May 25, 2009 • 24 mins
When it comes to environmentally-friendly use of resources, are computers a better option than paper? Tune in as the TechStuff guys tackle the complicated topic of electricity versus paper in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tex Stuff from how stuff works dot com. This podcast
is brought to you by Verizon Hub, the home phone
reinvented exclusively from Verizon Wireless. Hello there, everybody, and welcome
(00:22):
to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I'm
an editor here at how stuff works dot com. Sitting
next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Hey there, Wow, it's been a long time since I've
heard that. Yeah, my World War Worldwide Rather tour is over,
so I'm back to Hey there, all right, So what
(00:42):
are we gonna talk about today? Oh? Well, actually today
we're going to talk about subject that was brought up
by one of our listeners. This is from Sandra Almost
said Sarah. I'm sorry, Sandra. Here's what she has to say. Hi,
Chris and Jonathan. First, let me say I really enjoy
your podcast and listen to every episode. Thanks for all
the hard work. I'm learning a lot and it's mostly painless.
(01:05):
I bet that has something to do with the jokes
we tell. I'm all right, I'm writing to suggest an
idea for a podcast. Over the last few years, we've
moved to doing everything online, from banking and paying bills
to entertainment and socializing. While it's true we can save
paper and gas by doing more online, I think it's
misleading to think it's more energy efficient overall. I recently
(01:27):
read an article that said we have to build five
new power plants every year just to support the increased
energy needed for I T alone. That would be bad
enough if server farms operated at peak efficiency, but apparently
they're incredibly inefficient, so much of this energy is wasted.
I'd like to learn more about the impact of our
(01:48):
bandwidth hungry lifestyle and its impact on the environment and
our economy. I hope you'll consider this for a future podcast.
Thanks for considering it, Sandra, Well, Sandra, thanks a lot
for writing in. That's an ex silent email, and we're
gonna try and tackle this. It's it turns out this
is a really tricky subject to to talk about, not
(02:09):
because of any controversy or anything like that, but just
because when you start to look at the whole issue,
you begin to realize the picture is a little larger
than what you first thought. Right. Oh, definitely and then
you look at that and you're like, wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, if I have to consider this, then I
need to consider this next element. So the picture gets
a little bigger, and it gets bigger and bigger until
(02:29):
you end up hiding under your desk and weeping softly
speak for yourself. Okay, Well, Josh, Josh knows I often
actually will hide under his desk because he's very comforting. Yes,
I understand. Yeah, As it turns out, we sort of
worked ourselves into a hole, so to speak, because, um,
we rely on both paper and computer technology. Um, and
(02:53):
neither one of them is particularly environmentally friendly, and neither
one of them is particularly harm so much more than
the other. Yeah, they're harmful in different ways. Yeah they're yeah, exactly,
and they're good and bad things about both. So, um,
I was gonna tackle print and paper to start with,
if you don't mind. Okay. So I was reading up
(03:16):
on a couple of different subjects, one of the which was,
you know, how much uh energy it takes to create
a book? Um. There was another one that was talking
about how much energy it takes to make a ream
of paper, And you know, it's it's an interesting thing
to read about and really again, you have to think
about the whole big picture, not just how many trees
(03:37):
you had to cut down or you know, the processing
plant for the trees to turn the lumber into paper. Um,
there are a lot of different things you have to
think about, like after after the papers made, it has
to be shipped somewhere. When it's being shipped somewhere, that
that the fuel is going to put an impact on
the environment. The uh, just the travel and wear and
(03:57):
tear puts an impact. I mean eventually you start looking
at this like a domino effect, right, Like okay, well
that also means you have to maintain the trucks and
the trains and wait a minute, that also means that
if it goes into a store, you have to pay
for things like lights in the store. Like where does
it end? Is the question? But in general. There was
a study done by the Book Industry Study Group and
(04:18):
Green Press Initiative not too long ago where they try
to estimate how much carbon is produced through the publication
of a single book. The conclusion that they came to
was that each book contributes about eight point eight five
pounds of carbon. So every single book you see, essentially
(04:40):
that's what it took to make that book possible, including
you know, coffee table books. Yeah, well, I mean I
think it's I think it's an average because, yeah, I'm saying,
like the monster at the end of this book probably
doesn't have as big an environmental impact as say, the
Lord of the Rings. Now impact upon my life equally huge,
(05:03):
but not upon the environment. Um And they also estimated
that the publishing industry generates about twelve point for million
metric tons of carbon per year. It's a lot of carbon.
Significant And now you have to also remember that when
you're creating paper, obviously you're creating paper from lumber. You're
gonna have to get that lumber somewhere, so you have
(05:23):
to cut down trees. And trees are what we call
a carbon sink. So trees help take carbon out of
the environment, mostly through carbon dioxide. Um And So if
you start cutting down the trees, not only are you
in the process that you're going through to create whatever
it is you're creating in this case paper, not only
(05:45):
are you creating carbon that's going into the environment, you're
taking away the the ability to absorb that carbon because
you're removing some of the trees. So that's that's not
good for the environment. And uh, and we've been consuming
more and more paper products, um as the years have
(06:05):
gone by. I read an interesting report by green pdf. Now, granted,
you have to take this with a grain of salt.
