Post
Would you buy a solar powered e-book reader?
Ever since e-books came out I wondered if I would ever switch to some kind of digital reader, replacing the old style paper and ink. E-books have so many advantages over normal paper: eco-friendly (no paper involved, no trees cut, no complex printing machinery, truck distribution with subsequent burning of oil, pollution and Co2 emission, just to name a few), but t has its drawbacks. In Italian we say la carta puzza - paper smells, not meaning that it stinks (although it has a very particular smell), but that it has certain fascination, sense of home-made. Plus, it never runs out of batteries, it doesn't break very easily, it doesn't make your eyes hurt, it's easy to carry around, and sometimes it's the perfect present for a good friend.
When the kindle came out things changed. No backlit, which means you can only see when there is light, like the sun or a lamp, so it feels like reading a page from a newspaper or a book, the battery lasts for hours and it lets you navigate on the internet.
Randall Munroe, in his hilarious blag post (no misspell here, it's blag), described how an e-book like the kindle is actually more comfortable to read than a normal book. Although I still feel a personal attachment to the old fashioned paper, I like to feel the hard paper on my fingers, there's an environmental as well as logistic problem that needs to be addressed. I have no more space for books in my room. If I keep this rate of expansion, my books will literally bury me, unless I can find a bigger house.
E-readers would partially solve these two problems. Partially, because they still need energy to operate, and I already have enough electronic equipment floating around. I recently stumbled upon the new LG solar powered e-book reader, which features a 10 centimetre wide thin-film photovoltaic panel that can power the reader for a full day's worth of reading after 4-5 hours spent sitting in the sun. It sells for about 100 dollars. It's much cheaper than a Kindle and it's solar powered. I think I might finally try to switch to e-readers with this one.
So my question to all of you, fellow bloggers and eager readers: would you buy a solar powered e-reader (not necessarily this model)?
I'm very curious of your reaction, in the meantime I shall post some of the hilarious comments on Slashdot:
... Warranty void if left out in the sun for prolonged exposure. (Romancer)
Now all I need is a portable sun to read in bed. (Rosco P. Coltrane)
Is it wrong to want an ebook with a little furnace to burn books as fuel? (Anonymous Coward)
p.s. This article was crossposted on my blog.
Comments
I didn’t know about this one, but a Kindle is in my wishlist.
Lately in some newspapers I actually read that kindle is more env. friendly just if u completely switch to it. If you ‘cheat’ him by buying newspapers or paper books you are just producing additional waste.
@Adela
I know, the kidle looks neat..but it’s almost 300 euros! >_<
Hm… interesting question. I would definitely regard a solar powered Kindle as some kind of luxury, maybe I would buy one for my brother’s wedding or somehing like that, but it’s probably outside of my normal budget.
The assets of reading online are obvious, but still… I think when I borrow a paper book from the library and am the 150th person to read it, the CO2-footprint is even smaller than reading it online. Kindles also have to be constructed over and over again - for sure Amazon will make you buy the new version every second year, and will this industry be better than the book industry?
I think when I borrow a paper book from the library and am the 150th person to read it, the CO2-footprint is even smaller than reading it online.
I would have to find some data to back this up, but I’m not quite sure about this.
A far as books are concerned, it may be right, but there are lots of variable that need to be taken into account. For example, typically a library has only a few copies of a book, so the needs of the people cannot always be satisfied. Also, there is the environmental cost of producing, packaging, and distributing the books to the various libraries. 1 or 1 million books to 1 million libraries do make the difference, whereas 1 million digital copies don’t.
If you buy a new kindle every year and throw away the old one are are surely having a bigger impact than you would by going to the library (either by car, bus, or maybe foot/bicycle), but this isn’t what happens. Usually old kindles are given to friends, sold on e-bay and so on, and the cycle keeps going with the second-hand market. It would be interesting to have an estimate, but I think that if you read more than X books and newspaper on your e-reader (X most likely bigger than 100), then you indeed reduced your impact.
Then again, it’s just a guess, if I find some study on this I’ll post it up.
I really look forward to this kind of data. I am just speculating right now, but I think it is a very interesting topic, which gets more and more relevant, as more and more texts move online.
The second hand market aspect is also interesting. Let’s keep digging!
