Category: Technical

Handling Printed Output in a Colorful World

There is an issue that most writers encounter when creating art for a book, but which readers seldom think about. Everything you use on a computer includes color, yet most books (especially technical books) are printed in black and white due to the prohibitive costs of printing them in color. Even many e-books use black and white images because the publisher typesets the document that way. Fortunately, e-book output is changing and you can get color images in them now, but the problem for the author is still there and will be there for quite some time to come.

Translating a colorful world into something that prints well is hard. Most publishers have strict guidelines on configuring a system to produce optimal printed output. Even though the output is optimal, the resulting system display seldom looks like anything you’d use on a regular basis. Even font smoothing is discouraged because it causes problems in the printed output. So, as a starting point, you need to understand that the plain image you see in the book is plain in order to make it easier to print.

Still, even with all of the settings that publishers require and authors invoke, the computer display is still ablaze with colors—some of which won’t print well and some of which will blend into each other. These two problems aren’t apparent at times until the book comes out in print. Putting sky blue next to buttercup yellow works just fine when viewing them in your browser, but they don’t print well. Assuming that the two colors print at all, they’ll be exceptionally light and will tend to blend in a way that makes it impossible to tell one from the other in the book. So, color choice becomes problematic for the author trying to seek a balance between what looks good in the real world and what looks good in a book.

It’s important to remember that books are printed in only two colors: black and white. Gradients of color, grayscale, are simulated by varying the dot density in a particular area of the book so that it appears the colors are either lighter or darker. The best an author can hope to achieve in simulating this environment is to employ a screen capture program that can also create grayscale output. In fact, that’s one of the tasks I perform as part of writing a book. Here’s a color version of one image I added to a recent book.

9781118441428FG1005

As part of the writing process, I converted the image to grayscale to see how it would appear in the book. Here is the grayscale version:

9781118441428FG1005Grayscale

The grayscale version isn’t nearly as pretty, but it does work. You can see all of the details on the page. Of course, it won’t look precisely like this in the book, but the grayscale version does help me visualize an approximation of the image appearance.

As more publishers begin to use color in their e-books and you begin to employ it to dress up your examples in book, you also need to consider special needs requirements. With this in mind, I also check all of the images in my book with VisCheck, a color blindness simulator, to ensure that readers who have special visual needs can work with the book without problem. Colorblindness (or more precisely, color shifting) causes some people to see colors incorrectly (often blended) even though they appear quite different to someone with normal color vision, so ensuring the colors work for someone with colorblindness is also important to the author.

Every graphic you include in a book is important and readers need to see them well. It may seem like a lot of bother to perform checks like those that I employ, but from the reader’s perspective, the time is well spent. Let me know your thoughts about working with color in books at [email protected].

 

Thinking About 3D Printing Technology

Any Star Trek fan will tell you that the replicator technology shown in the show is treated as an ordinary occurrence that isn’t so ordinary today. In fact, a number of the ordinary objects, such as communicators, in the show have become reality and some of them are becoming so common that they’re ordinary to us too. Compare a smartphone to a communicator and you realize that the Star Trek creators didn’t actually go far enough-smartphones are actually a lot better than communicators. This makes me wonder if 3D printers might become the replicators of the future.

If you’ve been reading any of the tech blogs lately, those like https://www.semerika.com/, you’ll know that there has been a lot of news lately about three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. The idea behind the technology is simultaneously easy and complex. The simple part is that a printer adds layer upon layer of one or more substances to create some type of object. The object is described as part of a drawing. Of course, the drawing must indicate all sorts of things in addition to the overall appearance of the 3D object, including which substances to use and what color to make them as needed. Creating a precise description of everything needed to create a real world object can be a complex undertaking and some objects defy simple description.

