The life cycle assessment shows that over a five year life span, production is responsible for 65% of CO2e, and usage about 25% (out of a total estimated 200kg - roughly 86L of gasoline) using "a typical US energy mix".
Component wise (during production), the largest CO2e contributor was the display at ~25%, then the mainboard at 20%, and then battery around 15%.
Take aways for me are that: from a sustainability standpoint, if you're going to buy new, then it makes sense to buy the most capable model that makes sense, and try to milk it for as long as possible. Also, I never would have guessed how high the impact of display production was. Certainly makes the harvesting of screens from dead laptops seem like a good option.
> out of a total estimated 200kg - roughly 86L of gasoline
Five year CO2 production roughly equivalent to two tanks of gas in a honda civic.
It's not nothing, but if you're looking to reduce your CO2 footprint I'm not sure this is what I'd look towards as the low hanging fruit for just about anyone who can afford their product. For instance for most people driving less, or driving smaller vehicles, would be far more effective.
I know anti-car attitudes annoy some people, but we really should drive this home(pun not intended but taken advantage of). People keep using "a tank of gas" as a fungible, graspable unit of carbon emissions while not realising reducing that very thing often has an out-sized impact on carbon emission, sometimes more than other things like reusing clothes, internet usage of this or that services or saas, and so on. Transport is by-and-large the #1 source of emissions in the US[0], the majority of which are passenger cars and trucks[1]. Reducing car dependency would be one of the largest contributors to sustainability the US (and many other nations, but likely not as much as America) could do to have an impact on climate change
Pulled quote from [1]: "The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector."
When I've pointed out to people that if they really want to be green then they should stop driving their car, I got a response along the lines of "the top ten producers of CO2 are all private companies. It's not about changing public behaviours, it's about regulating corporate behaviours".
I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours. If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil.
But I do understand that changing that much public behaviour is difficult (and made more difficult by this attitude/argument). So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this.
Except that if fuel prices go up, people point out that they can't afford to drive for necessary trips. And the transport infrastructure is all based around lots of private cars. So the government has to keep fuel prices low enough to make cars usable for poor people. Which means no-one gives up their cars and the oil companies carry on processing this much oil.
So I don't really understand how we're going to solve this and not cook ourselves.
Nobody wants to sacrifice anything, and yet that's exactly what is needed from humanity. Can't even change the small things, as we see through outrage over plastic straws still, nevermind trying to get people to eat less meat.
I will add however that oil companies wouldn't stop processing so much oil right away, they will do what desperate powers do which is cling to remaining power as tightly as they can. This isn't something worth really caring about in the long run, but something to be cognizant of when trying to shift public behaviour as they will undoubtedly be affected by the propaganda such powers will be obsessively pushing out.
See also: tobacco companies spending several decades avoiding regulatory processes in advertising and convincing people they had no idea it was harmful nor that it was their fault for encouraging such consumption. Sounds a little familiar to several other industries.
A survey sticks in my mind; it found that people were considerably more willing to pay higher taxes if they trusted everyone else would pay their share too. I think the same lesson can be applied here. Nobody wants to personally make big sacrifices while everyone else is living large, and I can’t blame them.
If the producer has to deal with the problem and prices rise, no one can opt out of sharing the burden.
> Can't even change the small things, as we see through outrage over plastic straws still, nevermind trying to get people to eat less meat.
If you want people who aren't ideologically on board to sacrifice, you need viable alternatives. Cardboard straws suck ass. Without exception, every single cardboard straw I've ever used was soggy and tasted... well, like cardboard. They simply are not viable replacements. Fake meat is better at least (I've had impossible burger and it's legitimately good), but it's hella expensive and that's going to be a hard sell for people. Moreover, talk about not eating meat is absolutely dominated by people who have a moral objection to eating meat, not people who are concerned about carbon emissions. Which is fine, but the majority of people don't agree there is a moral issue (and many even think it's crazy to hold that position), so that's not going to convince anyone to bear a higher price. Get the price more on par with ground beef, get the public perception to be about the environment and not animal rights, and you could probably see big changes.
Conversely, look at LED bulbs versus incandescent. While they cost more up front, LED bulbs last forever and cost so much less in terms of electricity that they are just overwhelmingly better for most uses. I myself don't give two shits about the environment, but I don't see myself buying anything but LED bulbs ever again. They're just that much better. That's the kind of innovation one needs to advance if one wants to change the behavior of the masses. Give them something which is not only environmentally better but practically better, and they will adopt it. But you can't expect most people to sacrifice for the environment. The reality is that most people just don't care, and they aren't going to sacrifice for something they don't care about.
