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Big Tech Isn't As Clean As You Think Despite Being the Most Generous Backers of Green Energy
Oil Price ^ | 01/12/2021 | Irene Slav

Posted on 01/12/2021 7:12:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind

They are among the biggest - and most generous - backers of the renewable energy shift.

They are advertising themselves as environmentally responsible companies that source their raw materials from ethical locations and cutting the offering of products that consumers don't use to reduce packaging-related emissions.

And they are the driver behind a global electronic waste crisis. Meet Big Tech. Last year, Apple said its iPhone 12 will sell without a charging adapter, like the latest Apple Watches, to reduce the amount of electronic waste its products generate.

"There are also over 2 billion Apple power adapters out there in the world, and that's not counting the billions of third-party adapters. We're removing these items from the iPhone box, which reduces carbon emissions and avoids the mining and use of precious materials," Wired quoted Apple's VP of environment, policy, and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson.


Yet it's not the chargers that are the big problem, according to e-waste experts. Last year, the world generated a record amount of e-waste, topping 53.6 million metric tons, E-Waste Monitor said in its latest report. This amount represented a 21-percent increase over five years. And e-waste will continue growing, the report warned. It could reach 74 million metric tons by 2030.

Recycling rates, meanwhile, are meager. Last year, they stood at less than 20 percent of the total e-waste the world generated. Unless something changes very quickly and radically, this rate is unlikely to change much in the future, either.

"We don't have the technology to take a truck full of old iPhones, molt them down, grind them up and make new iPhones out of them. It's flat out physically impossible," the chief executive of repairs hub iFixit, Kyle Wiens

(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigtech; greenenergy; renewables

1 posted on 01/12/2021 7:12:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
A smartphone contains a host of precious metals and rare earths—not to mention the oil-sources plastic these metals and rare earths are encased in—and these have a substantial carbon footprint. Called invisible waste, the dirty trail of an average smartphone is about 86 kilos while that of a laptop is 1,200 kilos, according to Swedish waste management and recycling organization Avfall Sverige.
2 posted on 01/12/2021 7:14:21 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
The solution seems simple: Big Tech could simply start making more durable phones instead of launching a new model every 12 months. But this would be a problem for Big Tech's profits, which apparently depend heavily on the regular and frequent release of new products, as suggested by the trends from the last five years mentioned above.
3 posted on 01/12/2021 7:15:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Big Tech is a favored arm of the State. Given that, and the generous donations by Big Tech to the appropriate party members, the media will cover Big Tech as if they were faultless, and we should be glad they are so benevolent.


4 posted on 01/12/2021 7:15:21 AM PST by brownsfan (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.)
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To: SeekAndFind
"Green Energy" is just another taxpayer funded, population control scheme.

The "climate change" agenda is used to induce panic and gain your trust, to steal your freedoms.

The virus has been a more effective tool for now.

5 posted on 01/12/2021 7:19:35 AM PST by G Larry (Authority is vested in those to whom it applies.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Ultimately the power of big tech will be broken by a few clever, new patents.


6 posted on 01/12/2021 7:19:44 AM PST by allendale
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To: brownsfan

Yes, but let’s play the “Alinsky” game and push for it. Make Apple and the Left live up to it’s own rules.


7 posted on 01/12/2021 7:20:27 AM PST by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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To: Amberdawn

“Yes, but let’s play the “Alinsky” game and push for it. Make Apple and the Left live up to it’s own rules.”

Good idea, but who would make them live up to it? The party members they paid for? The media? I don’t see how it can work.


8 posted on 01/12/2021 7:25:25 AM PST by brownsfan (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.)
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To: brownsfan

It’s to show what frauds they are to those sitting on the fence.


9 posted on 01/12/2021 7:26:15 AM PST by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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To: Amberdawn

“It’s to show what frauds they are to those sitting on the fence.”

But, if the media doesn’t reveal it, the general public will be blissfully unaware. As they are now.


10 posted on 01/12/2021 7:31:27 AM PST by brownsfan (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Green energy”, as it is now being promoted, is a hoax, and based largely on the myth that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant”.

Neither solar panels nor wind powered generators can provide anything like reliable electrical energy, and certainly not anything like the massive amounts needed to support a modern industrial base. Nuclear energy could be the reliable base, but it has been propagandized almost out of existence. What few uranium-fueled nuclear plants remain have reached the end of their useful lifetime, and are a massive clean-up problem that nobody seems to have any clue as to how to proceed.

But technology marches on. One of the early proposals for the application of atomic energy was the use of Thorium as the fuel of choice, rather than Uranium. Couple of problems - Thorium is not fissile, that is it cannot be made to initiate an atomic fission reaction on its own, and there is no production of Plutonium in the fission process. Uranium atomic piles are an excellent source of Plutonium, and they are fissile, that is, they start a fission process and continue a chain reaction when they reach critical mass.

But the wizards of nuclear chemistry discovered a way to force Thorium into fission, by adding a small amount of uranium (from spent uranium fuel rods) to the thorium used to charge the thorium-powered atomic piles, and - voila! - the fission chain reaction starts, and continues at a much more controlled rate.

It has been found that a Thorium-powered Molten Salt atomic pile is both much cleaner, in that very small amounts of radioactivity, compared to a Uranium-powered Light Water atomic pile, and it is far more scalable in size. And it is far less subject to “China syndrome” than the Uranium-powered reactor, in fact, it is virtually impossible for a runaway reaction to occur.

But, popular superstitions about “atomic power” continue to haunt the small minds of the control power freaks, and the Thorium-powered Molten salt reactors have not yet reached their full potential.


11 posted on 01/12/2021 7:54:50 AM PST by alloysteel (No night is so dark, that it cannot fall into an absolute blackness. But hope springs eternal.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Who said they were?


12 posted on 01/12/2021 8:53:16 AM PST by Renkluaf
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To: brownsfan

“The Media” isn’t just ABCCBSNBCCNN anymore. I have been watching you tube (I know) videos about Apple’s hypocrisy and there are a LOT of pissed off commentators at the site. People are aware that this is a corporate fascist company.


13 posted on 01/12/2021 10:21:03 PM PST by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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