As with any new technology, 3D printing has plenty of hype surrounding it (such as the printer being able to pay for itself in as little as a year). In fact, hype is a problem because it builds unrealistic expectations. Anything you read about 3D printing today is in an experimental stage for the most part. John Dvorak explores the problems with the hype in his post, “Enough With the 3D Printer Hype Already.” Yes, creating a gun using a 3D printer is doable, but result isn’t really usable today (tomorrow may be another story). However, I get the feeling that many detractors haven’t read quite as much as they should before making a judgement about 3D printing and the sorts of things it can do.

There are other uses for 3D printing that only large organizations can afford. For example, I read about the use of 3D printing technology to create artificial reefs in the August edition of National Geographic (in the Next section). The printer is the size of a house and produces an 1,100 pound result that really isn’t in the realm of something that most people would want to create. However, it’s a useful output of 3D printing technology that is in use today. In fact, there are many uses for 3D printing today, but it’s important to remember that this technology is in its infancy.

Although many of the uses for 3D printing that you read about are for common objects that we can produce less expensively and with greater precision using other technologies, it’s the uses that aren’t available today that intrigue me most. For example, you can use a 3D printer to create a tiny lithium battery. This battery is the size of a grain of sand. You might wonder where a battery like that might see use. Of course, use in spy gear comes to mind immediately, but a more productive use is in medical equipment where battery size is currently a problem.

In fact, for now at least, the main practical area of 3D printing may be for medical use. There was a recent story that talked about doctors printing an emergency airway tube to save a baby’s life. What most people don’t realize is that hospitals don’t typically carry standard airway tubes in the right size for infants because the number of sizes needed would be quite large. In this case, printing proved to be the only practical way to create an airway tube sized for this particular child.

Of course, not every medical use will save lives in such a dramatic fashion. Many uses will be more mundane. For example, a doctor could print a new ear or a new bone for you when needed. Some of the medical techniques use cells from a person’s own body, which makes the risk of rejection quite small. However, even these articles state that this particular use of 3D printing technology is still experimental. The point though is that the technology is being tried in these areas and the result is something that you can’t easily manufacture.

Creating objects using 3D printers is a reality. The cost of those printers is also decreasing in at least some cases. However, the technology is still quite new and you need to take what you read with a grain of salt. Eventually, you’ll likely see 3D printer technology used in a way that makes those replicators on the Enterprise pale by comparison. Let me know your thoughts about 3D printing technology at [email protected].

 

Social Media Overload?

Because of my involvement in the computer industry, I’m always interested in social, health, monetary, and other effects of using technology. As with any other tool (and technology is a kind of tool), it’s possible to misuse computers and the software that controls them. In this case, I’m talking about any sort of device with a chip inside, including tablets and smartphones. In fact, I’m even including your television and radio here. Every electronic device you own is a kind of tool. Think about it, the main reason to listen to radio is to help you relax or to inform you in some way. When people stop viewing technology as a tool and start viewing it as a requirement for living, the technology becomes a crutch and the person becomes addicted.

I read a post the other day by someone who is obviously addicted to her technology. I found the article, “Social Media Overload” enlightening because it presents a perspective of social media from someone who is younger than me and has likely grown up with the technology. The author talks about having thousands of online friends and some social media users even buy Insta followers and Twitter followers. Of course, my question is whether it’s possible to actually know anything substantial about thousands of people. There are only around 400 people in our small town and I admit to not knowing them all; actually knowing thousands of people seems quite impossible. In fact, it’s hard to know whether some of these people even exist or they’re the figment of someone’s imagination. Using social media in this way seems to favor quantity over quality, where the quality would be incredibly low. It makes me wonder what has happened to the quality relationship of the past. Having thousands of meaningful followers is something that seems more attainable for businesses, organizations, or influencers who have attracted many people to view and consume their content, rather than maintain personal relationships. Utilizing a tool like Nitreo on a platform such as Instagram can help such operations grow their followers (and thus their influence) organically, allowing them to reach more people who will actually care about the things that they do, rather than have followers for followers’ sake.