I actually had a great (for cardboard) straw from jacksons in portland this weekend. I grabbed 3 of them thinking they'd melt. It did 2 full ~42oz diet dews over 4 hours before it started melting. the 2nd one lasted longer (I re-used the cup for drinks that night) holding up to 4 32 oz coke zeros and vodka. I was amazed.
> If you want people who aren't ideologically on board to sacrifice, you need viable alternatives.
If people are not ideologically onboard with "we don't want society to collapse" while wanting to keep using plastic straws... I think they need information more than viable alternatives.
Part of the issue with your argument is that most policymakers will be dead by the time society collapses, so they don't care as much. Sure, there's often rhetoric around "saving the world for my children and their children", but in the end most people are selfish and are fine with making things the problems of future generations.
"Information" doesn't sway people. Feelings do. If they feel like they're eating/using/whatever something inferior to what they've grown up using, all in the name of sustainability, they're going to balk.
> Part of the issue with your argument is that most policymakers will be dead by the time society collapses
Hmm... given how it is going (climate seems to be changing faster than the models predicted), it's getting more and more clear that global instability, wars and famine will be here in the next few decades (if you doubt the "famine" issue: take any big US city, and ask yourself what happens if trucks can't get into the city and bring food for a few days). Unless most policymakers are 60 or so, they have a good chance to live long enough to see that. Most definitely their children.
> "Information" doesn't sway people. Feelings do.
When you realize how bad the biodiversity problem is, how bad climate change is, and how bad the energy problem (which is actually the root cause of the other two) is, I think the only reasonable feeling you can get is fear. Maybe faith in technology helps (many people hide behind "they will find a solution"), so maybe one needs to realize that the tech industry is a big money-making joke.
But once you get that information, you should get the fear. And fear should make you accept to start thinking about actions to mitigate the consequences of... well of our way of life.
Definitely in agreement, also a big proponent of gradually increasing taxes to incentivize certain spending to speed up that process. They're not popular but very effective.
The good news is a lot of the positive change is already in progress. Bad news is the national goals for many countries are all still minimum 25 years away with people desperately clinging onto the hope that some magical technological breakthrough will happen that ensures we don't have to sacrifice anything currently.
And what exactly is the solution there? For most Americans a car is literally their ONLY option for transport.
> I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours.
I’ve heard this many times, but it’s simply not true. There was no demand for glued-in batteries, lightbulbs that die prematurely, or SaaS. However, when something is required to maintain your job or current state of living, people will accept the corporate greed. No one but Adobe was happier because Photoshop removed ownership, but people need Photoshop for their work and have to live with it. No one wanted lightbulbs that die earlier than before, but that’s all they sell. And don’t even get me started on the righteous anger felt over the fact that Apple made ewaste trendy.
Also, you obviously haven’t seen how much CO2 a 10kHP engine puts out after an 8 hour shift.
> So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this.
I’m glad you are far away from America, because even in Europe this is a hilariously stupid idea. Sure let’s just leave a large chunk of society stranded at home with no ability to have a job, they’ll surely be happy we “saved the planet” by cutting out minor CO2 emissions while corporate greed leads to mass produced garbage.
> So I don't really understand
I’m not surprised, considering your radical views.
The only two options are not "you, individual, drive less" and "go to wall-street^W^W the office of shell gas and tell them to cut it out." A lot of americans are forced into car dependency, but at the very same time, it is very easy to drive in downtowns in the US even where it is difficult to own a car. You need to do both, both disincentivize driving on the personal level and regulate companies and change land-use patterns and street design to facilitate other modes. It's a difficult problem to solve but if you think it's an actual problem you must solve it for our future climate and the other ills car culture leaves society.
As for you continuing to insist that tut-tut-ing corporations is enough, the numbers are clear that just because 1 airplane moving packages produces more carbon per km, it doesn't matter as I said above, the majority of transport emissions are passenger cars and trucks, just because they are so many of them. There is room for amelioration for industry transportation numbers but it will not matter if you just touch that and still continue existing usage in the US. Even getting to European levels of car usage would change things significantly for the US. Regardless, know putting an onerous tax on gas producers will immediately see gas prices rise for everyone, so even if it is indirect, you still are disincentivizing driving. There is no way out of this problem without disincentivizing driving.
Now, of course, you have to believe this really is a problem. Because only then do you think something as difficult as changing the prioritized mode of a transport for a country is a worthwhile thing to do.