You have to always consider the source of the information
you're receiving. Um. If you're receiving information from an environmental
like a pro environment kind of source, you have to remember,
(06:26):
all right, well, let's look around see if there's any
other independent sources that verify this information. Same thing if
you read from a pro industry source. Right, absolutely, so
you want to be far as much as the time
as you can. Right. You don't wanna you don't want
to just assume that the information you're reading is in fact, uh,
completely accurate. You need to kind of look around. But
(06:47):
what green pdf said was that on average, uh, each
person in the world consumes about a hundred and twenty
three pounds of paper per year, and of the paper
consumed is used in printing documents, and the average office
employee uses seven reams of paper per year. All right,
(07:10):
so here's some more figures for you. One point one
billion trees are cut down for this paper supply each year,
fifty million metric tons of lumber. And uh you think
each tree removes about one ton one metric ton of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. Uh. And each
tree can make about a hundred and seventy three realms
(07:31):
of paper. Okay, so there's a lot of a lot
of figures, facts and figures for you. A realm of paper,
by the way, UM, producing it dumps about twelve pounds
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. UM. So you know
obviously that's a big environmental impact. UM. I mean, trees
are a renewable resource. You can grow more uh trees
(07:55):
if you need to. And the thing is a lot
of environmental organizations will tell you that they there is
some difference between trees taken from a sustainable forest versus
old growth trees. And there are some companies that are
I mean, if you really want to go looking for it,
you can find lists of companies that will tell you
the ones who use sustainable lumber versus old growth forests. UM.
(08:20):
You know, if you are so inclined to do that. UM.
The thing also that I you know that I think
that we should mention is the chemicals, because if you're
creating say a craft paper bag, you know, brown paper
bag that you would see at a grocery store. You know,
that's pretty much that doesn't really require a lot of
of coloring. But if you want bleached white paper that
(08:41):
that you'd get for you know, for example, school notebook
paper or um paper for your laser printer, that takes
bleach and those chemicals go into a water source someplace
in a lot of cases, Um, you know. I I
remember actually driving across Tennessee, UH and seeing signs an
environmental organization and taking out signs near the Pigeon River
(09:04):
because there was a paper plant upstream and they they
used the billboard and it changed ever ever so often,
but it would actually you know, point out that this
particular paper company was you know, dumping chemicals into the water.
And uh, you know, it affects a lot of things.
It's not just you know, the trees being cut down
in the carbon dock side. It has another impact on
(09:26):
the environment just from the actual production, the other costs
of production, if you will. Sure. Yeah, I I grew
up in uh near Lake Lanier, um in in Hull County, Georgia,
and UH and we had paper mills, not too far
from the house. So when the wind was blowing in
a certain direction, you'd get that lovely oh yeah scent
of the paper mill. It was blowing in the other direction,
(09:49):
chicken farms, so it was blowing in one particular direction.
You got the best of both worlds. Oh yeah, and
then you know, you get the environmental impact of both
of those, right, yeah, tasting, So that that's kind of
the whole paper thing. So we're talking, you know, and
of course there are ways you can you can reduce
the environmental impact of using paper. If you're using paper
(10:09):
that that is certified as carbon neutral, arguably that means
that the company is doing something to offset the fact
that they're taking trees. Uh there, you know, they're cutting
them down, maybe they're planning more, maybe they're buying carbon offsets.
But if you have a carbon neutral kind of solution
to your paper, you might not be making quite as
(10:29):
big an impact on the environment. Now, there's still other elements.
You know, you were still talking about the production and
the shipping, shipping, just the you know, just just the
energy you need to run a plant. I mean that
that that energy that's coming from that electricity. So you know,
there's still things that are going to affect the environment,
whether or not you're using like totally recycled paper or whatever.
(10:51):
That that's true. UM, And of course there are costs
environmental costs and um financial costs to recycling to it
does help, of course. So if you buy recycled paper, UM,
that encourages them to continue making recycled paper and to
recycled paper when you you know, are done using it. UM.
You can always use the backsides of paper. Try to
(11:12):
duplex print if you're going to have to print something.
Here's one of my big pet peeves. If you work
in an office where people do a lot of printing,
you're gonna see a giant stack of stuff that people
printed out but never came to pick up. Don't be
one of those people. If you're going to print something,
print it because you need it and you're actually gonna
use it. That that's just one of my big pet peeves.
(11:34):
You know, I I find that I need to use
paper from time to time. I try not to use
tons of it ha ha literally but no figuratively speaking.
And the thing is, you know, I go over there
and I see that big pile of paper, and it
stress me crazy. Um, so they understand that. The one
thing though, that I that I find interesting about paper
(11:55):
when I think, well I'm going to shift to online,
is once the paper is produced, it's produced. It's it's there.
