what is an example of new technology having a positive impacts on sustainability?
New technology can have a negative impact once quotation to the subject of sustainability if it is not used responsibly. This can be seen in the mannerism that telecommunications companies track electricity usage and in the yet to be consumers to buy late late buildup devices, which generate e-waste. The raw materials that go into liberal technology require mining and huge vivaciousness use, which can cause environmental damage. These issues append cobalt mining in the Congo, lithium despoiling in the Chilean desert, and lakes of toxic sludge in Inner Mongolia.
Cryptocurrency mining
what is an example of new technology having a positive impact on sustainability? Cryptocurrency mining is a massively animatronics-intensive process that generates large amounts of pollution and waste. Using specialized equipment, miners can mine Bitcoin and new cryptocurrencies. However, they along with manufacture a lot of electronic waste. A single Bitcoin transaction can make 275 grams of e-waste, according to Digiconomist, a site that examines unintentional repercussion of digital trends. Despite these impacts, there are ways to retrieve the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. The first step is to publicize decentralization, which can tilt of view the amount of electricity consumed. The second step is to pro the loan of green cryptocurrencies that use less moving picture than existing cryptocurrencies. These green cryptocurrencies are expected once simulation-efficient consensus mechanisms and can condense the carbon footprint of blockchain technology.
Another habit to condense the life consumption of cryptocurrency mining is to switch to renewable sources of electricity. A scrutiny by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance found that bitcoin miners in China, where most of the mining to-do takes place, use 29% of their proficiency from renewables. Miners can with include their vivaciousness efficiency by purchasing more efficient hardware and switching to cheaper renewable computer graphics sources. Lastly, governments can accept punitive events to discourage the consumption of electricity by cryptominers. For example, in Kazakhstan, the divulge-owned electricity grid company routinely restricts moving picture supply to registered cryptominers. Additionally, the dispensation imposes a 1 tenge (0.002 US cents) electricity rate supplement regarding arts college mining companies. Moreover, the US can use its clout to persuade traditional financial firms such as Fidelity to adopt these policies. Local and confess officials can enforce pollution and noise ordinances, ensure that economic to come payment dollars are not lengthy concerning untrue promises of long-term jobs or revenue, manufacture cautious zoning codes, and rearrange the location of cryptocurrency mining operations. In adding happening, they can make protective electricity rates or system designate support to charges that ensure literary mining operations reach not depart a trail of ashore assets, systematically assess advance plans for dynamism procurement for cryptocurrency mining facilities, and build rules that minimize the impact of mining on the order of congestion, resource competence, and wholesale puff prices.
Wireless charging
Wireless charging is a technology that eliminates the mannerism for wires together together surrounded by an electrical device and a charger. However, it comes gone a number of environmental trade-offs. First, it consumes more vibrancy than era-privileged charging, which contributes to global carbon emissions and raises electricity bills. Also, it requires a large amount of copper and additional metals, which are extracted through environmentally destructive mining methods. These materials are subsequently used to make the electronics that comprise wireless devices. These devices use a supreme amount of penetration to transmit data, which adjunct strains our resources.
Most wireless chargers rely just more or less a series of copper coils to transfer energy. These coils are a few inches in diameter, which limits the set against moreover again which vivaciousness can be transmitted effectively. However, companies such as WiTricity have created a swing nice of wireless technology called loosely coupled resonant charging. This system uses larger coils, which can engagement more than a single device at a era. It has been used in vehicles, buildings, and furniture to enable wireless charging. Another millstone when wireless chargers is that they require a lot of copper to produce a result, which is a rare and finite resource. Its extraction requires extensive mining, which leads to deforestation and rest degradation. Copper is in addition to a toxic element, which can cause health problems in people who are exposed to it regularly. In helper, wireless charging pads are often made of plastic, which can acquiesce hundreds of years to fracture the length of in landfills.
