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Apple Paves Way Towards Carbon-Free Aluminum Smelting Process as Latest Environmental Pledge
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considering that Samsung Phones use child labour in mines from South America and Samsung also use rare earth metals from conflicts zones in Africa. Apple is going to change they way companies manufacture by leading by example.
Because, you know, that’s how that works ...
I still use my rMBP purchased in 2012, and every iPhone / iPad I buy spends years making its way down through my family, before it is sold, and used years more by somebody else ...
They're not really leading by example just because they don't do stuff like that directly.
If their partners or partners of partners are doing that stuff directly it's just as bad.
Even if that wasn't the case just remember by them not allowing repair
They are indirectly creating entire industries that involve suffering
Look at the pictures and articles about Chinese e-waste (then remember most of it comes from North America, and one of the most popular is Apple)
Think of all the rare earth metals that they could save by allowing people to repair devices rather than having to recycle them
It's really important not to get the two mixed up. A chocolate laptop case would have a lot of drawbacks... and neither your tongue nor your throat would appreciate liquified aluminum.
If you handed people two phones, one the newest current model, and one the size actually required to be easily repaired, while also telling them the later will be 10%-15% more expense almost nobody would choose the repairable device.
People are way underestimating how big such a phone would have to be to actually reach a level of easy and cheap repairs, and woukd absolutely be more expensive.
Most people would recoil in disgust while holding the larger item. Not to mention many technological advances wouldn’t be possible or come years later because it is not actually possible to make everything user repairable or assemble the devices where you don’t risk damaging something unless you want to up the size and cost substantially more.
Some people would buy one generation of phone like that and then the next time would be screw that nonsense. You would then be left with three people who are interested.
"When we rule the world" or should that be "when we are super exited about reimagining the Appleverse" ........
Note to Macrumors: Stop just passing on everything you are told. Get off your rear ends and interview people. You know, like investigative journalists. No. wait, that should be "sit down for a co-verbal, interactive, interfacial, interlude". See, I reimagined it.
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It's a "reimagination" of smelly and melting.
Note to Macrumors: Stop just passing on everything you are told. Get off your rear ends and interview people. You know, like investigative journalists. No. wait, that should be "sit down for a co-verbal, interactive, interfacial, interlude". See, I reimagined it.
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It's a "reimagination" of smelly and melting.
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Most other Germanic languages use a variant from a root word "smelt" to mean "melt". Both smelt and melt comes from the same root meaning soften and later liquefying. Only English and some descendant have it separated into a word referring to the metallurgic process, not just melting in general.
In eg. German you may hear "Schokolade Schmelzen" and they use it in ads etc. so you may have been exposed it in such away.
google RED MUD ALUMINIUM . This is why this article and shoulder patting is total BS .
The article is not BS, they really have come up with a greener way of creating aluminum out of alumina.
What you’re referencing is the process of making the alumina which is a step earlier in the process. That does have its own problems. So do many other parts in the chain of Apple products.
Apple isn’t pretending to have solved all its issues. This is just one of many steps.
While I agree, this tech is Apple's way of mooting your point. If you say pro- repair saves the environment, then they say "but we've developed this technology so that replacing it through us is environmentally friendly" They're having their cake and eating it.
Their word for 'glove' is 'handschuh'. HAND-SHOE. Their language is hilarious and efficient in equal measures.
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Meh. Once Apple did It, the news media will stop reporting the issue, so the other OEMs are not under any kind of pressure. The only pressuring those OEMs is the increase cost of Chinese labor.
its nice to hear corporations do things that are ethically correct and help move society in the right direction like privacy practices and environment care, instead of the usual cut costs to bare minimum, deceivable wording/tacitcs , abusing the system, and bending rules until its barely legal.
The important point is that Apple themselves are running off renewables but the actual business end the 99% end of apple! Its TWENTY THREE SUPPLIERS are all using dirty energy.
I'm sorry but Apple is just about as dirty as anyone else and mostly relies on Samsung etc so is no cleaner than the competition in reality!
I applaude the use of green energy but for Apple to claim they aren't a massive user and abuser of the environment is to be absolutely blind, deaf and dumb to the facts. Apple is a massive polluter just like any industry and don't think buying an iPhone is any greener than ANY other make.
I'm sorry but Apple is just about as dirty as anyone else and mostly relies on Samsung etc so is no cleaner than the competition in reality!