It's not doing anything. It's not you know, contributing to
or or detracting from the CEO two levels of the planet.
So I mean, if you have paper and are using
it responsibly and not over using it, then you know
(12:16):
it's a sustainable resource. So there's something to be said
for a piece of paper as opposed to say, a computer,
which is going to draw a power constantly. I mean,
unless you've unplugged it or you're using a uh one
of the power strips that can prevent vampire power from
going on your your computer is always drawing some power.
(12:36):
Vampire power for the uninitiated, is um say you have
your computer plugged into a power strip and you've turned
it off so that you can go to work the computer.
That is right, right, that's a good point. That's a
good point. You turn your computer off, that left the
power strip on your computer is still going to be
drawing some power. As a matter of fact, if you
if you have a desktop computer like a tower and
(12:58):
you take the side of it off for the front
of it off where you can actually see, you'll probably
see a couple of the little LEDs inside that tell
you that there's something going on. Um. It's basically keeping
the machine running. It. The same could be said for
your TV. People don't want to wait for the TV
to come on, so the manufacturers built in you know, uh,
the capacity to store energy so that you can turn
(13:20):
it on and it pops on very quickly. Well, the
thing is, it takes electricity to do that, you know,
very low flow, and that's called vampire power. If you
turn the power strip off, it stops drawing power. Unplugging
it will really stop it. Yeah and um. And and
then we should point out that even the vampire power,
although it is you know, a constant thing, um, it's
(13:42):
not drawing nearly the same amount of power as your
computer would when it's running, especially if it's running like
full speed, like running a very heavy application. UM. So
when we're talking about computers, were really looking at things
like energy efficiency. Uh, you know, whether or not you
are using any of the sleep or idle modes, or
(14:04):
if you're turning your computer off. Um. And also not
only that. But when you're talking about online applications now
you have to look at, as Sandra pointed out, data
centers and data centers. They okay, for those who don't know,
a data center is essentially a collection of servers, and
it could be a small center. And when when I
say small, most people would think of a small center.
(14:25):
Like most people the I T. Baz would say, like,
a hundred servers is kind of small. Google has has
data centers that with the servers that number in the
thousands and tens of thousands, and they've got these enormous
buildings their size of several warehouses put together, filled with
these machines all running, their generating tons of heat, they're
consuming lots of electricity, and they always have to be
(14:48):
on because if they go off, your service goes away.
That's that's no more Gmail. That's no more access to
any of the files that you've stored in the cloud,
that's no more Search exactly. Yeah. So the thing about
that is that those machines are constantly running, and there
are probably at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions,
(15:09):
of machines doing that at anyone given time. And the
Internet is made up of computers talking to one another, right,
and and a computer running, uh, you know, actively running
can consume anywhere between I don't know what, like like
a hundred and something wats per hour to up to
three hundred depending on the machine, maybe even more, I
guess if you've got to really power hungry device. But
(15:32):
so you gotta think there are these thousands and thousands
of machines that are running all the time. If you're
using a lot of online services, UM, then you're contributing
to the need for more machines, which means that you know,
you're indirectly you are contributing to an environmental impact. So, uh,
what what can we do about this? Well, I mean,
if you don't use it, I don't think they're going
(15:54):
to be fewer computers out there. But what we can
really hope for is that these companies will start looking
into ways to um to power their data centers in
a renewable fashion that's not dependent upon you know, traditional
electricity power plants to generate electricity. Google's doing that. As
(16:14):
a matter of FACTUM, I have some family up in
the Northwest, and um Google has they generated headlines generated
sorry for the pun generated headlines. A few a couple
of years ago because they were building a giant data
center UM in a town near Portlands called the Dolls UM.
(16:34):
The thing is, you'd think, wow, that's you know that
you look at the the Google Earth view of this
place and you go, man, that's got to have tons
and tons of computers. And I'm and I'm sure it does. However,
it's also along the Columbia River and the from what
I understand that that data center draws a lot of
its power from water, right, hydroelectric power exactly, So you know,
(16:56):
there are there are things that they're doing there and uh,
I believe a solar power to to try to offset
some of the uh fossil fuel costs the electricity there.
And and also I just wrote a blog post about
this recently. As of the recording of this podcast. By
the time this goes live, it will actually be old news,
but you can always go back and look at it. UM.
(17:17):
But I did a blog post about this patent that
Google applied for and was granted for a floating data center,
and it's essentially a data center on a boat, and
the full design incorporates UM some devices that generate electricity
through the motion of water so both waves and tidal motions,
(17:38):
and UM and also uses the water as a coolant
to keep the servers cool, so it doesn't have to
you know, it doesn't. It can just utilize the power
of the sea to keep it going and it's not
drawing power from a power plant like most data centers are. Well, um,
you know, Google actually has its own organization in house
that looks at renewable energy sources. It's called ARIS lesson
(18:01):
C and UM I actually this had come up before
we had started talked about the idea of writing an
article or doing a podcast about this subject. Before UM
and UM I got some information on that. Um Eric Tetzel,
who's the program manager for ARIS lesson C, said that
a Google search takes three ten thousands of a kill
(18:22):
a lot, which generates about point two grams of c
O two every time you search Google. So you know,
it's small, it's a very small impact. However, you know
how many people are searching Google every day any point
of the day. Yeah, sure, so, I mean if you
think about that and how much that search energy is,
(18:45):
you know the cost of that search energy. Google and
other companies have good reason to look into other sources
because I mean environmental impact aside, it's got a financial impact.