The problem with making driving more expensive (which is what happens when you try to legally disincentivize it) is that it becomes a regressive tax: lower-income folks get hurt very badly by it. The rich of course don't love paying extra for something (and, being the ones usually in power, will fight against it), but can usually bear the cost without much pain.
It's worth remembering that the poorest, those that can't afford a car or can only afford 1 car for the family, are reliant on public transit. But yes, making driving expensive often ends up hurting the lower-middle class the most because they usually live in the least walkable areas due to historical redlining and generally commute the furthest. The fact that this is a regressive tax is a big talking point for keeping driving cheap.
The problem is, the alternative is to throw money at a public transit system and nobody wants to do that either. You can make the taxes highly progressive, but even then, I doubt anyone would agree. In general the only thing to do is what activist groups are doing already; fight the local institutions (DOTs, planning departments, city council, etc.) to make the changes necessary to make getting around without a car viable, fast, comfortable, and cheap.
>There was no demand for glued-in batteries, lightbulbs that die prematurely, or SaaS.
Demand, no. That would be silly. However, there was/is a demand for lower costs, which is how every single one of these anti-consumer ideas is sold to the public, and the public is fully accepting of inferior products for (theoretically) lower prices. The irony, of course, is that lower up-front costs usually mean higher costs over time, which is exactly why companies are happy to oblige.
This is where the whole concept that China makes poor quality stuff comes from. China is fully capable of high quality manufacturing. However, most consumers prioritize cost over quality, and China is willing to do the same.
> And what exactly is the solution there? For most Americans a car is literally their ONLY option for transport.
Hmm without saying that Americans need to do without a car entirely (because the country screwed up in that sense), I am pretty sure that in many situations, it is possible to not use a car.
My experience is that Americans tend to not even consider taking a bike for a short ride. I have been in multiple places where I would use the electric scooters or bikes (bikes are better) for relatively short distances (say less than 30min), and I was often not much slower than with a car.
I think bikes and scooters would be more popular where I am (Seattle) if they weren’t so easy to steal. Even unpowered bikes are disappearing from regular use due to rampant theft. It’s sad.
> I think bikes and scooters would be more popular where I am (Seattle) if they weren’t so easy to steal.
Yes, this is a big factor. Where I live (around silicon valley area) I can easily bike to nearly everything I need. But! Secure bike parking is rarely available. So my bike is guaranteed to be stolen. So the result is I either walk (if within ~10 minute walk) or drive. I'm a cyclist so I'd love to bike everywhere but without secure bike parking, can't happen.
I find it a bit sad that (secure) bike parking is missing in a country where it honestly feels like half of the constructed territory is parking lots.
Not a criticism, but the area covered by parking lots in the US shocks me every time I visit.
Instead of making half-working heavy autonomous electric cars, couldn't Silicon Valley somehow find a low-tech way to solve the secure bike parking issue? They are good at claiming that they want a better world, and this should not be rocket science.
I mean of course it could. Much like we have parking minimums, we could just mandate bike locker minimums. There's already a robust bike locker program in the area called Bikelink so it would just be about expanding the program. The problem is nobody has lobbied the government to do this yet and updating code like this is hard because maintaining the status quo is easy. Developers will also undoubtedly fight it because it raises costs.
Bike lockers are expensive and take up space. The Dutch have multilevel parking for bikes, but it is manned.
Law enforcement actually caring about bike theft and having resources to crack down on bike thieves would help, but these days they don’t have room in jails for bike thieves, and they are considered a low priority along with shoplifters and drug dealers.
There's no technical problem, it's just a public policy issue.
In low-theft areas it just takes bike racks/poles/etc where one can lock the bikes. Cost is nearly nothing, just political will to do it.
In high-theft areas bike lockers are needed, these cost money and take more space, but it's still a lot more efficient in terms of transportation units per sqft.
>And what exactly is the solution there? For most Americans a car is literally their ONLY option for transport.
The administration has already earmarked substantial amounts for various transit programs across the country thankfully. You can find out more https://www.transit.dot.gov/TOD
These programs also include zero-emission transit as a primary focus where possible, such as school buses.
So the solution already exists and is in action. It just takes time!
> If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil.
Yes and no. Or at least maybe. If demand from autos drops so does the price of oil. At some point it becomes feasible to be used for things that were previously too expensive. Like what? I'm not sure but these things happen. It's how the market "thinks".
Worst case, the cost of plastic falls even further. Less autos equals more plastic?
Regulation via higher taxes on petroleum-sourced products could work but it continues to be politically unfeasible.
