The high energy consumption of the mobile phone network is mainly due to the limited life span of the phones.
The mobile phone is a success story without equal. A good 15 years after the birth of the mobile network, almost half of the world population (2.7 billion people) owns a mobile phone. That does not mean that during this time only 2.7 billion phones were produced – it’s a multiple of that amount.
In 2007 alone, 1.16 billion phones were sold, a large amount of them replacement purchases. In principle, a mobile phone can be used ten years or longer. But there are dozens of reasons to replace the appliance much earlier.
Camera, touch screen, GPS and internet
At first, mobiles were being replaced because they became smaller and because they weighed less – a feature that improves portability. Next, the cellular phone with built-in camera arrived on the market, accompanied by a colour screen. These cameras get more pixels each year, another reason to buy a new phone.
In the meantime, the devices got more memory, the screen got bigger and the telephones were equipped with a folding keyboard that makes sending text messages easier. Following that came machines with a built-in mp3-player.
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"The transfer of one gigabit of information (around 500 minutes of calls) corresponds to the energy use of driving a car for 200 kilometres or 125 miles"
Apart from these technical improvements, the mobile phone is also a fashion object and a status symbol – in itself reason enough to replace it regularly. The consequence of all this is that a mobile phone on average does not last even two years. Mostly the machine is replaced when the battery gives up.
Manufacture of the phone
According to a life cycle analysis carried out by order of Nokia, 70 percent of the total energy use of a mobile telephone takes place during the production phase: the mining of the resources, the production of the components, the assembling of the machine and finally the transport of resources, components and finished products. Charging the phone only takes up 30 percent of its total energy use.
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"70 to 95 percent of the total energy use of a mobile telephone takes place during the production phase"
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Multiply that by 35 (the amount of phones during one’s lifetime) and then by 2.7 billion (the amount of people that can afford a mobile nowadays) and it becomes clear that progress has a price. In addition, more than 90 percent of waste is also generated during the production phase.
Telephone infrastructure
The switch from GSM to networks of the third generation (like UMTS) will propel energy use even further. These networks need 50 percent more base stations which consume four times more energy.
However, since the UMTS-network will pave the way for all kinds of new applications (like the transmission of music and film), the data transfer per user will increase substantially. The scientists calculated that the UMTS-network will eventually consume 2.4 times more energy than the GSM-network.
Life span
The researchers conclude that extending the life span of the phones from one to four years would lower the ecological impact of the complete telephone infrastructure by 40 percent. According to the Swiss, charging a mobile only makes up 5 to 15 percent of its total energy consumption.
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"If you want to make an ecological choice, there is only one option: keep your mobile as long as possible, and turn your back on all novelties"
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Even mobile phones that are being recharged by means of solar panels or a hand crank do not have much influence on the ecological damage of the technology. Neither do phones that are easier to recycle, because as mentioned earlier 90 percent of the waste is generated during the production. The (indeed huge) amount of e-waste is therefore only the tip of the iceberg.
© Kris De Decker (edited by Vincent Grosjean)(es)(nl)
Link : the dawn of green mobile networks
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