Press Release 2014
Company Commits to Recycling Electrons in their Products
WASHINGTON, DC, April 1, 2014/PN Newswire/ - The electronics industry is responding to environmental concerns about power consumption and the reuse of electronic components and materials with increasing focus. According to a joint study by MIT and National Center for Electronics Recycling three major initiatives for improving the environmental impact of electronics is to; ReDesign, ReCycle and ReUse. ReDesigning refers to the design practices that reuse previously manufactured components and require the minimum of new materials. Recycling encourages the reclamation of materials and components. And ReUse makes use of recycled parts -- even going so far as to reuse parts that were once on trashed boards. These approaches tend to focus on the larger components such as recycled plastic or metal packaging, or substantial integrated circuits of a particular type. But some have thought smaller.
Apple’s Steve Jobs once touted that the iPad is made from Aluminum, Silicon, Oxygen and very trace amounts of other elements. This has led some to focus on the elemental level; reducing the amount of Tantalum for example, an element often mined in war-torn impoverished countries and used in high performance capacitors. Lead, Mercury and arsenic have largely been eliminated from solder, lamps and displays as well.
But new research has turned attention to recycling the elementary particles used in modern electronics, recycling electrons, in particular. Professor Norten Thefinan of the University of Illinois has spearheaded recent efforts to encourage the recycling of used electrons and has met with great acceptance in the industry. “Electronics companies and power companies, alike, are using more than 20% recycled electrons in their products today, and moving quickly to using more than 50%, and can be proud of how much greener they are making the world as a result,” Thefinan said.
There are very few if any electronic components that don’t use electrons, and the industry has taken great strides in recycling electrons, both within their own products as well as using them from ‘upstream’ applications and passing them along ‘downstream’ to other users of electrons.
One problem with convincing designers to use recycled electrons is the historical notion that old and previously used electrons typically only move through wires at only a few centimeters per minute (about the speed of the fastest glaciers in the world). Used electrons have literally glacial speed.
Many older electronics, particularly energy efficient products such as tritium-illuminated watches had to create their own fresh electrons, but today’s consumer electronics are reusing old electrons that might have once been considered too old and slow to be efficient. In fact, many circuits form closed loops around which electrical signals flow. Most electronic companies have even committed themselves to only using recycled electrons in all their products. Only a few electrical power companies, particularly those operating nuclear power plants, insist on creating new electrons, but these are used only internally at their plants – the main power lines are using recycled electrons, say company spokespeople.
With solid state devices, researchers at Bell Labs and INTEL, such as Dr. Apil Shocking, have gone a step further and have literally eliminated many electrons in their products, using what they term “electron holes” to conduct current. While these are created fresh when needed in the products, the IC designers collect these holes and take care of local waste recycling literally in the same chip in which they are used.
When asked if the electron holes accumulate and lead to pollution, said Apil, “Fool! Of course not, we don’t pollute with holes.”
About Spectrum Financial Partners, (www.spectrumfinancialPartners.com)
Spectrum Financial Partners, LLC is a private equity fund investing in radio spectrum and partnering with spectrum licensees, and wireless operators. We provide consultations and valuation services to interested parties. Discounted comedic services are offered annually on April Fools’ Day. Media Contact: Stephen Wilkus at Stephen.WIlkus@SpectrumFinancialPartners.com
[1] Given that the 65 MHz of AWS-3 spectrum just sold for a net $41.3 billion; 115 THz x $41.3 billion /65 MHz equals 73000 trillion or 73.07 quadrillion US dollars. The current cumulative US Federal debit is 18.14 trillion US dollars.
[2] See the dress controversy described at: http://tinyurl.com/p6hzq6k and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress_(viral_phenomenon)
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