E-Paper Surpasses Dead Trees In Life-Cycle Test
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11.15.07
We've written about e-paper here and while the idea seems nifty, it's hard not to think that improving online readers might be the best option rather than adding another electronic gadget to the overladen waste stream. But in a new study from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, impact depends on number of readers and length of time a 'paper' gets read.
The researchers tried their best to set up an accurate comparison - what they called a 'screening' LCA (life-cycle analysis) between a printed newspaper, a web-based newspaper and an e-paper newspaper - using Sundsvall Tidning which ran an e-paper pilot employing the iRex ILiad tablet.
The conclusion: in a conventional newspaper most of the impacts come before the paper is read - from manufacturing the paper, printing on it and distributing it. For the web-based paper, the most significant environmental impact was the PC's energy use, while for the e-paper it was production of the tablet. Surprisingly, though, reading a paper online on a PC for more than 30 minutes used more energy than production of the old-fashioned dead tree version, if that version had an average of 2.4 readers. OK, it starts to get a little confusing - stick to paper, read less than 30 minutes online or buy a new gadget? The researchers concluded (of course!) that more research was needed but that maintaining low energy use and providing good e-waste management was the best way to keep e-paper's future eco-effects to a minimum. Now we'll wait to see what the French have to say, as Les Echos is the first to offer an e-daily for just about $500 a year (gulp!) subscription cost.
I'd like to see a GPS or a cell phone using the ePaper display technology to replace the LCD screen. The ePaper display only uses power when the image on the display is being updated, and it's also marvelously adaptable to different lighting conditions. So, you don't have to blast an LCD-style backlight to make the screen brigter than, say, sunlight.
The big stumbling block seems to be the update speed. My girlfriend has an eBook reader, and it takes a couple of seconds to change pages. Menu-navigation using a cursor doesn't work so well -- Sony included a button for each menu selection (kind of like an ATM machine) that make the device very usable, but the ePaper display is not yet a general-purpose display.
The other problem with the Sony eBook reader is that it's mostly intended for DRM's books purchased through Sony's Windows-only interface program. Those of us who want to use the tool for our jobs can put PDFs onto an SD card, but the dimensions of the screen make tricky to read PDFs intended for 8.5"x11" sheets of paper. Project Guttenburg provides classics that can be loaded this way, as well. But the device is still a little clumsy in this respect. If they release an 8.5"x11" version of the eBook reader, it'll be a big hit among academics, since research papers and student theses/dissertations are often intended for US Letter and/or A4 paper. That could easily save 50k pages of paper per year per medium-sized academic department.
But, if the ePaper display can update fast enough to replace B&W LCD displays on embedded devices, those of us who value utility over flash-bang-glitz will be very happy to own GPSs, cell phones, and other portable electronics that use this display technologies.
I think e-paper would be environmentally friendly if it replaced printed products (ie, books, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, etc.) completely, or to a large extent. Everyone could have just a single one of these devices. They could upload books, and have a system like a podcast for things like magazines and newspapers. With this system, dozens of books and hundreds of magazines and newspapers produced every year for an individual could be reduced to just a single handheld device that could be replaced once every few years, or even less often than that.
No! And yes. E-paper has potential, but I just don't know enough. Where is this study by Swedish Royal Institute of Technology published? Does anyone have a link? This past week I completed a Life Cycle Assessment on a snack food distribution company and was shocked by the large number of assumptions that go into the calculations.
Some environmental questions:
Fuel/transportation costs of shipping e-paper tablets from Asia;
Toxicity of tablets after use;
Source of energy to fuel tablets (i.e. dirty coal or nuclear or?)
Some social questions:
Who bears the burden of increased manufacturing and related environmental externalities? Not you or I, not immediately.
What is the sentimental cost of losing paper?
www.ecyclegroup.wordpress.com
So if you're going to print on paper, make it last a long time?
Actually, Yantai Press in China has had e-daily offerings for over a year now, on the very device in your piece, the iRex iLiad. See below...
http://www.irextechnologies.com/file...ex27102006.pdf
I guess we need to see the details of the study, but on the surface it sounds highly suspect. Have to wonder if the cost of distribution -- trees to paper mill (truck or train), mill to printer (truck or train), and printer to distribution point (truck or car) have been properly factored in.
This finding seems unprobable. Did the researchers fully cost account for energy used in making the paper from living tree to pulp to print quality paper. It is a very energy intensive process. Also, wouldn't it depend on what type of server the online newspaper is running on, what type of PC the user is reading it from, etc.
Now I want one thats 48"x36" so I can look over drawings and find mistakes BEFORE I print them, for some reason they just stand out so much more once they are on a physical print.
OK, now a tough question ... if there are no more newspapers, what do I use to protect things when I refinish items, and most importantly, what do I use to line the bottom of my bird cage?
I sure am not going to put my e-paper reader down there!
the link to the complete study
http://www.infra.kth.se/fms/pdf/Report_epaper_final.pdf