[philips]

I really appreciate the attempt to compare website carbon footprint vs blog post.

> The book needs to be read by at least two to three people before its environmental footprint becomes smaller than the one caused by reading all Low-tech Magazine articles online.

[tonyarkles]

I think one of the reasons they’re able to tell you that is due to the pretty neat setup they have for hosting it: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about/the-solar-website/

Divide the total energy consumption over a time period by the total number of page views and you get a decent first cut. That doesn’t factor in the transit or the end device that is viewing those pages but it’s a neat metric to start at.

[WillAdams]

Usually for consumer electronics, lifetime energy usage is negligible, so the carbon footprint is that for producing the device --- last time I looked into it, an e-book reader was slightly more than a hardcover book:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=619831&post...

The vast majority of trees which are cut for paper pulp are quick-growing loblolly pines which will be re-planted almost immediately, larger, older, nicer trees are usually cut for lumber, so one should be able to let the 8.85 pounds figure stand for paper products w/o concern for deforestation.

Here's a page which indicates most CO_2 production is for energy: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

And here's a page which indicates that CO_2 production is a much larger problem for the manufacturing of electronics: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730 w/ a ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight, so my PRS-505 weighs roughly 9 ozs., so presumably required 108 ounces of fuel to manufacture (on-going energy usage is not considered) http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm gives us a figure of 19.4 pounds of CO_2 per gallon of gasoline which equals roughly 16.36875 pounds of CO_2 to make the ebook reader.

So getting two books for the Sony should make it roughly break even, and each printed book beyond that which is not purchased should result in a net reduction of CO_2 emissions, since the energybulletin.net page indicates that the embodied energy usage for electronics is much greater than the lifetime usage

[philips]

Interesting way to analyze that. I am now interested in doing more research on electronics CO2e vs paper.

[WillAdams]

Probably a more interesting/valid analysis would be against magazines and newspapers for typical tablet/laptop/desktop usage.

That said, I'm a big believer in ebooks, having since gotten a Sony PRS-600, Kindle PaperWhite, and Kindle Scribe --- that said, there are a fair number of books I own both in print, and for the Kindle.

[marttt]

Thanks very much for your initial post, very interesting data indeed. My Sony PRS-T1 has been in non-stop daily use since I bought it new in early 2012. It shows no significant signs of tiredness, even the battery is still decent. I've managed to live completely smartphone-etc free thus far and it is the only tablet-like device I have ever owned.

The UI could be better; over time, I have tried out several of the PRS-T1 hacks found on the MobileRead wiki, including rooting it and installing Android. Eventually, though, I always switched back to the default UI, and my preferred way of reading articles, blog posts, forum/HN discussions on it is 1) piping the URL through the Links text-only web browser and 2) saving that rendered page as a .txt file (with Links' screen margins set to a size that is suitable for the PRS-T1). It works really great 98% of the time, so even though I would prefer a more hackable e-reader, the PRS-T1 is my main reading device.

Strangely, to escape information overload, I've started to weigh the arguments for actually subscribing to a paper-printed quality daily. The web is becoming a tiring mess, and with the AI explosion, I expect this to only go worse. In our country, my favorite printed daily decided to go web-only last year or so, but another decent one is still alive, so I'm seriously considering going that route recently. Strange times.