Yes, I would buy it if I was living in a jungle somewhere where print newspaper was not available. Seriously guys, do we really have time for this? “4-5 hours spent sitting in the sun” also, aren’t we already ruining our eyesight using the computer and TV too much tv that we now need to squint at a ugly little digital slab.
Of course the obvious is to think of the alternative as Daniel commented. And Federico you are talking about the library only having a few copies of a book but you do not only take new books from the library.
But nevertheless there are a few aspects you did not mention, and those would keep me away from the thing.
An E-book is electronic, and electronics are made of and contain a great part of heavy metals and minerals. Major part of them come from mines in Africa, amongst other places, and mining is one of the areas where there is most child and forced labour. Also the heavy metals and flame retardents that the products might contain result in heavy pollution once the product is broken, and as we all know electronics do not last forever. A lot of electronics ends up in Africa and the east as second hand gods, but are not working and kids melt the products over the fire to get the metals within. I could continue for ages and also mention the flame retardents effects on your health when you lie in your bed with your e-book or the effects on the icebears.
Anyway don´t only think of the climate- consider buying only if the product has a certification like the flower, der blaue engel and if the company are working on humans rights. But of course that is in the perfect world.
@daniel
I found the study:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/study-finds-kindle-ebook-electronic-book-greener-than-printed-word.php
Generally e-books are greener, at least in terms of CO2 emissions (here the report):
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/study-finds-kindle-ebook-electronic-book-greener-than-printed-word.php
@Petrine
what’s left is the question of the production itself of the reader, regardless of the carbon emissions. As Petrine rightly points out, electronics typically use materials that are extracted form very poor countries, exploited of their resources with nothing left for its people, as well as environmental damage to .
In fact, I opened the question by not giving any specific e-reader as a preference, to see what you guys were thinking. Considering the certification of the company could be an interesting solution.
As far as I know PCBs were banned in 1977 and the EU has banned several types of brominated flame retardants as of 2008, following evidence beginning in 1998 that the chemicals were accumulating in human breast milk, so I don’t think this would be an issue.
@Miki
The solar is one option, not the only option. Also, most of the time you are not using it, so it makes sense to just leave it next to a window while it does nothing. As far as the eyesight goes, I don’t watch any TV, plus the screen has no backlit (a I wrote in the article), which means that it works just like paper, without external light you can’t read it, making it easy for your eyes.
Just a little comment on the flame retardents. Yes some were banned but flame retardents are used all over the world and are still in computers, cars, carpets and a lot of other places. They just found new flame retardents and now some of them are being suspected for having the same effect as the ones banned years ago. They are not banned…
Thanks a lot Frederico! As treehugger says, it’s a piece of the puzzle, but at least it answers some questions.
Replacing paper in Universities sounds especially reasonable to me, but it would give Amazon a dangerously strong position against weak competition.
It also somehow presumes that the e-reads replace books. I have a gut feeling that the people who buy kindles keep buying more paper books than the general public… and why not read war and Peace as a PDF of your computer? It is awkwad for someone used to the paper, but if you have gotten used to the kindle I think you will get used to read from a computer more easily.
@Petrine,
I didn’t know about that, thanks for sharing this info. I will check into it more deeply, the matter of toxic chemicals inside our products is surely something to be addressed.
@Daniel,
Replacing paper in Universities sounds especially reasonable to me, but it would give Amazon a dangerously strong position against weak competition.
Yes, you are right. In fact, I’m hoping to see an Open Source e-reader with comparable qualities to the kindle, maybe in a partnership together with the Creative Commons, Internet Archive and Wikipedia/Wikibooks.
As for the replacing, I don’t think of it that way, I think it complements paper, that is, replacing it in some cases and just being a portable backup copy in others.
I don’t think e-books will replace paper books the same way lights did not replace candles. They still exist, but we don’t use them so often.
@Frederico An open source e-reader sounds wonderful
I think you are right about complementing, rather than replacing. I am trying to put down my thoughts about this in a blog post myself…
Sometimes I like to feel the paper, touch it and smell it while reading.
It has a romantic aspect, I guess. Nevertheless, I consume 95% of the my reading on a computer, mostly news and blogs.
As a partner and manager of the most famous BG literature and books online media - YES! I would
But, if I`m honest, I prefer paper…:(
It seems that most people agree that this technology complements rather than substitute the old one