That's a good point, thanks. However, as demand drops so does the unity of such cartels. Less demand will likely destabilize those arrangements. In this case, raising prices to compensate for drop in demand is self defeating as it makes alternatives more cost effective. At some point there's a tipping point where volume is the only option (to make up for less demand).
We'll see. It's complicated. And if you or I could predict the future...we'd not be on HN guessing :)
but surely people don't need big suv's. I like big cars too - but those things are unsustaianble.
wish people would adopt the smaller cars found in asia, motorcycles, mopeds etc. i'm sure you can even have a 'jek' like vehicle which protects user from elements and can go up to 70mph on a motorcycle engine.
That's the great thing about 'game theory'. The rules can so easily be set up to funnel 'players' inexorably into "WarGames"-like resolutions. I.e., no matter how well the game is played, everyone loses (phrased rather more effectively in the movie, though).
Realistically, though, the comparatively slow march - in "WarGames" terms, but not human lifespan terms - towards the conclusion for our species, clearly won't result in equal losing over given near-term timeframes. That is almost certainly one of the calculations* for some players who continue to push destructive patterns.
Human activity (think economic) is incredibly interdependent as well as massively interwoven with an incredible array of aspects of our planet. There are always 'externalities' - i.e., the cost of goods and services probably ALWAYS (even in really 'primitive' economies) is missing a little bit in the accounting, so-to-speak. For example, when Virginia was fairly well-settled by Europeans, with many of the original inhabitants pushed out, tobacco was king. But growing tobacco is very hard on the land - tobacco is a crop that depletes soil very quickly. The solution, at the time, was to just develop a new plot after several years. Land was absurdly abundant from the perspective of the colonists of the time - and people like Lord Fairfax had tremendous tracts (his represented a substantial part of the current state). All of the decades and centuries that went into producing soil that led to great tobacco production was an externality. The environment, original inhabitants of all types (including ALL organisms), etc. contributed to ... or, perhaps better, SUBSIDIZED the tobacco production for those who moved in. And those who moved in generally never paid any of that back. It did cause problems for some, and people did switch crops grown over time ... were generally forced to adopt more sustainable practices ... (as well as ceasing, ultimately, other ways of externalizing costs generally FAR more reprehensible), but, the debt wasn't really repaid in just about any real way be those responsible. And, who actually, in some sense, effectively stole (beyond all of the other shades and types of stealing in the whole story, as we might frame it today) a massive amount of 5hit that it's not clear they had such a 'right to'.
All of this can get quite complicated, and that itself illustrates some of the problem - there is no 'analytical solution'. There are always trade-offs of various types, and practical 'solutions' come together one way or another over time. But, a lot of current issues don't have the solution of 'just move to another plot', no matter what dimwits like Musk think or say. And, even those who have some conscience and conscientiousness are always faced with the sort of impossible problems of ethics you are touching on. But, the passage of time will always lead to practical solutions - one way or another.
* Or part of a set of rationalizations, for those with a conscience of some sort - possibly even coupled w/ true delusions or grandeur, such as saving the species as a whole. Likely delusional in some heads, outright dishonesty in others.
The problem is the genuine vitriol the anti-car topic can bring out in people. The US can stand a lot of changes in public travel, i.e. it’s bullshit that I cannot take the train from one state capital to another, barring Hawaii and possibly Alaska. It’s also bullshit, however, when urbanists/“fuck car” people enter the conversation and demand we need to destroy rural and suburban living entirely. Even labeling it as anti-car is, frankly, ignorant of reality. Not even Europe is car-free, and Europe is much more dense than America. Instead of anti-car, the topic should always be pro-choice in transport, which is the real problem in the US.
I also, in general, find CO2 to be a weak argument for climate change that is normally brought up as a smoke screen for big businesses like Google or Apple, who make literal tons of unrepairable ewaste, to make them appear better than they are. Which I am not saying Framework is doing, mind you, but I find it a much less interesting metric than, say, total material waste.
I don’t have the numbers for US wildfires this year. But the emission caused by the wildfires in Canada this year was about 2x the annual emissions generated by transportation.
That don't compare since wildfires are releasing carbon that is part of the natural cycle while transportation is adding to the natural cycle. What is released from wildfires are soon absorbed by new forest growing where the old was
Evidently that hasn't been the case in Canada. Forests have been a carbon source, rather than a sink, in Canada for many years now. And with the recent wildfires, the numbers are now larger than ever.
Absolutely. And I'm all for reducing our environmental impact.
