Gordon

I concur with every word Mike has posted here and would like to add just
one other thought.

There is a tendency in many industries, including ours, to consider
environmental and H&S issues with tunnel vision. This is totally wrong.
We should always regard it, to use the expression I used earlier, "from
cradle to grave" or dust-to-dust, ashes-to-ashes. Both the tin and the
lead in our current solder (long may it last!) exact an environmental
cost long before we see a reel of cored solder wire or whatever. The
damage caused by extraction and refining the metals is only a part of
the equation: the energy used in drawing the wire, making the reels,
printing the labels and transporting the metals from where they are
mined to where they are used all add to the CO2 loading in the
atmosphere, etc. What happens thereafter has been more than adequately
discussed in this forum.

None of us are iconoclasts trying to drive industry back to the
neolithic era (I was going to say chalcolithic, until I realised that
copper was extracted, smelted and refined even then). None of us are the
archetypal political ecologists who, with their greasy woollens and
long, unkempt beards, are like frogs and watermelons, green on the
outside and pink on the inside, who consider that everything man does is
wrong (these sinners belong really to the Church of the Latter-Day
Anarchists). I have given many years of my life (and still am) to
promoting the environment, essentially in our industry. Without blowing
my trumpet, I think I was one of the first to question the inordinate
use of CFC-113 blends for defluxing (in fact, Gordon, you came and
congratulated me for an intervention I made at a Conference in England
where I pointed out to a speaker some errors in his presentation,
probably in 1979 or thereabouts: I think you were with Westinghouse at
that time). I warned of the problem of the potential dangers of using
ozone-depleting solvents at least six or seven years before the Montreal
Protocol, although we did not have scientific evidence (this did not
come until a full year after the Protocol was signed). I have been
working for 6 years on the problems of using brominated solvents for
defluxing and degreasing and am just finishing a 36 pp scientific report
of the geographical impact that they may have, for the Parties to the
Montreal Protocol. Because of this work, I have often been branded as an
iconoclast, but I am nothing of the sort. In this "lead-in-solder"
debate, weighing up the pros and the cons as well as I have been able, I
have come to the conclusion that the status-quo is economically and
technologically desirable, while the environmental and H&S aspects of
maintaining lead in solder are no worse than any of the alternatives,
looked at from the ore to the final disposal. That having been said, I
also believe that it behooves us to recycle as much of the solder as
possible. The energy cost in refining used solder is small compared with
that of extracting the metal from the ore, and there should be no undue
emissions in the process.

Let's face it, metallurgy has been a dirty industry from the start: I've
just read a book on the social impacts of the Bronze Age. Archaeologists
have consistently found that the copper smelting was nearly always done
separately and on the leeward side of the villages, and that was 3000
years ago and more! SO2 stank, even then. Even today, the waste heaps
from the copper smelting at that time are still visible at Engomi and
near Soloi: their fertility is reduced, even after 30 centuries of
erosion and loess deposits (quite apart from the massive deforestation
required for the charcoal). By this, I am not saying that metallurgy
should cease, but I do say that a) it could be minimised by better
recycling b) metals should be used economically and scientifically and
c) the extraction and refining processes should be **reasonably**
cleaned up to reduce environmental impact, being fully aware that a
**total** clean-up is impossible.

While on the subject of the environment in our industry, I should like
to state that I'm sitting on the fence regarding the use of
tetrabromobisphenol A in FR-4 laminates and polycarbonates. I have yet
to be convinced that it is either a real environmental hazard, if
handled sensibly, or that the alternatives are as technically good as or
environmentally better than it is. I have frequently been attacked by
the bromine industry because of my opposition to the use of brominated
solvents on both environmental and H&S grounds, but the fact that I am
not categorically opposed to TBBPA (even if Greenpeace is) should serve
to show that I try to be reasonable.

It is therefore obvious why I reacted to your assertions, implying that
nickel was harmless.

