1ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

ECE 495 - INTEGRATED SYSTEMS I

Designing for Cradle to Grave: Environmental Concerns

Timothy Burg

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

The Gathering Storm - You are Competing in a World Economy

3 day delivery of new laptop!

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Career Note – You are Competing in a World Economy

• “Rising Above The Gathering Storm, Revisited - Rapidly Approaching Category 5”– Prepared for National Academy Engineering

• The Academies advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters.

– The 2005 report focuses on the ability of Americans to compete for jobs in the evolving global economy.

• The possession of quality jobs is the foundation of a high quality life for the nation’s citizenry.

• The report paints a daunting outlook for America.

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

The Gathering Storm - Manufacturing Factoids

• Among manufacturers of photovoltaics, wind turbines and advanced batteries, the top ten global firms by market capitalization include two US firms. The other firms are from China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Spain, Taiwan and the U.K.

• Bethlehem Steel marked its 100th birthday by declaring bankruptcy

• Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (electronics manufacturing, Foxconn, Taiwan) employs more people than the worldwide employment of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Intel and Sony combined.

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

The Gathering Storm – Education Factoids

• When MIT put its course materials on the worldwide web, over half of the users were outside the United States

• In 2000 the number of foreign students studying the physical sciences and engineering in United States graduate schools for the first time surpassed the number of United States students.

• The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate.

• China’s Tsinghua and Peking Universities are the two largest suppliers of students who receive PhD’s—in the United States

Of 40 accepted applicants in ECE for Fall 2011, ~ 2 are US citizens

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

The Gathering Storm - Technology Factoids

• In 2009, 51 percent of United States patents were awarded to non-United States companies.

• GE has now located the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.

• China has now replaced the United States as the world’s number one high-technology exporter.

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

The Gathering Storm - You are Competing in a World Economy

• Bottom line – you must compete in a world economy.

Good technical skillsGood communication skillsGood language skillsAble to relocate and adaptGood business skills

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – Without control: rivers, streams, oceans, and underground water are polluted

Cuyahoga River Fire ‘69

Water Pollution

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – Without control: industry and automobile emissions pollute the air

A view of the South Pole from NASA’s “Total Ozone mapping Spectrometer” satellite.

Air Pollution

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – Without control: radioactive materials can be dispersed into air, soil, and waterways

A city near the Chernobyl plant that was abandoned due to radioactive fallout.

Three Mile Island Disaster in Harrisburg, PA

Radiation

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – Without control: waste can accumulate

Waste Storage

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – US Government has defined minimum expectations for environmental stewardship

• National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA)• First law written that

– established national framework for protecting the environment and

– created an enforcer of the law -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has primary responsibility

• Is our basic national charter for protection of the environment

All Environmental Laws & Regulations

NEPA

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – With control: rivers, streams, oceans and underground water can be preserved

Cuyahoga River Fire ‘69 Cuyahoga River today

Today

ECE 495 – Integrated System Design I

Example – Evaluating Environmental Impacts

Electric cars are promoted as the environmentally benign future of transportation. Ads assure us of "zero emissions," and President Obama has

promised a million on the road by 2015.

A 2012 comprehensive life-cycle analysis in Journal of Industrial Ecology Electric Car – manufacturing produces 30,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions (50% of lifetime) Conventional Car – manufacturing produces 14,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions (17% of lifetime).

Is it benign? Is it better than conventional car?

If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means the car will

actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of

miles.

What is the start and end of the lifetime in this analysis?

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Generic Product Development

IdentifyNeed Research

Specifications

Concepts

Design

Prototype

Testing

Retire

Maintain

Use by Customers

Distribute and Sell

Manufacture

Environmental Impact is part of the Design:• Look ahead to the

product lifecycle and find possible impacts.

• Optimize design to make system as environmentally friendly as possible

• Comply with regulations.

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Life Cycle Stages

1 – Raw Materials Acquisition

2 - Manufacture

3 - Use4 - Final Disposal

Total environmental impact of a productis the sum of the impacts at each stage

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Life Cycle Stage 1: Raw Materials Acquisition

Raw Materials in Electronics and Semiconductor Industry:

• Metals• Plastics

Acquiring the Lithium needed to manufacture the LiIon batteries

(Bolivia)

Copper Mine(US)

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Life Cycle Stage 2: Manufacturing of the product

The processing of the raw materials creates pollutants

both in the workplace environment and in the

exterior environments, e.g.Cadmium

LeadMercury

Circuit Board Cleaners

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Life Cycle 3: Use - Distribution (Shipping)

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What is in US landfills?

• What type of trash takes up the most space in US landfills?

a. plasticb. metalc. paperd. yard waste

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Life Cycle 3: Use - Distribution (Packaging)

• Dell recently announced their plan:– Cut $8 million in costs. – Eliminate 20 million pounds of packaging material

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Life Cycle 3: Use - Consumption

Vampire energy – energy used by electronic devices even though they are “off”

Wasted vampire energy accounts for over 4% of all the energy consumption in US• consumption means 100

million tons of oil each year. • translates to 1% of all the

energy used in the entire world.

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Life Cycle Stage 4: Disposal/Recycle/Waste Management

Scale of problem

We throw out about 130,000 computers each day

Americans buy more than 100 million cell phones each year

What percent of municipal solid waste (MSW) is

electronics? 