So if they could find some renewable sources, especially non
polluting ones that you know, make them look better, I mean,
it's it's a win exactly, it's a it's a good
move for them. And and just like we were talking
(19:06):
with the paper, with all the additional factors that you
have to take into account, the same things true with computers.
I mean, if you're ultimately you're gonna have to think, Okay,
what did it cost environmentally speaking to produce this computer?
What did it cost environmentally speaking to build the data centers? Um?
You know, it's it's these are costs that are essentially
one time costs for per machine, just like a book
(19:29):
is a one time cost. But it's like, again, you
start looking at this big picture situation where everything gets
linked in together, and there's there's not really an easy
solution because there's no real way where you can just
you can't point to one thing and say this is
the source of the problem because it's so much larger
than that. Yeah, yeah, and uh, I mean there's more
(19:50):
than the carbon footprint of manufacturing a computer, let alone
taking it apart. I mean, so many of them end
up in landfills because people don't recycle them. There's let,
there's cadmium, There's all kinds of stuff there, uh, and
it gets into the groundwater. There's the environmental impact of that. Right.
The more often you replace your computer, uh, and the
(20:10):
more computers you own that need to be replaced, that
just adds to that impact. So there's something to be
said uh for that too. So what we're getting down
to here is that there's no easy answer of saying
is paper better than using a computer or vice versa. Um.
What we can say is there are certain behaviors you
can follow that will help decrease your impact on the environment.
(20:33):
And if everyone does this that that does make a difference. UM.
But we can't, you know, we can't just sit there
and sign off on one versus the other. So using
things like recycled paper, um, you know, only using paper
when you need to, that kind of thing, as well
as UH, if you're using your computer and you're going
to be away from your computer for a couple of hours,
(20:56):
it's okay to go ahead and turn that off. Uh.
The everyone want to worry is about whether or not
the spike that you were that you experienced when you
first turn a computer on, if that if that negates
the effect you would have of turning it off. In
most cases, it does not. In most cases, especially the
longer you keep it off, the greater the benefit is.
(21:17):
So if you are going to bed at night and
you're not gonna be up and using the computer for
eight or ten hours, turning it off is probably the
best choice. And if you can't turn it off, or
you know you just you can't, you're just not going
to Using a sleep mode um can also really really
help out. A sleep mode might be just a couple
(21:38):
of percentage points of what the active mode would be.
And don't assume that a screen saver is the same
thing as a sleep mode, because yeah, it actually can
generate a lot of it can drain a lot of
power because I mean, you know you're running you're running
a program, is what you're doing, and it's displaying something
a monitor. So if you have a desktop computer and
a monitor is keeping the monitor a week, right, So
(22:00):
don't just you know, it'll go to screen saver and
that'll that'll save money. No, go ahead and put it
onto sleep mode. I mean it might mean that it
takes a little longer for it to boot up, but
it you know, that's a small price to pay, I mean,
and you'll be saving money on electricity bills. Yep. You
can also unplug a lot of your electronics when you're
not in use, or you can get smart power strips
(22:22):
that will do it for you. They can. A lot
of the power strips now come with the ability. Now
they're more expensive, I should point that out, um, but
they tell the ability to go, oh, well, this thing
hasn't been on for half an hour, I need to
just turn this off. And and it's an upfront cost
that eventually will be offset by the savings you you make,
assuming that you know you're using it appropriately and you
(22:43):
know that it's that it's that it's a device that's
going to last a few years. It may take a while,
because when we're talking about savings, we're talking about you know,
maybe a couple of dollars per year, which doesn't sound
like you know, it's not not really that remarkable, but
you are making a much lower impact on the environ
that's true, that's true. I think what we really need
(23:03):
to emphasize is that what you do, you need to
do responsibly, you know, if you if you behave responsibly,
not wastefully. Um, you know, I don't think any of
us are going to be able to give up our
paper and computers anytime soon, and they're just too embedded
in our our daily lives. I think the best thing
to do is sort of mitigate and um, you know,
find ways that we can contribute to, uh, reducing our
(23:26):
carbon footprints and maybe the global carbon footprint as a
as a whole. Sure I agree. Alright, Well, Sandra, thank
you so much for writing in. That's a great discussion,
so we really appreciate it. Uh. If any of you
wish to write us, please do so tech stuff at
how stuff works dot com and remember you can go
to how stuff works dot com to learn about everything
(23:47):
we're talking about, green initiatives, technology, all sorts of great topics.
