Archive:000/Computers/LCA

This is a page about life cycle assessment of computers.

Ratio needed

We need to compare

a: the total life-cycle energy of a computer:   production(...)( manufacturing + assembly + [if recycling is not counted in "end-of-life", then include the production of most of the raw materials involved] ) + usage + end-of-life(...)( preferably, estimate how much energy it would take to properly recycle the computer )

with

b: just the energy the computer is expected to consume during its lifespan of usage.

The ratio would be "a/b" with the definitions above.

What this is needed for

• You know when news articles talk about how much energy is used in A.I., cloud computing, cryptocurrency, etc.: This only includes the energy consumed by the computers/servers. It doesn't factor in any of the energy it takes to manufacture the computers in the first place. A simple solution would be to multiply by the ratio described above.
• The ratio would also help computer server owners decide(...)( if we want the best decision with regards to reducing carbon emissions )whether or not to upgrade older computers to newer more energy-efficient ones.

Scope

For now, let's try to estimate this ratio for server computers(...)( and this could also include small-scale personally-owned crypto mining systems ), because it'd probably be...

• more predictable: Servers are load-balanced, whereas desktop computers tend to sit idle most of the time.
• more important: Servers are the most likely to scale up whenever there's growth in crypto or A.I.

For desktop computers and mobile phones, their life-cycle energy is still important for assessing the environmental impact of planned obsolescence and code bloat.