Brian

"Davy, Gordon" wrote:
>
> Over the weekend Brian Ellis, Guenter Grossmann, and Mike Fenner responded
> to my posting in which I appealed for substantiation of non-obvious claims
> of the environmental hazards of nickel and noble metals as used in
> electronic products, and expressed concerns that nameless people will
> continue to add to the list of forbidden elements. Although they don't say
> so, I gather that these people concur with Mr. de Kluizenaar that tin - at
> most - is the only environmentally acceptable finish and that those working
> on other finishes should switch. I would like to thank these men for the
> effort they made in preparing their responses, but after reading them I can
> see that I failed to make my points adequately. I'd like to try again.
> First, I did not mean to imply that Mr. de Kluizenaar is one of the nameless
> people who are trying to adjust reality at will, and if that is how it came
> across, I am sorry. After all, I know his name! My concern was rather that
> he repeats the assertions of such people without providing the technical
> basis. (I was glad to see Mr. Grossmann's reassurance that "most of us,
> including Eric, never forget to mention how doubtful we are about the sense
> of the lead ban when we are at conferences or meetings.")
> Second, while I am glad that Mr. Grossmann gives us the name of one of the
> nameless people: Margot Wallstrom, the EC Commissioner for environment, he
> does not refer us to anything that she has to offer in support of her agenda
> so that we can assess its validity. Asserting that the juggernaut can't be
> stopped is a self-fulfilling prophecy. To the extent that the market is
> demanding electronic products free from a growing list of elements, it does
> so on the basis of beliefs that persist because no one seems to think that
> it is worth while to challenge them. That itself is a belief.
> Third, Mr. Ellis has asked that before I challenge statements I do my
> homework and research the data. My point was that people who make
> non-obvious statements have the burden of proof. I think that that is a
> fairly common expectation in the world of scholarship. This whole business
> of adjusting reality comes from some people being relieved from that
> responsibility (because of the nobility of their cause?) - they are right ex
> officio. Taken to its extreme, it is superstition and demagoguery, which
> seem to persist even in a scientifically sophisticated age.
> Finally, although Mr. Ellis offers two reasons for restricting the use of
> nickel and noble metals in electronics, something essential is still
> missing.
> Mining. He says "the recovery of all metals from ore is environmentally
> hazardous." Mr. Fenner makes the same point. Does it follow that since all
> mining makes a mess, all mining should be banned because obviously we don't
> want a messy world? (Even though tin mines must be messy, too, Mr. de
> Kluizenaar seems willing to continue using tin.) It would serve the
> discussion better to offer some sort of cost-benefit tradeoff assessment,
> and some analysis of how to reduce the environmental impact of mining. I
> doubt that even Ms. Wallstrom and her colleagues will be successful in
> shutting down mines around the world, even if that is what they would like
> to do. (Incidentally, if that is what they would like to do, they should say
> so openly, so people can respond.) It is, on the other hand, quite likely
> that mining operations might be improved. Two hundred years ago, my
> namesake, Humphry Davy, was made a baronet in England as a reward for
> inventing a lamp that miners could use so that their candles would not
> ignite an explosion in coal mines. As bad as mines may be today, I'm sure
> that many of them have improved significantly. In any case, we need to know
> how much less of an environmental impact there would be from reduced mining
> due to the proposed cessation of use of the prohibited metals in electronic
> products, and whether that benefit outweighs the associated costs.
> Health. Mr. Ellis tells us that "higher nickel alloys are on the way out"
> and suggests that even stainless steel may be "frowned upon" (by whom? - he
> doesn't say! It's that passive voice again.) The reason he offers is that we
> are learning more about nickel's toxicology and epidemiology. He also says
> "we owe ourselves the luxury of a scientific assessment of every material we
> use in the electronics industry from all standpoints and the potential
> cradle-to-grave risks of using it." I wouldn't call it a luxury - it's the
> very necessity I have been asserting. But apart from Mr. Grossmann's
> observation that some people are allergic to nickel and Mr. Ellis' question
> "can this be good to health?", we are not offered such an assessment for any
> of the metals. Just what is it that "we are learning about its toxicology
> and epidemiology" that shows that it's a bad idea to use it in electronic
> products? Until we are told we cannot perform the scientific assessment of
> the risk to people - or the environment in general - of using nickel in
> electronic products, and compare it with the costs of learning to do without
> it.
> It is exactly this kind of broad indictment that I am trying to bring
> attention to. It should go without saying (but evidently doesn't) that
> there's a huge difference between cooking in a copper pot and using copper
> for carrying current. (Incidentally, based on Mr. Ellis' expressed distaste
> for copper, my concern that it might some day be added to the list seems to
> have been well founded.) Just because we all agree that lead in paint and
> gasoline is bad doesn't mean that lead in electronic products is bad. We
> have data to show elevated blood lead levels deriving from the first two
> uses. I did my homework and have presented in this forum data showing the
> lack of risk from the last one - which if Mr. Grossmann is correct, everyone
> agrees with.
> At the risk of being too obvious and abrasive (I really don't want to be), I
> am asserting that it is irresponsible for those who believe that people (or
> fish or trees, for that matter) are being harmed from the use of these
> elements specifically in electronic products not to produce the data that
> leads them to that belief. Arguing by specious analogy and offering mere
> generalizations about "what we are learning" isn't enough - for me, and I
> would hope, for most others. My thanks to attorney Chuck Dolci for his
> supporting comments. As he points out, the issue is partly one of the rules
> of evidence and proper reasoning.
> I am reminded of the goal-statement of one environmentalist: he wants to
> "remove hazardous materials from the biosphere". Were he to succeed, the
> world would be a very different place, and I'm not sure it would be very
> pleasant.
>
> Gordon Davy
>
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