I applaude the use of green energy but for Apple to claim they aren't a massive user and abuser of the environment is to be absolutely blind, deaf and dumb to the facts. Apple is a massive polluter just like any industry and don't think buying an iPhone is any greener than ANY other make.
Do they claim that though? They’re improving parts of the chain step by step, not solving every issue at once.
I do have proof that my water resistance is in fact, resisting water. Seeing as how I washed my phone off when my cat knocked it into the bucket for the plunger the other day. I don't know about you, but I'm not one to walk around with a toilet phone.
I guess you don't know much about ingress protection. I don't claim to be an expert, but having had my fair share of water resistant cases as well as a general knowledge of plumbing, a seal needs to be pliable as well as dirt-free. So the second some jabroni who doesn't take care to ensure their seals are clean and intact has their phone fry on the beach, we'll have another #gate happen. You mentioning the liquid indicators is an interesting issue. If the user has access to the innards of a phone, there's going to be scammers replacing those liquid sensors.
Your car analogy also holds no weight. I drive a Jeep. If you somehow weren't aware, I basically own a four wheel drive Erector set. Literally everything is user serviceable and replaceable.
I do however take it to the dealer for routine maintenance that I cannot perform in the driveway and/or with hand tools. Because I want to make sure that when I'm out in the woods, the seals on my transfer case don't fail because some jabroni thought he could work on it himself and didn't bother to put new seals on.
Plus, my dealership isn't shady; maybe you should look elsewhere the next time you buy. While they do dictate what gas to use (anything over 87 octane is a waste), they don't dictate what road I use. That's the job of a city planner and department of transportation. But again, since I drive a Jeep, roads are optional.
It takes carbon to produce the electricity that smelts the Aluminium, conveniently forgotten.
Also Apple is not using renewable energy, it is using credits.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexep...ples-100-renewable-energy-usage/#47f169c5189c
I'll also take a stab that Liam disassembles 0.000001% of the iPhones ever produced since it was built.
Using green energy to smelt the aluminium is an easy next step and probably already thought of, the new proces is not even a reality yet (will take six years).
https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Responsibility_Report_2018.pdf
Apple is using renewably energy where it can, on many locations they're indeed using credits. Some companies might buy credits from facilities in other countries (which is an easy way out), Apple makes sure the energy is locally sourced and often invests in power plants that will also be generating energy for others.
Liam was a first generation pilot, now succeeded by Daisy. Daisy is more capable (nine models, 200/hour), I'm sure these robots will have a greater impact in the future.
The problem is we have an overabundance of CO2 in the atmosphere. Far more than the existing plant / forests are capable of absorbing (Due to non stop deforestation)
This extra CO2 is a leading factor towards climate change and we need to figure out a way of pulling more CO2 out of the atmosphere. CO2 levels are now at the highest known concentration ever in human history. This is mostly carbon that we, human's have put back into the atmosphere as it was previously trapped underground.
Yes, there's always a possibility that we invent some technology that pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere and we somehow go too far the other way (creating an overabundance of oxygene which does have it's own problems), but with how far we've gone with CO2 (over 400pp in 2016, which many scientists believe is already past the point of no return), we've got a LONG way to go to be in danger of too little CO2 in the atmosphere.
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Carbon is the most abundant element on the planet. with no carbon, there is no life.
the problem we have is that we're burning trapped carbon for many different reasons. This trapped carbon when burned goes directly into the atmosphere. The unfortunate side affect is that Carbon also helps trap heat in the atmosphere. THe more Carbon that's floating around in it, the more heat it traps. THe more heat that gets trapped, the warmer the planet overall will become.
A great example of a run away "green house affect" caused by insanely high carbon numbers in the atmosphere is earth's sister planet, Venus. Venus is almost identical to earth in makeup, size and gravity. However, where Earth carbon eventually balanced itself and much of it got trapped, the same didn't happen on Venus. Venus became the hottest planet in the solar system due to the trapped energy of the sun in a runaway carbon based green house (95% of it's atmosphere is CO2)
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Ontario is now at about the same
https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html
we may have overspent like crazy to get here, But we're here now ahead of the curve. And we (CAnadians) should be selling our expertise in green energy around the world and being leaders in this space. Not bitching about how much more oil we can sell cheaply
As the trial site is in Quebec and the Electric supply there is mostly from Hydro, your assumption is close to 100% wrong.
There are many other Aluminium smelters around the world and most of them are close to major Hydro plants.