My point is that even if we could flick a magic wand, and reduce the transportation emissions to zero overnight, we wouldn't be able to meet the long term emission goals given the trend in wildfires. Forests in Canada have been carbon positive in the past many years.
It's much easier for the governments to pass regulations, and put the burden on the consumers to reduce the emissions, than do anything about wildfires. It's important to have a sense of the diminishing effects, and focus our efforts on the most important factor.
Here's the money quote of the bunch, from the Mashable article:
> The evidence, unfortunately, comes in the form of the worst pandemic to hit humanity in a century. We were confined. We were quarantined, and in many places still are. Forced by an insidious parasite, many of us dramatically slashed our individual carbon footprints by not driving to work and flying on planes. Yet, critically, the true number global warming cares about — the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide saturating the atmosphere — won’t be impacted much by an unprecedented drop in carbon emissions in 2020 (a drop the International Energy Agency estimates at nearly eight percent compared to 2019). This means bounties of carbon from civilization’s cars, power plants, and industries will still be added (like a bank deposit) to a swelling atmospheric bank account of carbon dioxide. But 2020’s deposit will just be slightly less than last year’s. In fact, the levels of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere peaked at an all-time high in May — because we’re still making big carbon deposits.
Regarding display production: I recently bought a Studio Display from Apple with the thought that it should last a very long time.
It bricked itself with a software update after maybe 3 months. I realized these things depend on Apple supporting the A13 chip in order for it to remain compatible with new technologies and, absurdly, to remain secure from exploits. A monitor.
I couldn’t regret my purchase much more and feel pretty stupid for not figuring this stuff out before I pulled out my credit card.
To add insult to injury, the display has been getting repaired for almost 2 months and there’s still no ETA on a fix. I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a display, both for ecological reasons but also because these things likely have a software-driven expiry date, with their hardware being relatively complex and error prone compared to most displays.
Also, they come with a barely usable camera. Audio is fine but it’s mind boggling how bad the camera is. What a waste.
If you want to get rid of it, multiple months for a good-as-new product is long enough to suggest they just keep it and give you the full money back instead. Laws may be different where you live, I'm not a lawyer, but that should work
I suppose the laws where I am don’t work in my favour. I firmly insisted I get a refund after about 45 days, but they flatly refused and shortly after agreed to a replacement. I still don’t have that, though.
I would never take a vendor’s word for what the laws are. Many will simply violate the law, and see what they can get away with.
Look up your local consumer protection laws, and see if their behavior is allowed. If not, write to them demanding the refund, citing to the specific consumer protection laws, and informing them that if they don’t resolve the issue your next step is to file a complaint with your state AG.
Edit: to make this slightly more useful, you can search “(your state) uniform commercial code”, and you can look at this resource for a quick summary of the UCC obligation on a manufacturer: https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commerc...
I could see an AG complaint prompting them to complete the replacement soon.
I’m in Canada (BC), and unfortunately there is no law governing refunds for consumer goods. Apple offers if of their own volition and can implement it here as they see fit. In this case it’s within their right to insist that the unit is repaired rather than replaced.
Can they just keep it indefinitely and never refund you? I doubt that.
We also don't have a law that says "when XYZ then you must get a refund", but it follows from the law that says "the consumer has a right to a product conforming expectations". If they don't provide what they promised or lead you to expect, you can start to make demands.
(Fun fact: we have indefinite warranty because of this, so long as you can make it believable that the product should have lasted the given amount of time. In practice, all shops use the EU minimum of 2 years as maximum warranty term, also for things that can be expected to last five times as long, such as a TV. The person above you is right: they just pretend and see what they can get away with.)
Eventually it would be up to a judge to say whether any given demand is reasonable, but for most situations there's case law available and most companies don't feel like going to court when the case law is established enough that the consumer market authority has guidance on what rights follow from this.
I had this exact situation: a good in repair for months with no feedback besides promises to update me soon. They finally sent the refund one day before the date I had told them I was going to hand it off to a no-cure-no-pay collection agency. Half a year of pushing them at least once a week: calling, emailing, snailmailing, trying to get stuff moving. (Possession really is 90% of the law.) What a headache that was. Later found there were more people in reviews describing the same situation for this store. Only a handful per hundred superficial positive reviews but, still, the negative reviews were elaborate and I could have known.
One option you might have would be to sell it on the used market, once you get the replacement. Certainly you won't get full price for it, but especially if Apple gives up and sends you a new-in-box replacement, you might be able to get pretty close.