Just check that out how stuff works dot com and
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(24:11):
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tex Stuff from how stuff works dot com. This podcast
is brought to you by Verizon Hub, the home phone
reinvented exclusively from Verizon Wireless. Hello there, everybody, and welcome
(00:22):
to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I'm
an editor here at how stuff works dot com. Sitting
next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Hey there, Wow, it's been a long time since I've
heard that. Yeah, my World War Worldwide Rather tour is over,
so I'm back to Hey there, all right, So what
(00:42):
are we gonna talk about today? Oh? Well, actually today
we're going to talk about subject that was brought up
by one of our listeners. This is from Sandra Almost
said Sarah. I'm sorry, Sandra. Here's what she has to say. Hi,
Chris and Jonathan. First, let me say I really enjoy
your podcast and listen to every episode. Thanks for all
the hard work. I'm learning a lot and it's mostly painless.
(01:05):
I bet that has something to do with the jokes
we tell. I'm all right, I'm writing to suggest an
idea for a podcast. Over the last few years, we've
moved to doing everything online, from banking and paying bills
to entertainment and socializing. While it's true we can save
paper and gas by doing more online, I think it's
misleading to think it's more energy efficient overall. I recently
(01:27):
read an article that said we have to build five
new power plants every year just to support the increased
energy needed for I T alone. That would be bad
enough if server farms operated at peak efficiency, but apparently
they're incredibly inefficient, so much of this energy is wasted.
I'd like to learn more about the impact of our
(01:48):
bandwidth hungry lifestyle and its impact on the environment and
our economy. I hope you'll consider this for a future podcast.
Thanks for considering it, Sandra, Well, Sandra, thanks a lot
for writing in. That's an ex silent email, and we're
gonna try and tackle this. It's it turns out this
is a really tricky subject to to talk about, not
(02:09):
because of any controversy or anything like that, but just
because when you start to look at the whole issue,
you begin to realize the picture is a little larger
than what you first thought. Right. Oh, definitely and then
you look at that and you're like, wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, if I have to consider this, then I
need to consider this next element. So the picture gets
a little bigger, and it gets bigger and bigger until
(02:29):
you end up hiding under your desk and weeping softly
speak for yourself. Okay, Well, Josh, Josh knows I often
actually will hide under his desk because he's very comforting. Yes,
I understand. Yeah, As it turns out, we sort of
worked ourselves into a hole, so to speak, because, um,
we rely on both paper and computer technology. Um, and
(02:53):
neither one of them is particularly environmentally friendly, and neither
one of them is particularly harm so much more than
the other. Yeah, they're harmful in different ways. Yeah they're yeah, exactly,
and they're good and bad things about both. So, um,
I was gonna tackle print and paper to start with,
if you don't mind. Okay. So I was reading up
(03:16):
on a couple of different subjects, one of the which was,
you know, how much uh energy it takes to create
a book? Um. There was another one that was talking
about how much energy it takes to make a ream
of paper, And you know, it's it's an interesting thing
to read about and really again, you have to think
about the whole big picture, not just how many trees
(03:37):
you had to cut down or you know, the processing
plant for the trees to turn the lumber into paper. Um,
there are a lot of different things you have to
think about, like after after the papers made, it has
to be shipped somewhere. When it's being shipped somewhere, that
that the fuel is going to put an impact on
the environment. The uh, just the travel and wear and
(03:57):
tear puts an impact. I mean eventually you start looking
at this like a domino effect, right, Like okay, well
that also means you have to maintain the trucks and
the trains and wait a minute, that also means that
if it goes into a store, you have to pay
for things like lights in the store. Like where does
it end? Is the question? But in general. There was
a study done by the Book Industry Study Group and
(04:18):
Green Press Initiative not too long ago where they try
to estimate how much carbon is produced through the publication
of a single book. The conclusion that they came to
was that each book contributes about eight point eight five
pounds of carbon. So every single book you see, essentially
(04:40):
that's what it took to make that book possible, including
you know, coffee table books. Yeah, well, I mean I
think it's I think it's an average because, yeah, I'm saying,
like the monster at the end of this book probably
doesn't have as big an environmental impact as say, the
Lord of the Rings. Now impact upon my life equally huge,
(05:03):
but not upon the environment. Um And they also estimated
that the publishing industry generates about twelve point for million
metric tons of carbon per year. It's a lot of carbon.
Significant And now you have to also remember that when
you're creating paper, obviously you're creating paper from lumber. You're
gonna have to get that lumber somewhere, so you have
(05:23):
to cut down trees. And trees are what we call
a carbon sink. So trees help take carbon out of
the environment, mostly through carbon dioxide. Um And So if
you start cutting down the trees, not only are you
in the process that you're going through to create whatever
it is you're creating in this case paper, not only
(05:45):
are you creating carbon that's going into the environment, you're
taking away the the ability to absorb that carbon because
you're removing some of the trees. So that's that's not
good for the environment. And uh, and we've been consuming
more and more paper products, um as the years have
(06:05):
gone by. I read an interesting report by green pdf. Now, granted,
you have to take this with a grain of salt.
