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mp3s will save the planet...

post #1 of 17
8/18/09 at 2:06pm
Thread Starter 
How Digital Music Can Fight Climate Change

but I am going to stick to plastic
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post #2 of 17
8/18/09 at 4:19pm
That also strengthens the argument for buying used. I prefer physical media, but used also has the benefit of cutting out profits to Big Music.
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post #3 of 17
8/18/09 at 4:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Erik View Post
That also strengthens the argument for buying used. I prefer physical media, but used also has the benefit of cutting out profits to Big Music.
And buying used is something you can't really do with digital downloads.

I doubt the researchers factored in the used market and the fact that a physical CD can change hands multiple times.
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post #4 of 17
8/18/09 at 5:40pm
Quote:
In addition, if the size of the album is 260 MB (up from the more traditional 60-100 MB) then downloading and burning that album to a CD is about the same as buying an actual CD via e-commerce, because of the added energy from downloading it via the Internet.
If it's my only copy, I would only buy lossless, so this point right here makes the difference negligible. I still prefer physical.
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post #5 of 17
8/18/09 at 5:41pm
Buying used would still require the movement of a physical product, likely using gasoline powered vehicles, and as the article pointed out, that seems to be a significant bulk of the emissions generated. So, if anything, factoring in the used CD market would just strengthen the point, since it's just adding more emissions producing movements a single CD might make.
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post #6 of 17
8/18/09 at 7:37pm
The conclusion by the authors may be true, but it's a red herring given how insignificant a part of our environmental impact buying music is. Driving less and doing so in smaller vehicles does a lot more for the environment than downloading music.
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post #7 of 17
8/18/09 at 11:29pm
Yeah, you can say this about so many things, but in the end we don't even do anything about the biggest problems.
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post #8 of 17
8/18/09 at 11:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by calaf View Post
Oh please. And breathing less does as well.

This is nothing compared to other sources of climate change. I hear a hard drive takes more energy to make than a lousy CD. Streaming music or bust
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post #9 of 17
8/18/09 at 11:57pm
This bean-counting ignores the fact that CD-Rs last much shorter than actual, pressed CDs. To hold on to your collection of CD-Rs, you'll have to make backups once every few years -- taking energy and raw material and contributing to carbon emission. If you prefer to keep your digital library on hard-drives or flash memory, then remember these media too suffer from wear and tear with use.
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post #10 of 17
8/19/09 at 1:04am
Here's a link to the page at Intel where you can download the research paper (PDF)
PRESS KIT - Eco-Technology Research Papers

The paper is: Tuning in to Energy & Carbon-light Music
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post #11 of 17
8/19/09 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich View Post
Here's a link to the page at Intel where you can download the research paper (PDF)
PRESS KIT - Eco-Technology Research Papers

The paper is: Tuning in to Energy & Carbon-light Music
This study makes no mention of the environmental impacts of storing the music on desktop hard drives and portable players. Both products take enormous amounts of energy to manufacture. On the flip-side, there is no mention of standalones or computer optical drives either. Having said that, the life of a portable player is very short, so I wonder if the large sales of said short-lived portables was taken into account, perhaps the results would be different.
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post #12 of 17
8/19/09 at 1:35am
Assuming the MP3s are on a desktop computer that's left on 24/7, how much energy does it take to keep the hard drive spinning? Likely a lot more than a CD uses sitting on a rack. Also consider the amount of power wasted on an iPod charger that's left on all the time.

I don't have any figures, but I'm sure the electrical consumption would be significant over the years.
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post #13 of 17
8/19/09 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Erik View Post
Assuming the MP3s are on a desktop computer that's left on 24/7, how much energy does it take to keep the hard drive spinning? Likely a lot more than a CD uses sitting on a rack. Also consider the amount of power wasted on an iPod charger that's left on all the time.

I don't have any figures, but I'm sure the electrical consumption would be significant over the years.
Additionally, annulled a large amount of digital reproduction machine. Energy to dispose of it.
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post #14 of 17
8/19/09 at 1:42pm
It is all rather silly counting carbon use in this way. The main benefit seems to be in keeping academics employed to do these kinds of studies.

The PDF version of the study has some graphs that show that the big carbon user for retail distribution is the customer driving to the retail store. Cut out the customer driving and the retail version would fare quite well against a lossless internet download. Here's a paragraph from the study that address that:

Quote:
However, despite the dominance of the digital music delivery method, there are scenarios by which digital music performs less well. For instance, the traditional retail delivery scenario is nearly equivalent to downloading and burning if the customer walks rather than drives to the retail store. Similarly, if the file transfer size is increased to 260 MB (from 60-100 MB) the download and burn option looks very similar to the e-commerce CD scenario due to increased Internet energy use for downloading. Thus, future work should examine new forms of online music delivery with potentially heavier network overhead, such as streaming audio systems and lossless audio files. However, as file sizes and Internet energy use are increasing, Internet energy efficiency is also increasing, thus it is unlikely even in the case of large file transfers for digital downloads to use more energy or produce more CO2 emissions than delivering music via CDs.
I've been known to ride my fixie bike 40 miles (total round trip) to get to a used CD store. (the real motivating factor is the world's best espresso, gelato, and a used CD store all within one block of each other) I'm doing my part to fight global climate change. It's a nice bonus to go out for espresso and come home with a CD.

But the real issue that I care more about is the future of used music. Digital downloads cannot be resold the way things are done currently. That means the death of the used CD market. The majority of my CD collection is purchased used. If I had to buy everything new my collection would look very different and going music shopping would be a whole lot less fun. I don't like that future. I don't care so much about the carbon footprint. Just don't kill the used music market. A future where you have to buy all music new or resort to "pirating" because there is no longer a used market or any collectability is not a future that I want.
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post #15 of 17
8/19/09 at 1:43pm
Ahem.... the word MP3 is not mentioned one single time in the article..
Digital music download may indeed be the future, and I am really looking forward for it to be. But certainly not MP3, but a lossless format (FLAC, Apple Lossless, or whatever, ...)
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