Then you can buy something better. Hopefully the buyer of your Studio Display will be happy with it, and you'll have denied Apple a first-hand sale, while giving (most of) the money to another manufacturer that deserves it more.
They refused to replace it for quite a while and just recently agreed to replace it, but that was a week ago. It’s been a brutal customer service experience. It got 2 new logic boards while they tried to track down the problem.
At this point I still don’t know when I’ll have a working display in my possession.
Did you buy it from Apple directly, or a retailer?
If from Apple, you may consider a chargeback. Or suggest that you'll do a chargeback if they don't refund you when you next check on the status of the replacement.
I would probably recommend the small-claims court first (assuming that's a thing where you live). If you issue a chargeback, Apple isn't constrained by any code of conduct, and could retaliate by deactivating your Apple ID or refusing to sell you anything in the future, or...
But if you get a court order for Apple to take some specific action (like a refund), I'd think they'd be less likely to retaliate since you could presumably bring another (legal) case against them that their retaliation was shady.
Then again, I don't know about laws where you live, so maybe this isn't a consideration.
The report calls this out, but some of the numbers like material utilization come from direct measurements, while others are extrapolations from other LCA models. The display numbers (which were extrapolations from a report published by another display maker using a different fab generation) jumped out to us as well as being an area that needs further analysis.
Makes a case for a robust handheld device with the capability to swap screens. For many users a phone could be enough to power a larger screen experience, certainly a tablet.
Put another way, when you own all three forms at any given moment on average two CPUs and two screens are completely unutilized. Talk about wasteful.
Everyone forgets the first two Rs of conservation. Buying one electronic gadget and holding on to it for 5-7 years or longer, including being able to make repairs and upgrades, is vastly better for the planet then getting that new iDevice every year or two and feeling better about yourself because it is advertised as "sustainably made".
Software developers tend to like their new toy and find excuses like "it's my job, so I need the latest hardware".
They should realize that it makes them optimize their software for the latest hardware, and it forces everybody else to buy new hardware. People who make jokes about keeping old hardware need to understand that they are part of the problem.
This depends on the industry, I suppose. Out here on the east coast in the defense industry it's a badge of honor to have a stickered-up 12 year old ThinkPad running a BSD.
If the whole tech industry generated 50 million metric tons per year, that’s about 6 kilograms per person on the planet per year, about a watermelon, and if you consider that even half of those are served by it, it’s a manageable amount of waste. The fact that it’s consolidated is a responsibility but also an opportunity to make big changes with every gain. I wish the tone here focused more on that opportunity.
The world CO2 emissions are 36 billion tons. 4.5 tons per person per year. The tech industry is .1% of that. There are more important things to worry, like how got to the store.
More importantly, the tech industry is a lot of electricity and some other energy in production. Decarbonize electricity and electrify everything possible, which we must do, will solve the problem with tech. There is nothing extra that needs to be done.
> Decarbonize electricity and electrify everything possible, which we must do, will solve the problem with tech. There is nothing extra that needs to be done.
Except that you don't have a miracle low-emission energy source. So whatever you "waste" in the tech industry, you don't use in, say, electric trucks.
Also the tech industry emissions are growing pretty fast. For what? Mostly for people to swipe TikTok 4h per day.
> Except that you don't have a miracle low-emission energy source.
Sure you do. Solar and wind with battery storage, and fission to fill in the rest. Nuclear being politically unfeasible doesn't change the reality that it's pretty damn clean. Waste disposal/storage is a solved problem except for -- of course, again -- the politics.
Yes, you can argue that "the politics" is important, and that makes it not "solved", and I'd agree. But we do have a low-emission energy source, and it's not a miracle, it's just science from the middle of the last century.
I kindly disagree. Solar and wind are marginal, and they have developed a lot thanks to fossil fuels. For society to not collapse, we would need them to scale in a world without fossil fuels. That is very far from being remotely proven. Then you can't control solar and wind (if there is no sun and no wind, you're screwed), so you need something else. If you have that something else, then probably you don't need that much solar/wind. Don't get me wrong: some solar and some wind is probably appropriate in many situations, but that is far from remotely replacing fossil fuels.
Fission is nice, but it takes a lot of time to build new plants (we as a society will be screwed pretty soon, so we don't have a ton of time before deciding to build new ones), but still they won't replace fossil fuels entirely.
Which means that we are going towards a future with less energy. If we screw up (and keep not doing anything like now), we're essentially dead. If we do it really well, we will have some energy, but not as much as today.
Therefore we need to prepare our society to deal with less energy. That has nothing to do with politics, it's just physics. Politics will make the difference between society completely collapsing and society dealing with less energy.
