Biggest Myths About Green Technology:
In a world becoming increasingly more conscious about the environment, green tech has rapidly emerged. Green tech is a broad term that accommodates all environmentally friendly technology. Green tech aims to conserve natural resources and repair past environmental damages by switching to more sustainable practices. Green tech extends from energy to agriculture to most industries.
Many companies have emerged to create better and more environmentally friendly technology. The green tech industry has investments of 755 billion us dollars. Unfortunately, the actual transition to green tech is easier to say than to actually implement. Sometimes, companies merely leverage green tech to enrich themselves. Others might push particular agendas. Today we will be considering the biggest myths about green technology.
1. Going Paperless Is Green
Many companies have embraced an anti-paper waste movement in favor of digital devices. Essentially directing their staff to make less use of paper for the environment. Some have even devised engaging campaigns to reduce paper use, with messages such as “Please consider the environment before printing this email.” The common argument is that since paper is made by cutting down trees; using less paper will save more trees. The alternative recommended is to rely more on our digital devices rather than paper. However, whether going paperless is truly green is more sophisticated than it seems.
For one, paper is made from renewable material – trees. Trees cut can be regrown. In contrast, computers come from rare earth materials that cannot be replenished. Additionally, paper is one of the most successfully recyclable products in the world. Digital devices like smartphones usually contain up to 60 different materials, including plastic, metals, ceramics, and resin. Most digital devices contain substances that are harmful to the environment if they end up in landfills. Thus paperless as green is one of the myths about green technology..
2. Cloud Computing is Green
Cloud computing is believed to reduce carbon emissions and drive sustainability. Cloud computing can be described as access to computing services such as data storage, servers, storage, database, and analytics from a remote data center over the internet. You can compare it to using a train that accommodates a large number of people. A car would be a personal computer or local server for individuals. The strength of cloud computing is in the economies of scale.
However, a challenge is that increased capacity comes with increased usage. This consequently increases the energy costs of the cloud facility. The increase can be severe enough to negate the environmentally friendly effect. However, cloud computing can be green when it uses sustainable energy sources. To answer the question succinctly, is cloud computing green? No. Can cloud computing be green? Yes. This makes it imperative to encourage green cloud computing.
3. Renewable Energy is Expensive
This is one of the popular myths about green technology. For many years, renewable energy was promised to replace fossil fuel energy. The primary benefit of this change is that renewable energy is better for the environment. Unfortunately, for many years, the bright potential of renewable energy was dampened by its cost. However, currently renewable energy is no longer expensive. With increased investments in renewable energy, technology breakthroughs have emerged to make renewable energy more efficient. Renewable energy prices have been falling significantly. Some experts assert that renewables are currently the cheapest energy source in the world. The myth that renewable energy is expensive is now false.
4. Electric Vehicles can’t travel far enough.
This myth is yet another truth that has refused to change with the times. In the past, electric vehicles struggled with the range of distance they could cover on a single charge. However, due to investments and technological advancements, EVs are no longer limited by their range. The average travel mileage in the US and the UK is below 100 miles on a typical day. The majority of Electric vehicles have a range of over 200 miles per single charge. The Tesla Model S has an estimated charge of double 405 miles. The EV range will likely keep increasing in the future.
Conclusion
Green technology has been one of the most exciting areas of technology in recent years. Naturally, this has caused people to take very different stances on green tech. You might find that based on your beliefs, you are more prone to certain myths than others. An alternative method to examine green tech is to look at it solely on its merits and demerits. This is usually the best way to receive the progression and advancement that we need from green tech.