The part of the post that I found most interesting was the fact that she recommends providing a means to link all of the social media together so that you could view and update all of your information from a central location. The obvious problem seems to elude her-recognizing that the tool has taken over the master and that the master is now the slave of the tool. When you start having to think of ways to manage all of the tools in your inventory, rather than using those tools to perform useful work, the tools have become a problem. It really is time to clear away a bit of the junk so that you can become productive again. A better solution might be to reduce the number of social media in which she participates so that the tool again becomes a tool. She did point out that reducing on social media was tough, and could be tougher for people who believe that they can’t live without. I mean just look at these internet statisitcs and data trends, it is quite clear that we are completely involved with our social media.

I do participate in social media. I’m currently on LinkedIn because it’s a professional network and I feel it’s a good way to get my resume out in public view. Sometimes I provide updates about my current projects. Otherwise, I really don’t see a good reason to use social media when personal contact is so much better. You have to ask yourself whether you’re in charge of your social media or whether the social media is in charge of you. The one exception I have is making adorable TikTok videos with my little daughter. I even buy real Tiktok views to make her feel like the superstar she is! Other than this, my use of social media is very limited.

Like any professional, I put my tools away on occasion and go on vacation. It’s important to rest from your labors so that you can better enjoy them when you do work. I’ve written about my philosophy toward computing in Learning to Unplug. However, it’s important to think about how other professionals use tools when thinking about social media or anything else to do with computers for that matter. Can you imagine a surgeon taking scalpels and performing impromptu surgeries while on vacation? What would you think of a carpenter who takes hammer and nails absolutely everywhere? After all, you never know when you might want to pound a nail or two. This is how I view people who are so addicted to their technology that they can never unplug from it. If you can’t put your technology aside long enough to rest, then you’re addicted and need to do something about it.

How do you view computing, especially when it comes to social media? Has your computing device (no matter what that device might be) come to rule over you? Let me know your thoughts on digital addiction at [email protected].

A Discussion About Green Technology Pollution (Part 2)

I like to report good news on a post whenever I can. Recently I wrote a post entitled, “A Discussion About Green Technology Pollution” that makes it clear that many supposedly green technologies aren’t very green at all. Sometimes you can find a partial solution to a problem, which is the topic of this post. No, the solution isn’t a complete answer to the question of green technology pollution, but it does help. In this case, it appears that a proper response could clean up old pollution, while making it possible to obtain rare earth elements quickly and easily.

During the gold rush (and while performing other mining), the miners threw away what has turned out to be valuable rocks. Yes, the tailings contain rare earth metals in at least some cases. If things work out well, mining companies could go to these old sites of pollution and clean up the mess, while making a profit. The rare earth metals needed for luxury items, such as cell phones, and alternative energy sources, such as solar panels, are available in plain sight. This is one of those stories where one person’s junk turns into another person’s treasure.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about this particular story as of yet. It could be that the government and industry are still in talks about what can be done. In an ideal scenario, a company would come in and clean up both the pollution generated by the mine and those valuable tailings. Selling the rare earth metals contained in the tailings would generate income for the company and reduce our reliance on rare earth metals coming from China.

However, even if everything works absolutely perfectly, it still isn’t a complete solution. Processing the rare earth metals causes significant pollution. Cleaning up the tailings to obtain the rare earth metals they contain would solve one problem, but processing those tailings would create another, more substantial, pollution problem. The pollution will happen whether the source of the raw material is rock from a new mine or rock from tailings, so this scenario does reduce overall pollution.

The important thing to remember is that processing materials creates pollution. When you choose a supposedly green technology, you need to remember that it really isn’t all that green. The processing of materials for that green technology generates heaps of long-lasting pollution that fouls rivers and makes entire sections of land completely unusable for growing food. Any step we can take toward reducing the pollution these green technologies cause is a good thing and reusing these tailings seems (at least on the surface) like such a step.

