John: It has been discussed at length, and acknowleged, on this forum previously that Lead-Free is environmentally negative... you seem to think that the politician who put this in place actually give a s**t about the environment! This is a political move, that is all. Get used to it... it is part of the world going to hell.. guided by politicians.. And get this clear in your mind, I am talking not about any war... but about lead-free, RoHS and Weee! Do we understand? :-) Rudy Sedlak John Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I may be mistaken but I have never seen a press release or announcement for the EPA report on Solders in Electronics: A Life-Cycle Assessment [PDF] (3.53 MB, 472 pages) This 472 page weighty tome was apparently published in August 2005. I checked with a couple of industry peers and they never saw it either. Interestingly, it appears that SAC alloy has a higher impact than tin lead in a number of areas such as: Non renewable resource use Energy use Global warming Ozone depletion Water Quality I understand why this report might not be widely heralded by those with a commercial interest in lead free replacements, but as a US tax payer I for one would like the results of such an analysis to be widely read and available should the decision ever have to be made for instance, for reasons of reliability, to reverse the decision to remove lead from solders in Europe. For anyone thinking that I am "knocking" lead free - you are right - there continues to be no reason to support it given that WEEE laws in Europe mean that electronics never end up in a landfill anyway so leaching arguments and measurement methods are somewhat academic. I do however have a passionate concern for the environment. It makes me mad when I see that the "environmentally friendly" replacement for eutectic leaded solder is actually having a much greater impact on non renewable resources. Check out tables ES-4 and ES-5. From the report: 2The difference between SAC and SnPb is 453 kg of NRR per 1,000 cc of solder applied. If this were all automotive gasoline, this difference is equivalent to 162 gallons of gasoline. Assuming a driver consumes 20 gallons per week, this is also equivalent to approximately 8 weeks of driving. Anyway for environmentalists and engineers everywhere here is the link: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/pubs/solder/lca/index.htm Kind regards, John Burke --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.