You have to always consider the source of the information
you're receiving. Um. If you're receiving information from an environmental
like a pro environment kind of source, you have to remember,
(06:26):
all right, well, let's look around see if there's any
other independent sources that verify this information. Same thing if
you read from a pro industry source. Right, absolutely, so
you want to be far as much as the time
as you can. Right. You don't wanna you don't want
to just assume that the information you're reading is in fact, uh,
completely accurate. You need to kind of look around. But
(06:47):
what green pdf said was that on average, uh, each
person in the world consumes about a hundred and twenty
three pounds of paper per year, and of the paper
consumed is used in printing documents, and the average office
employee uses seven reams of paper per year. All right,
(07:10):
so here's some more figures for you. One point one
billion trees are cut down for this paper supply each year,
fifty million metric tons of lumber. And uh you think
each tree removes about one ton one metric ton of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. Uh. And each
tree can make about a hundred and seventy three realms
(07:31):
of paper. Okay, so there's a lot of a lot
of figures, facts and figures for you. A realm of paper,
by the way, UM, producing it dumps about twelve pounds
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. UM. So you know
obviously that's a big environmental impact. UM. I mean, trees
are a renewable resource. You can grow more uh trees
(07:55):
if you need to. And the thing is a lot
of environmental organizations will tell you that they there is
some difference between trees taken from a sustainable forest versus
old growth trees. And there are some companies that are
I mean, if you really want to go looking for it,
you can find lists of companies that will tell you
the ones who use sustainable lumber versus old growth forests. UM.
(08:20):
You know, if you are so inclined to do that. UM.
The thing also that I you know that I think
that we should mention is the chemicals, because if you're
creating say a craft paper bag, you know, brown paper
bag that you would see at a grocery store. You know,
that's pretty much that doesn't really require a lot of
of coloring. But if you want bleached white paper that
(08:41):
that you'd get for you know, for example, school notebook
paper or um paper for your laser printer, that takes
bleach and those chemicals go into a water source someplace
in a lot of cases, Um, you know. I I
remember actually driving across Tennessee, UH and seeing signs an
environmental organization and taking out signs near the Pigeon River
(09:04):
because there was a paper plant upstream and they they
used the billboard and it changed ever ever so often,
but it would actually you know, point out that this
particular paper company was you know, dumping chemicals into the water.
And uh, you know, it affects a lot of things.
It's not just you know, the trees being cut down
in the carbon dock side. It has another impact on
(09:26):
the environment just from the actual production, the other costs
of production, if you will. Sure. Yeah, I I grew
up in uh near Lake Lanier, um in in Hull County, Georgia,
and UH and we had paper mills, not too far
from the house. So when the wind was blowing in
a certain direction, you'd get that lovely oh yeah scent
of the paper mill. It was blowing in the other direction,
(09:49):
chicken farms, so it was blowing in one particular direction.
You got the best of both worlds. Oh yeah, and
then you know, you get the environmental impact of both
of those, right, yeah, tasting, So that that's kind of
the whole paper thing. So we're talking, you know, and
of course there are ways you can you can reduce
the environmental impact of using paper. If you're using paper
(10:09):
that that is certified as carbon neutral, arguably that means
that the company is doing something to offset the fact
that they're taking trees. Uh there, you know, they're cutting
them down, maybe they're planning more, maybe they're buying carbon offsets.
But if you have a carbon neutral kind of solution
to your paper, you might not be making quite as
(10:29):
big an impact on the environment. Now, there's still other elements.
You know, you were still talking about the production and
the shipping, shipping, just the you know, just just the
energy you need to run a plant. I mean that
that that energy that's coming from that electricity. So you know,
there's still things that are going to affect the environment,
whether or not you're using like totally recycled paper or whatever.
(10:51):
That that's true. UM, And of course there are costs
environmental costs and um financial costs to recycling to it
does help, of course. So if you buy recycled paper, UM,
that encourages them to continue making recycled paper and to
recycled paper when you you know, are done using it. UM.
You can always use the backsides of paper. Try to
(11:12):
duplex print if you're going to have to print something.
Here's one of my big pet peeves. If you work
in an office where people do a lot of printing,
you're gonna see a giant stack of stuff that people
printed out but never came to pick up. Don't be
one of those people. If you're going to print something,
print it because you need it and you're actually gonna
use it. That that's just one of my big pet peeves.
(11:34):
You know, I I find that I need to use
paper from time to time. I try not to use
tons of it ha ha literally but no figuratively speaking.
And the thing is, you know, I go over there
and I see that big pile of paper, and it
stress me crazy. Um, so they understand that. The one
thing though, that I that I find interesting about paper
(11:55):
when I think, well I'm going to shift to online,
is once the paper is produced, it's produced. It's it's there.
It's not doing anything. It's not you know, contributing to
or or detracting from the CEO two levels of the planet.
