On April 3, the iPad goes on sale in the United States. Unless you've pre-ordered one, you're mostly out luck for owning one in the immediate future. But eventually you'll get one, and then years from now, when it goes the way of the Walkman and millions of the devices are piling up in landfills, you might pause and ask yourself, Was that thing environmentally friendly? (And don't kid yourself, not everyone recycles.)
The answer: Yes and No.
TreeHugger.com: What do green bloggers think about Apple's iPad?
The "yes" part has to do with the actual device. Apple designed the casings using recyclable aluminum. The screens use LED-backlit displays, which are more energy efficient than LCDs and the glass is free of mercury and arsenic. Furthermore, the iPad contains no brominated flame retardants and is completely PVC-free.
It, along with the Kindle and any other e-tablet that comes along, will likely save some trees, which soak up CO2 emissions. In this 2009 report, the San Francisco-based Cleantech Group forecasts that "e-readers purchased from 2009 to 2012 could prevent 5.3 billion kg of carbon dioxide in 2012, or 9.9 billion kg during the four-year time period."
But although the iPad may be free of toxic materials and could keep CO2 out of the atmosphere, it still relies on cloud computing -- that is, data-processing applications that live on giant computer servers located far away from the device. In Olden Times, applications lived on the device and you didn't need to access a network. But that's just crazy talk, if you want to download music or an app.
So here's where we start getting to the "no" part. In a report released this week, Greenpeace said,
"the launch of quintessential cloud computing devices like the Apple iPad, which offer users access to the 'cloud' of online services like social networks and video streaming, can contribute to a much larger carbon footprint of the Information Technology sector than previously estimated."
The report builds on previous research concluding that by 2020 the data centers that house big computer servers and telecommunication networks will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity. If that electricity is generated by coal or other non-renewable fuels, we got ourselves a problem.
Check out this Greenpeace graphic, which I found in this article from GreenBiz. It shows where the major players are getting their computing power from.
The folks who host these data servers are aware of the energy. From a cost standpoint, it simply makes sense for them to cut back as much as possible on energy use. Google, who I think is on the right path, recently awarded $1 million for research efforts that attempt to cut down on energy consumption at data centers.
If the electricity for data centers can eventually come from renewable sources and if manufacturers can continue to improve energy efficiencies within the devices, we may one day have e-tablets that are 100 percent environmentally friendly. Until then, I'm keeping my greens in my pocket.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
Tags: Carbon Emissions, Carbon Footprint, Computer Networking, Computers, EWaste,
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