OT: Green Washing

You could save more water if you stopped drinking Coke. It takes 250 Liters of water to make a single one liter bottle of the stuff. No shit...

Not to mention yer teeth and bones, and diabetes meds. But that's a fascinating stat. Do you have a cite, link, or general explanation?? I thought they just poured water into their chemical soup.

NPR did an hour on water usage that I happen to listen to in the car. You might be surprised at the water usage stats for some very common industrial products.

Another common myth is that refineries haven't been built in the US for 30 years due to the enviro's. That simply isn't true. We haven't been building refineries because there has been a significant refining overcapacity until very recently. That industry has become a model for effeciency in production. They don't waste anything, which has the effect of adding capacity without building new facilities.

Here in California, where we have an absolute ton of refining capacity, they closed a couple dozen or more refining operations dring the 80's and 90's because the costs of improving throughput and efficiency was not supported by demand. These were facilities built in the 1910-1930 period for the most part. Until very recently, refining was truly a shitty bussiness to be in financially speaking. The margins were absolutely cut throat.

"Large computer chip fabrication plants, or "fabs," often use 1 million to 2 million gallons of water a day to clean and rinse silicon wafers. As much as

2,000 gallons of ultrapure water can be used to clean a single eight-inch wafer. These wafers contain more than 100 fingernail-sized microchips that run everything from personal computers and cell phones to traffic lights and coffee makers."

They need a better brand of soap.

-- Ed Huntress

So those 250 liters of water are gone for good? Depleted from the planet?

Wow..Ive used Coke to free rusty bolts, to eat tires off their rims...but I didnt know it would destroy water too!

Gunner

They evaporate and then it rains over the ocean. Then it evaporates again and it rains in Spain. But mostly in the plain, where it never reaches the ground.

The evaporated rain then makes new clouds, which hide the sun over solar energy projects. Then it rains -- but right into a nuclear fuel-rod storage pond.

-- Ed Huntress

Up your meds.

They had one. It was called Freon TF.

After the washing..the "utra pure water" is then destroyed?

Gunner

An interesting Q. The manufacture of semiconductors, fwiu, is among the chemically most noxious, exceeding that of tanneries, etc. Boucou HF acid for starters.

Where do they physcially make the wafers themselves? Hopefully in Asia.... I think thailand? Man, ahm startin to itch already.

Basically, even w/ solar cell type energy, there's no free lunch. Or the lunch is free, but it's toxic. :)

well, making solar cells is very close to making chips, so the energy cost of that process is quite high also.

chips are made all over the world. in this country, there are large chip fab plants in arizona/texas.

regards, charlie phx, az

And in Albuquerque NM. Realy over the river in Rio Rancho. :-) Intell. ...lew...

Etc. Etc. Etc. As Yule Brynner (sp?) said in the movies once. :-) ...lew..

Actually the big energy savings comes from the energy used to heat the water. A btu is 1 degree F per lb of water. 8 lbs of water in a gallon. A kilowatt/hour is 3450 btus, you do the math.

Gary H. Lucas

It's all good, we're in the wastewater business.

Gary H. Lucas

I did not check the calculations, but the last storm here is said to have dumped 8.5 billion gallons on Seattle. If one did the calcs for the whole state, it would be about 900 billion.

Dan

Refineries -

During the cold war - 1/3 of all Air Force bombers were in the air at a time. Sometimes more in local area as an exercise or war.

B52's drink gas.

Normal airline dropped off big time when the Government deregulated them and stopped paying their way to fly the mail and reserve themselves for troop transport.

Tons of gas have stopped flowing and the libs cry we run out. Our usage is way way down.

There were two or three refineries in El Paso. A 3 wing B52 base at one time.

Ship traffic - Naval - down. Some converted to Nuke.

Martin

Mart> Pre-Meltdown wrote:

That is a bunch of bunk. First - yes lots of water but it is recycled over and over. It is cleaner that way.

And 8" wafer - what a laugh!!! Not many house use 8" anymore.

300mm is the standard now. Now that is big. Try picking up a cassette of 50 of those! - you can't. Robots do that work.

San Jose - silicon valley - was home to lots of fabs. There are 2 or 3 fabs in San Jose. One small one for diodes and RF transistors, another one owned and run by Cypress as a valley training center and R&D. Most all fabs are in TWN and South East Asia. India is becoming a giant.

Just wait - we get in a tiff with someone and no more silicon. Micron and TI still have some fab here... Small ones in Texas.

Samsung was putt>> NPR did an hour on water usage that I happen to listen to in the car.