Philosophically, it’s up for debate, but whether they’re served well isn’t as important as if they’re using the products at all. Lowering the average consumer’s waste by just a few grams a year adds up fast.
I saw the title in my email and had a moment of panic; my favorite laptop maker, in trouble?
The first paragraph relieved my concerns and reading about Ryzen graphical performance on the Framework 13 got me thinking about upgrading my 11th gen i5 - Skyrim, the Mass Effects, and more recently Dishonored all run ok (often at 720p for decent FPS), but the multiplayer games my friends play are more than my system can handle.
Framework is a deal that’s getting sweeter the longer they make laptops, as users like me forgo buying a new laptop in favor of a new main board, repurposing the old one (maybe a Retroarch box?).
Huh, I'm surprised, but that thought didn't even enter my head. Now that you mention it, it seems like such an obvious way to read the title that I'm vaguely embarrassed I didn't think of it.
Small comment on framework only somewhat related to its sustainability as a country. I live in Asia (Singapore) now after buying mine in America, and I cannot buy replacement parts now, even though most of the parts are made in Taiwan which is quite close to here. I am guessing it's likely because framework cannot make their nice markup if I buy from their Taiwanese suppliers directly, but it has dented somewhat the repairability of these things when the effective supply chain you have is not present (available for Americans and Europeans on their online store but not people in Asia).
The lack of availability isn't due to some nefarious profit-seeking plot, it's because selling a product like a laptop requires a bunch of regulatory and logistics work. That work takes time and money, and Framework has a limited supply of both.
Cost aside, is an i5 cpu and nvme laptop from 6yrs ago noticably underperformant enough to consider an upgrade under standard web browing and document editing workloads?
I think plastic-free metallic casing is a big deal for ewaste. But also, SoC convergence is a terrible thing. It would have been nice if components were modular.
Imagine if the 4g/5g, bluetooth and wifi modules if the billions of phones out there could be reused. Even CPU and memory might be reused on servers.
From a security perspective as well, the whole VM thing isn't working out. If server racks had like 100 cpus each with dedicated 4GB ram all in 2U, you can pin a process per cpu/related ram, but the best part is if the components are reused from consumer devices, they might be dirt cheap, and you can build a much more reliable setup where cpu/ram failing just means reduced capacity until you hotplug more.
> the best part is if the components are reused from consumer devices, they might be dirt cheap
Older hardware takes substantially more power to do the same work (and more power at idle); in a datacenter environment, this also means more power consumption for cooling. There's a case to be made for keeping old hardware in service where possible, but this isn't a situation where it makes economic or environmental sense.
But consumer cpus use less power and having a lot of them means you can be granular with power usage and use a lot less power. I would also challenge that using more power is not a problem if your energy sourcre is nuclear or renewable.
> But consumer cpus use less power and having a lot of them means you can be granular with power usage and use a lot less power.
Unfortunately, this simply isn't true. There's quite a bit of "fixed" power consumption that doesn't scale with usage -- DRAM controllers, PCIe, Ethernet PHYs, etc. Not only does that power consumption not go away when a machine isn't being used, but it's all also incurred per machine that's running, so a network of many small computers will also use a lot more power on these constant loads.
> I would also challenge that using more power is not a problem if your energy sourcre is nuclear or renewable.
I would love to live in a world where that were the case. Sadly, it is not. Renewable does not mean free.
When I saw the title I panicked because I have a laptop from them. Oh no they close down!
I was relieved that it was only about being them not sustainable for the Earth. How crazy is that? I am relieved that my laptop continues to be supported but for that we all might die later? Just because we all have our own selfish choices?
What Framework could really do.
A keyboard like Lenovo legion/thinkpad, not something neutered in the style of Apple.
Don't make a terrible proprietary video card slot, but use pci-e/u.2/oculink, etc.
The battery charging controller should be a separate module, with only +/- and i2s/usb going to the motherboard (for charge information and control/firmware). And it should be quick-replaceable.
The idea with external connectors needs to be refined. Still, it is worthwhile to output one high-speed USB on both sides as standard, 1 USB-A, 1-LAN, 1-DP
Then allow 3-4 slots to insert some additional connectors.
It's good if you want proprietary connectors. Then it's worth it, like for a video card.
Then it is worth doing this more globally for CPU, RAM (CAMM), PCI-E. So that you can insert either high-speed memory or a so-dimm adapter. So that you can replace the processor, not the entire motherboard (no one will resell the old board, it will be in the garage like garbage).
