An interesting take on "Going Green"

[adrianh]

Now this is serious food for thought. Makes you wonder about the the whole idea of converting to CFL..

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/06/embodied-energy-of-digital-technology.html

[Dave A]

Last, but not least: the energy-intensive nature of digital technology is not due only to energy-intensive manufacturing processes. Equally as important is the extremely short lifecycle of most gadgets. If digital products would last a lifetime (or at least a decade), embodied energy would not be such an issue. Most computers and other electronic devices are replaced only after a couple of years, while they are still perfectly workable devices. Addressing technological obsolescence would be the most powerful approach to lower the ecological footprint of digital technology.

Probably the most important contributing factor imho. I'd suggest that's likely to be the area where we could claw back the most in terms of embedded energy input expended.

But if we held onto the stuff twice as long, they'd be selling half as much. And I'm sure that won't be popular either.