Disposal Of Electric Devices Has Environmental Impact

1-4%

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Life Cycle Stage 4: Disposal/Recycle/Waste Management

• Batteries:• May contain Cd, Pb, Hg, Ni, Li• Americans buy 3 billion dry-cells every

year (each year each person discards 8 batteries)• 99 million wet-cell batteries are manufactured each

year– More that 95% of car batteries are recycled – 21

lbs Pb, 3 lbs plastic, and H2SO4 per battery

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Life Cycle Stage 4: Disposal/Recycle/Waste

Recovering Materials from Semiconductors‘e-waste’ has valuable copper, gold, silver, platinum and palladium as well as lead but the metals are difficult to separate

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Environmental Goal

• Foster environmentally conscious design and manufacturing

• Increase purchasing and use of more environmentally sustainable electronics

• Increase safe, environmentally sound reuse and recycling of used electronics

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Environmental Friendly Design

Utilize Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) Concepts to estimate environmental impact.

Apply the Four Rs to mitigate environmental impact.• Remove (substitute something with less impact)• Recycle • Reuse (Re-purpose)• Reduce (Increase product life)

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Life Cycle Analysis (Assessment) LCA

• Quantifying (measuring) the Environmental Impact of a Product

• Life Cycle Analysis (Assessment) LCA – Is a “cradle-to-grave” method (tool) that attempts to measure the total environmental impact for the entire life (life cycle) of a specific product

• LCA takes into account the inputs (energy and raw materials), the emissions, and other important factors for the total product process - for all 4 stages of the life cycle.

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Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) Overview

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

Define the goal and

purpose of a Life Cycle Assessment

Develop a list of the inputs

and outputs of the system

1. Assign each inventory item to an Environmental Impact Category;

2. Calculate the 12 Environmental Indices for each Environmental category;

3. Normalize the 12 Environmental Indices;

4. Sum the 12 normalized values for the Performance Score.

Interpret the results of the Life Cycle assessment. Consider the performance

of the product by each

environmental impact and

the Performance

Score

Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

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Life Cycle Analysis (Assessment) LCA

Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

Phase 1 Procedures

1. Define the Goals of the project i.e. is the life cycle assessment to be used for a single product environment assessment or for a comparison the environment of two or more products.

2. Determine the boundaries and the type of information needed

3. Define the scope of the project

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Life Cycle Analysis LCA

Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

1. Develop a flow diagram of the processes

2. Develop a list identifying and quantifying the inputs and outputs for each process in the entire system

Figure - Material Flow Diagram for the production of a tallow-based bar soap

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Life Cycle Analysis LCA

Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

Step 1. Assign each Inventory Item to an Environmental impact category

Fossil Fuel Depletion

Indoor Air Quality

Habitat Alteration

Global Warming

Acidification

Eutrophication

Water Intake

Criteria Air Pollutants

Human Health

Smog

Ozone Depletion

Ecological Toxicity

Carbon Dioxide

Methane

Nitrous Oxide

Ammonia

Hydrocarbons

Halon, etc

Step 2 Calculate an Impact index for each environmental impact category

Calculate ‘impact potential index’ for each impact category (example- Global Warming) by the following equation:

– GWP = ∑mi x GWPi where m = mass in grams and GWPi is the factor obtained from a table similar to the BEES table below.

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Life Cycle Analysis LCA Phase 3 (cont.)

Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

Step 3 Normalize the 12 Environmental Impact indexes so they can be compared by a scale impact value. For example, the Global Warming normalization value is 25,582,640.09 g CO2 equivalents/year/capita.

Step 4. Step 4. Calculate the Environmental Performance Score (EP Score) by summing the 12 normalized impact indexes.

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Phase 1

Goals, Definition & Scope

Phase 2

Inventory Analysis

Phase 3

Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA

Phase 4

Interpretation

LCA continuation of Phase 3 Steps 3-4

The data can be displayed in various ways. The LCA for 5 types of floor covering is shown to the right. The 12 environmental impacts are colored-coded to provide additional detailed information.

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Example of a life cycle analysis:

compact florescent lights (CFL) versus incandescent

light bulbs

Life Cycle Assessment for CFLs

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Life Cycle Assessment for CFLs

• Mercury in the bulb is obviously not desirable.• However, when the entire life cycle is considered, this

may not be as detrimental to the environment as first thought.

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Life Cycle Assessment for CFLs

• Manufacture Phase– Handling and storage of mercury

• Distribution– Packaging contamination

• Consumer Phase– Use significantly less energy than traditional light bulbs

(75% less)– Clean-up of broken bulb– Ultraviolet radiation

• Disposal (waste) Phase– Mercury waste– Electronic waste

Addresses an important environmental concern

Creates new potential environmental concerns

Considering the entire product life cycle,

CFL is a better choice than incandescent

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Professional Note: Code of Electrical Engineers

• IEEE Code of Electrical Engineers• We, the members of the IEEE, recognition of the

importance of our technologies in affecting the quality of life throughout the world… agree:

• to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment

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Conclusions – Your design decisions affect us all

End

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References

• EPA - Life Cycle Assessment: Principles and Practices. http://www.epa.gov/NRMRL/lcaccess/pdfs/600r06060.pdf

• Must be Purchased – ISO 14040 and 14044.

• Free copy of NIST BEES Computer Program - www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/software/bees.html <

• NIST Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) http://www.wbdg.org/tools/bees.php