Develop 3-4 cases: light, medium, heavy gaming, heavy workstations. Make it an open standard so that it can be imposed on other manufacturers or enthusiasts.
In general, we will get a square motherboard with connectors, to which you can attach or not attach connectors/slots.
Today I have enough money only for ryzen 5, 16gb so-dimm, 1 m.2 and 3 usb.
After 4 years, I would be able to replace with a ryzen 7, 64gb, 2 m.2 and 6 usb-c, and connect a modern graphics card at that time.
As a startup, you have slow change and innovation, you already act like a corporation, although you don't have the burden of supporting many devices and compatibility.
So for me, the "framework" looks like a typical greenwashing, which so far generates more garbage than a typical laptop (because no one changes anything there, like in your laptops with fake upgrades).
I really wish they would ship their laptops faster. I would buy one but don't really want to wait a year+. Guess my next laptop will probably be a ThinkPad.
Our Intel-based Framework Laptop 13 is in stock, AMD-based has pre-orders going three months out, and Framework Laptop 16 pre-orders are about six months out.
Thanks for the info. I hope you all keep doing well. The Framework Laptop is the most elegant design for a laptop I've seen and I definitely want to own one. Normal laptop repair and upgrade seems terrifying to a beginner. But with framework it seems like lego. I think it's actually cool as hell.
I keep reading this, but I just don't buy it. A while back I did some price comparisons with Dell, and found that while yes, Dell was cheaper, it wasn't by all that much.
I think one piece of advice I'd give to people buying a Framework laptop is to go the DIY Edition route, and don't buy the RAM or NVMe drive from Framework. I got equivalent/better parts elsewhere and saved $350.
> create products that last longer, meaning fewer new ones need to be made
Yes this is the solution, but it's hard to not feel apathetic about the whole thing - Capitalism becomes consumerism - One company can have an ethos, but ultimately sustainability is not included in the cost function of the economic model.
Framework are doing wonderful work, but in a sense (and I mean this in the most respectful way possible) there is only a subtle difference between green washing and making yourself feel better by being personally responsible and buying a framework laptop, because ultimately it doesn't fix the underlying economic and societal issues that dictate how the rest of the world operates. At best Framework can offer an example.
I checked Chrome and Firefox on Android and it was fine.
I think the takeaway here is frontend development is difficult and finnicky especially when browsers don't cleanly conform to standards and users are allowed to run whatever plugins they want against web pages.
No need to point the blame finger at the developers for imperfectly operating in such an imperfect environment. :)
Apple and Google and Microsoft are exaggerating for marketing their accomplishments, but the do really try to accomplish something. Apples „reasonably ambitious“ plans are aligned with the 1.5 degree target.
> *Apple is one of very few companies* assessed in the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor (CCRM, published February 2023) to have set and be implementing reasonably ambitious medium-term emission reduction targets.
> *Apple could stand out as a role model for various aspects of its climate strategy* without the exaggerating claims that let it down. Apple’s GHG emission reduction targets are relatively strong, it has one of the highest quality strategies in the industry for the procurement of renewable electricity for its own operations, and we see that the company is taken meaningful measures to extend the lifetime of its products.
It provides one half of that, the article provides the other half.
> And neither is any other device maker. This industry is full of "feel good" messaging, but generates 50 million metric tons of e-waste each year.
And with my links it shows that these companies are doing feel-good messaging. I just thought I would call them out specifically.
The link in the article goes in depth on how far it is from sustainability for one part of their operation, despite trying harder than most https://frame.work/sustainability
This is comparing apples and oranges. The article is talking about a wider sense of sustainability that includes e-waste. The links you posted are merely talking about carbon neutrality, which is a very small subset, and admittedly easier to achieve.
Keep it down please - not everyone has queued into the scam that is carbon credits yet. Pay some 3rd party money with the promise they're offset your carbon emissions or plant trees, then go back to polluting however you want. It's quite the thing... but you get to claim you're Carbon Neutral in the meantime!
Admitting that they're not where they want to be, and presenting the results of a commissioned study that shows that, is more transparent than most other companies would ever be. I do actually believe that Framework will try to get their sustainability numbers better over time.
Component wise (during production), the largest CO2e contributor was the display at ~25%, then the mainboard at 20%, and then battery around 15%.
Take aways for me are that: from a sustainability standpoint, if you're going to buy new, then it makes sense to buy the most capable model that makes sense, and try to milk it for as long as possible. Also, I never would have guessed how high the impact of display production was. Certainly makes the harvesting of screens from dead laptops seem like a good option.