I’d be interested in hearing about any additional information you have on the topic. Especially important would be knowing how the government and industry eventually decide to use these tailings and whether we end up with a perfect scenario that truly does clean up some of those old mining sites. Let know what you hear at [email protected].

 

Understanding the Maturing of the Command Line

A number of people have asked me why I’ve written several different command line reference books. The answer is that each book serves a different market. Serving reader needs is a quest of mine. As reader needs change, I also change my books to better meet those needs. The command line may seem static, but reader needs have changed over the years because of the way in which the command line is perceived and the new commands added to it.

The most popular of the set, Windows Command-Line Administration Instant Reference, provides the reader with quick access to the most commonly used commands. In addition, this book emphasize examples over documentation, so you see how to use a command, but don’t necessarily get every detail about it (only those that are used most often). This book is mainly designed to assist administrators. With this group in mind, the book also provides a good overview of batch files and scripting. The point is to provide something small that an administrator can easily carry around.

A second command line reference, Administering Windows Server 2008 Server Core, is designed to meet the needs of those who use Microsoft’s Spartan Server Core operating system. The book includes a number of special features for this audience, such as instructions on getting hard to install software to work in this environment. This is also the only book that discusses how to use Mono to overcome .NET Framework limitations in this environment. Even though the title specifies Windows Server 2008 Server Core, the book has also been tested with Windows Server 2012 Server Core. The point of this book is to allow you to get all of the speed, reliability, and security benefits of Server Core installations without all of the hassle that most administrators face.

My third command line reference, Windows Administration at the Command Line for Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000, serves the general needs of administrators and power users. This book is intended to help anyone use the command line more efficiently. It provides a little more hand holding and considerable more detail about all of the available commands than my other two books. This is also the only book that discusses PowerShell.

The PowerShell portion of this third book has received a lot more attention as of late. Microsoft is making a much stronger emphasis on this new version of the command line, so I’m glad I included it in my book. One of the strong suites of this book is that it not only discusses documented commands, but many undocumented commands as well (with the appropriate caveats, of course).

No matter which version of my command line reference you use, I’m always here to answer your questions about my books. How do you interact with the command line? Has PowerShell taken a more prominent role in the way you do your work? Let me know at [email protected].

 

A New Emphasis On Libraries

I’ve been talking with a friend about libraries recently. He had noted that the only people he had seen using libraries lately were older; that children had no desire whatsoever to even enter a library. Of course, this bodes ill for the institution because the youth of today will be the supporters of libraries tomorrow. However, his observations don’t match my own. Our local libraries seem to be packed with children. In fact, I saw three children standing outside our local library the other day while waiting for the doors to open. The difference in these two observations has me quite curious.

The way in which people use libraries has always interested me because these public warehouses of knowledge are essential to a functioning society. People require some method of accessing exotic or expensive texts—especially people who have limited means. The way in which libraries present information to the public will change in the future, but I have no doubt they will remain. In fact, I’ve touched on this topic before in my “Future of Libraries?” post. Before a future kind of library can take shape, however, the children of today must be engaged in the materials that a library can provide and see these materials as useful.

The two of us are still discussing the topic of libraries because the differences in our observations provide good fodder for discourse on the topic. My thought is that the differences in our observations could come from a number of sources:

 

  • A difference in the community (small town versus large city)
  • Differences in the society (such as, beach community versus Midwest farming community)
  • Times of observation
  • Motivation level of the librarians manning the library
  • Perceived value of the library’s content


Our local library is blessed with a great librarian and strong support from volunteers who truly care that we have a library. For example, we actually host events at our library to get people engaged and to enter the building so they can see what the library has to offer. The state has also been running ads to help support the local libraries and those ads may be boosting the number of people the library sees. Whatever the difference, I’m truly happy to see children waiting for the doors to open at our community library.

