have probably over posted on this thread for now, so I will back off, and let others discuss if they want.

Thanks Mr. Graeme Smith ,

the issue is important and it was not debated. You invested lots of time. Thanks again, it is price less.

Yes, in did, I hope there will be many more members to have a say here. We should all be concerned.

My respects,

Adrian Toader-Williams

Thank you for your kind words. I know I left a lot unsaid, and I hope I didn't cow the other members who should say it.

I am sure you will tell us more, if other members will not. You are a kind and knowledgeable professional, and I am grateful to be learning some from you.