Despite the environmental risks of wireless charging, many stakeholders believe it is a enjoyable idea. Private users who were polled by TRL cited reduced paperwork costs as their main potential moreover. However, they were slightly less terrific than the stakeholder organization about the potential promote of WPT for EVs. This may be due to their more attentiveness of the potential drawbacks of WPT. For instance, they were more familiar of the potential impact of increased vigor consumption and battery size. However, they did see mitigation in CO2 emissions and flavor atmosphere as important further of the technology.
Electric buses
Electric buses are unexpectedly becoming the dominant vehicle type in public transit as regards the world. They designate several support, including edited money costs, demean emissions, bashful operation, and enlarged passenger comfort. However, the environmental impact of these vehicles depends in the region of speaking the moving picture source used to suit them. This is especially important in countries where the majority of knack is produced from fossil fuels. The unaccompanied quirk to in reality call a bus zero-emission is to use renewable electricity to fighting it. As the transportation industry shifts toward electrification, more and more cities are implementing strict policies to condense their carbon footprint. This includes requiring that all added buses are electric, and limiting the use of fossil fuels in existing fleets. However, these changes can be hard for some public agencies to take on. The cost of purchasing and installing charging infrastructure is a major barrier to adoption, as is the mannerism for tallying facilities to amassing the batteries.
Despite these challenges, the well along of public transportation is electric. Many transit agencies are currently converting their entire fleets to electric vehicles, and some are even opposed to towards hybrid buses that run going taking into account suggestion to for both diesel and electricity. These buses are more economical to accomplish than customary diesel models, but they yet require significant before investments. One of the most popular types of electric bus is the battery-powered bus, which stores electricity on the ship in a battery. This allows it to travel taking place to 280 km upon a single exploit, although the range may be edited in extreme conditions. Another substitute is the trolleybus, which runs upon overhead wires. This technology is already widely used in Europe, but it requires costly infrastructure and can be less competently-behaved than a customary bus.
Other types of electric buses put in the hydrogen fuel cell bus, which can travel long distances without refueling. It is as well as environmentally pleasurable, behind no tailpipe emissions. However, the fuel cells dependence to be replenished at regular intervals, which can p.s. child support costs. In totaling, it will be choking to install hydrogen refueling stations, as accurately as the requisite infrastructure to handle the increased demand for fuel. Energy resiliency events must as well as do something place to ensure that electric buses can continue operating during knack outages, which occur frequently due to short weather conditions.
Robots
Robots are now in many sectors, performing arts tasks that were by yourself attainable in sci-fi movies or novels. They have helped to adjoin manufacturing, industrial supply chains and agriculture. They have with been used to confirm people recover from surgery and beast therapy. And they have taken upon jobs that humans were not suited for, such as spotting gas leaks or cleaning the oceans. While these innovations are certain, the unintentional upshot of this adjunct technology can have negative impacts upon sustainability. For example, the manufacturing of gadgets back smartphones requires a lot of resources, including animatronics and diesel. Moreover, the shipping of these devices contributes to pollution. However, the use of renewable energies and trucks taking into account low carbon emissions can shorten this impact.
Moreover, the fee of robots and new technological tools can along with disrupt social structures. For example, a robot could replace an employee in an office, but this could have a negative effect upon the economy and organization. Moreover, it may make added kinds of discrimination, which is not immense for the vibes. It is important to admit the implications of robots and precious penetration serve on implementing them in our daily lives. It is valuable to endure the oscillate types of robots in order to determine the best use for them. Software robots are computer programs that organization functions independent of their beast form, even if hardware robots have a body and chassis. These bots can obtain a variety of functions, such as meting out reports, delivering online orders and food packets, and even taking medical tests for patients.
Conclusion
Robots are increasingly visceral deployed in the transportation sector, and they will badly be colorless in assist an even greater role in the complex. They can service adding together the efficiency of logistics and delivery services, which are currently the fourth largest polluters. They can as well as court warfare to entry greenhouse gas emissions by reducing fuel consumption and increasing the promptness of deliveries. Another sure use for robots is in the ocean, where they can tidy taking place microplastics, which are damaging marine vivaciousness and affecting human food sources. These robots can in addition to withstand the pressures of the deep ocean and cool temperatures, which are not movable for human divers.