So I mean, if you have paper and are using
it responsibly and not over using it, then you know
(12:16):
it's a sustainable resource. So there's something to be said
for a piece of paper as opposed to say, a computer,
which is going to draw a power constantly. I mean,
unless you've unplugged it or you're using a uh one
of the power strips that can prevent vampire power from
going on your your computer is always drawing some power.
(12:36):
Vampire power for the uninitiated, is um say you have
your computer plugged into a power strip and you've turned
it off so that you can go to work the computer.
That is right, right, that's a good point. That's a
good point. You turn your computer off, that left the
power strip on your computer is still going to be
drawing some power. As a matter of fact, if you
if you have a desktop computer like a tower and
(12:58):
you take the side of it off for the front
of it off where you can actually see, you'll probably
see a couple of the little LEDs inside that tell
you that there's something going on. Um. It's basically keeping
the machine running. It. The same could be said for
your TV. People don't want to wait for the TV
to come on, so the manufacturers built in you know, uh,
the capacity to store energy so that you can turn
(13:20):
it on and it pops on very quickly. Well, the
thing is, it takes electricity to do that, you know,
very low flow, and that's called vampire power. If you
turn the power strip off, it stops drawing power. Unplugging
it will really stop it. Yeah and um. And and
then we should point out that even the vampire power,
although it is you know, a constant thing, um, it's
(13:42):
not drawing nearly the same amount of power as your
computer would when it's running, especially if it's running like
full speed, like running a very heavy application. UM. So
when we're talking about computers, were really looking at things
like energy efficiency. Uh, you know, whether or not you
are using any of the sleep or idle modes, or
(14:04):
if you're turning your computer off. Um. And also not
only that. But when you're talking about online applications now
you have to look at, as Sandra pointed out, data
centers and data centers. They okay, for those who don't know,
a data center is essentially a collection of servers, and
it could be a small center. And when when I
say small, most people would think of a small center.
(14:25):
Like most people the I T. Baz would say, like,
a hundred servers is kind of small. Google has has
data centers that with the servers that number in the
thousands and tens of thousands, and they've got these enormous
buildings their size of several warehouses put together, filled with
these machines all running, their generating tons of heat, they're
consuming lots of electricity, and they always have to be
(14:48):
on because if they go off, your service goes away.
That's that's no more Gmail. That's no more access to
any of the files that you've stored in the cloud,
that's no more Search exactly. Yeah. So the thing about
that is that those machines are constantly running, and there
are probably at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions,
(15:09):
of machines doing that at anyone given time. And the
Internet is made up of computers talking to one another, right,
and and a computer running, uh, you know, actively running
can consume anywhere between I don't know what, like like
a hundred and something wats per hour to up to
three hundred depending on the machine, maybe even more, I
guess if you've got to really power hungry device. But
(15:32):
so you gotta think there are these thousands and thousands
of machines that are running all the time. If you're
using a lot of online services, UM, then you're contributing
to the need for more machines, which means that you know,
you're indirectly you are contributing to an environmental impact. So, uh,
what what can we do about this? Well, I mean,
if you don't use it, I don't think they're going
(15:54):
to be fewer computers out there. But what we can
really hope for is that these companies will start looking
into ways to um to power their data centers in
a renewable fashion that's not dependent upon you know, traditional
electricity power plants to generate electricity. Google's doing that. As
(16:14):
a matter of FACTUM, I have some family up in
the Northwest, and um Google has they generated headlines generated
sorry for the pun generated headlines. A few a couple
of years ago because they were building a giant data
center UM in a town near Portlands called the Dolls UM.
(16:34):
The thing is, you'd think, wow, that's you know that
you look at the the Google Earth view of this
place and you go, man, that's got to have tons
and tons of computers. And I'm and I'm sure it does. However,
it's also along the Columbia River and the from what
I understand that that data center draws a lot of
its power from water, right, hydroelectric power exactly, So you know,
(16:56):
there are there are things that they're doing there and uh,
I believe a solar power to to try to offset
some of the uh fossil fuel costs the electricity there.
And and also I just wrote a blog post about
this recently. As of the recording of this podcast. By
the time this goes live, it will actually be old news,
but you can always go back and look at it. UM.
(17:17):
But I did a blog post about this patent that
Google applied for and was granted for a floating data center,
and it's essentially a data center on a boat, and
the full design incorporates UM some devices that generate electricity
through the motion of water so both waves and tidal motions,
(17:38):
and UM and also uses the water as a coolant
to keep the servers cool, so it doesn't have to
you know, it doesn't. It can just utilize the power
of the sea to keep it going and it's not
drawing power from a power plant like most data centers are. Well, um,
you know, Google actually has its own organization in house
that looks at renewable energy sources. It's called ARIS lesson
(18:01):
C and UM I actually this had come up before
we had started talked about the idea of writing an
article or doing a podcast about this subject. Before UM
and UM I got some information on that. Um Eric Tetzel,
who's the program manager for ARIS lesson C, said that
a Google search takes three ten thousands of a kill
(18:22):
a lot, which generates about point two grams of c
O two every time you search Google. So you know,
it's small, it's a very small impact. However, you know
how many people are searching Google every day any point
of the day. Yeah, sure, so, I mean if you
think about that and how much that search energy is,
(18:45):
you know the cost of that search energy. Google and
other companies have good reason to look into other sources
because I mean environmental impact aside, it's got a financial impact.
