S4E9: Gerry McGovern – Digital Carbon and the Impact of Electronics

We are delighted to bring you a conversation on the environmental impacts of technology with web designer and digital consultant Gerry McGovern. Daithí and Gerry have a wide-ranging talk about topics such as e-waste and the challenges of recycling most phones and laptops; how to lengthen the life of your devices; the embedded water and material impacts of devices and the huge demand for mining of metals that they create; the amount of unnecessary data that is created every year and the energy required to store it; how you can employ simple strategies to use less data; how to make your website use less energy; the large energy requirements of Artificial Intelligence; how Gerry is heartened by the Right to Repair movement and the potential of community activism to drive change. Music in this episode comes from Samuel Arnold Keane. Links: 1. Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/                 2. Gerry's Podcast 'World Wide Waste' - https://www.thisishcd.com/podcast-category/world-wide-waste-with-gerry-mcgovern                                          3. e-waste toxicity in landfill - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352186421006970#:~:text=1%20(Chen%20et%20al.%2C,70%25%20in%20terms%20of%20toxicity.                               4. Statistics on lifecycle carbon emissions of a phone - https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/your-phone-really-smart#:~:text=Yet%2C%20around%2080%20per%20cent,the%20lifespan%20of%20devices%20shrinks   5. Rare earth metals present in phones - https://www.acs.org/education/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2014-2015/smartphones.html#:~:text=Scandium%20and%20yttrium%20are%20included,the%2017%20rare%20earth%20metals.                                                                                        6. Recycling Rate of e-waste - https://unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/global-e-waste-monitor-2024-electronic-waste-rising-five-times-faster-documented-e-waste-recycling                                   7. Fairphone - https://www.fairphone.com/nl                    8. Energy demand of any website - https://www.websitecarbon.com/                                               9. Data centre energy use in Ireland 2023 - https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-dcmec/datacentresmeteredelectricityconsumption2023/keyfindings/#:~:text=The%20percentage%20of%20total%20metered%20electricity%20consumption%20accounted%20for%20by,10%25%20(See%20Infographic).                                                      10. Google's plans to build data centre in Uruguay - https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/01/uruguay-anger-environmental-cost-google-datacentre-carbon-emissions-toxic-waste-water                                               11. Lifecycle emissions comparison of EV vs Internal Combustion Engine car - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/life-cycle-emissions-evs-vs-combustion-engine-vehicles/                                  12. Projection for growth in material extraction demand to 2050 https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/foresight/topic/aggravating-resource-scarcity/raw-materials-non-renewable-resources_en                           13. 10x more energy required for AI search compared to traditional search engines - https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/6b2fd954-2017-408e-bf08-952fdd62118a/Electricity2024-Analysisandforecastto2026.pdf                                          14. Electricity consumption from data centres, AI and the cryptocurrency sector could double by 2026 - https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024/executive-summary                                                                                   15. Right to Repair Directive - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IPR20590/right-to-repair-making-repair-easier-and-more-appealing-to-consumers 16. Samuel Arnold Keane - https://www.instagram.com/samyelyel/