Blog Post: Allocation
I am performing a Life-cycle Assessment on laptops to
determine how sustainable eBooks are compared to textbooks. One of the many
modifiers to the energy cost of an e-reader I have encountered is allocation. You
use a computer to check your email, read your eBooks, research scholarly
papers, and read web comics for fun. If I want to evaluate how much impact the
use of eBooks has, I divide the time spent using the computer by the time spent
on reading eBooks.
Because this varies so widely, in my paper I am going to
estimate the time spent on the computer every day for me. I will probably spend
about 10 hours a day on the computer, with 2 of those being spent looking at my
eBooks for class. Thus I spend one fifth of my time, and the production cost of
the computer, on eBooks
This is why I can divide the CO2 emitted by making my
computer by five, but not my paper textbooks. The books are only useful as
textbooks and as paperweights. Keep in mind that these numbers are estimates.
I am not the first to do this type of study. There is a
263-page Masters thesis study on this topic as well as several other life-cycle
assessments of the paper industry, laptops, e-readers, etc .
I found that sometimes the different lifecycle assessments
present conflicting information even though they use a similar method and have
the same topic. This is often the case when one study is published by an
advocacy organization and another study is published by an industry lobby
group. This was also true of studies on textbook cost and average lifespan,
such as “Exposing the Textbook Industry: How Publishers’ Pricing Tactics Drive
Up the Cost of College Textbooks,” http://www.studentpirgs.org/reports/exposing-textbook-industry
A study released by the Public Interest Research Group. This
study inspired rebuttals by two industry groups: National Association of
College Stores (NACS) http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/acsfa/txtbkpres/hershmanremarks.pdf
and the Association of American Publishers http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/acsfa/txtbkpres/schroedersup.pdf
Controversy flourishes!
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