So if they could find some renewable sources, especially non
polluting ones that you know, make them look better, I mean,
it's it's a win exactly, it's a it's a good
move for them. And and just like we were talking
(19:06):
with the paper, with all the additional factors that you
have to take into account, the same things true with computers.
I mean, if you're ultimately you're gonna have to think, Okay,
what did it cost environmentally speaking to produce this computer?
What did it cost environmentally speaking to build the data centers? Um?
You know, it's it's these are costs that are essentially
one time costs for per machine, just like a book
(19:29):
is a one time cost. But it's like, again, you
start looking at this big picture situation where everything gets
linked in together, and there's there's not really an easy
solution because there's no real way where you can just
you can't point to one thing and say this is
the source of the problem because it's so much larger
than that. Yeah, yeah, and uh, I mean there's more
(19:50):
than the carbon footprint of manufacturing a computer, let alone
taking it apart. I mean, so many of them end
up in landfills because people don't recycle them. There's let,
there's cadmium, There's all kinds of stuff there, uh, and
it gets into the groundwater. There's the environmental impact of that. Right.
The more often you replace your computer, uh, and the
(20:10):
more computers you own that need to be replaced, that
just adds to that impact. So there's something to be
said uh for that too. So what we're getting down
to here is that there's no easy answer of saying
is paper better than using a computer or vice versa. Um.
What we can say is there are certain behaviors you
can follow that will help decrease your impact on the environment.
(20:33):
And if everyone does this that that does make a difference. UM.
But we can't, you know, we can't just sit there
and sign off on one versus the other. So using
things like recycled paper, um, you know, only using paper
when you need to, that kind of thing, as well
as UH, if you're using your computer and you're going
to be away from your computer for a couple of hours,
(20:56):
it's okay to go ahead and turn that off. Uh.
The everyone want to worry is about whether or not
the spike that you were that you experienced when you
first turn a computer on, if that if that negates
the effect you would have of turning it off. In
most cases, it does not. In most cases, especially the
longer you keep it off, the greater the benefit is.
(21:17):
So if you are going to bed at night and
you're not gonna be up and using the computer for
eight or ten hours, turning it off is probably the
best choice. And if you can't turn it off, or
you know you just you can't, you're just not going
to Using a sleep mode um can also really really
help out. A sleep mode might be just a couple
(21:38):
of percentage points of what the active mode would be.
And don't assume that a screen saver is the same
thing as a sleep mode, because yeah, it actually can
generate a lot of it can drain a lot of
power because I mean, you know you're running you're running
a program, is what you're doing, and it's displaying something
a monitor. So if you have a desktop computer and
a monitor is keeping the monitor a week, right, So
(22:00):
don't just you know, it'll go to screen saver and
that'll that'll save money. No, go ahead and put it
onto sleep mode. I mean it might mean that it
takes a little longer for it to boot up, but
it you know, that's a small price to pay, I mean,
and you'll be saving money on electricity bills. Yep. You
can also unplug a lot of your electronics when you're
not in use, or you can get smart power strips
(22:22):
that will do it for you. They can. A lot
of the power strips now come with the ability. Now
they're more expensive, I should point that out, um, but
they tell the ability to go, oh, well, this thing
hasn't been on for half an hour, I need to
just turn this off. And and it's an upfront cost
that eventually will be offset by the savings you you make,
assuming that you know you're using it appropriately and you
(22:43):
know that it's that it's that it's a device that's
going to last a few years. It may take a while,
because when we're talking about savings, we're talking about you know,
maybe a couple of dollars per year, which doesn't sound
like you know, it's not not really that remarkable, but
you are making a much lower impact on the environ
that's true, that's true. I think what we really need
(23:03):
to emphasize is that what you do, you need to
do responsibly, you know, if you if you behave responsibly,
not wastefully. Um, you know, I don't think any of
us are going to be able to give up our
paper and computers anytime soon, and they're just too embedded
in our our daily lives. I think the best thing
to do is sort of mitigate and um, you know,
find ways that we can contribute to, uh, reducing our
(23:26):
carbon footprints and maybe the global carbon footprint as a
as a whole. Sure I agree. Alright, Well, Sandra, thank
you so much for writing in. That's a great discussion,
so we really appreciate it. Uh. If any of you
wish to write us, please do so tech stuff at
how stuff works dot com and remember you can go
to how stuff works dot com to learn about everything
(23:47):
we're talking about, green initiatives, technology, all sorts of great topics.
Just check that out how stuff works dot com and
we will talk to you again really soon. For more
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