Of course, I always want to hear your opinion. What level of participation do you see at your local library? Who goes there and what seems to interest them most? What do you see as factors that affect participation in your local library? Let me know your thoughts at [email protected]

 

An Unreasonable Expectation of Privacy

We live in a social world. Knowing a bit of something about someone has always carried with it a certain level of perceived power. The more private that something is, the more power the monitoring entity thinks is at stake. The fact that someone is monitoring someone else at all times shouldn’t surprise you at all. People are nosy, as a result, organizations are nosy as well. Curiosity is a basic factor in our makeup.

I’ve written about the issues regarding social media before. In fact, I made a specific post about the dangers of online social media in my Social Networking Traps post. Of course, none of this means that I think people or organizations are correct in monitoring others. What I’m saying is that the monitoring will occur whether it’s correct or not, legal or not. Yes, we could (and should) pass laws to reduce any organization’s (including the government’s) ability to use knowledge gained during unauthorized snooping against us, but the fact is that the snooping will continue unabated until there are no humans left to snoop.

It isn’t as if any of this is new. Reading history (any history) shows that people, organizations, and governments have snooped for all of recorded history. In a best case scenario, the snooping was offset by the institution of laws that limit the use of snooping. However, even then, some level of snooping has always been allowed. Legal snooping whitewashes the act and makes it appear legitimate, but in reality, it’s still snooping.

Of course, some snooping has paid off in the form of reduced crime or possibly the saving of someone’s dignity, but by and large snooping does more harm than good. Unfortunately, the damage done by snooping will continue. Whether it’s the government prying into our affairs or a neighbor who is keen on hearing about an indiscretion, someone will be monitoring you at all times.

There is one perfect answer to all this. If you want to keep something secret, then don’t tell anyone about it. People are unlikely to follow the advice. We’re social and we just have to tell someone. The second a secret, any secret, leaves our lips, the expectation of privacy should go down. The more people we tell (or are told by those we tell), the less secret something becomes until there is no expectation of privacy at all.

In this day of computers that can record anything perfectly and electronics that can snoop anywhere, it’s reasonable to expect that the government (or some other organization) is snooping on you. What will need to happen is that we’ll have to limit the ability of organizations to use the information obtained from snooping to harm others. The snooping will take place, but we can make it harder to use that information in a destructive manner.

Technology has brought us a considerable number of positives—everything from longer lives to being able to use those lives more fully. However, as users of technology, we have to keep in mind that it has always been easier to destroy than to create. The very technology that enables us to do so many interesting things is just as easily turned against us. What we need to do now is exercise vigilance and use technology wisely. Just as you wouldn’t stick your hand in a fire on the stove, but would use that same fire to cook your food, you need to use technology for the positive purposes for which it was designed. Let me know your thoughts on snooping at [email protected].

 

No, I Don’t Know Everything

A reader was taken aback the other day when I uttered the words, “I don’t know.” Three little words (actually four, since one of them is a contraction) seemed to send this poor soul reeling. As an author, I often need to utter those words because it’s a fact that I truly don’t know everything. If I did, life would be boring because there would be no challenge. Looking at the situation logically, there isn’t any way for me to read the daily output of millions of computer scientists—it’s physically impossible. Comprehending and remembering all that output would be a gargantuan task inconceivable in its execution. Keeping up with a modicum of that output is still an immense undertaking, but one I do with joy and a desire to know more.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a societal enmity toward those words. For a professional to utter, “I don’t know” seems to diminish the professional’s stature both with peers and those the professional serves. We expect our professionals to have answers (the correct ones) at all times, which is clearly unattainable. Yet, uttering those words requires courage and someone uttering them should be admired for being truthful, at least.

Of course, uttering the words and doing something about the utterance are two different situations. Generally, after uttering the phrase, I feel obliged to do something about it, assuming that the question is within my purview of interests (which range widely). Most professionals, curiosity piqued, will delve into the abyss and come back with an answer after some period of study. However, by that time the questioner has often pursued other interests, leaving the professional to wonder whether the question really was important.

The answer is always important, if for no other reason than the professional has added new knowledge and opened new avenues of intellectual exploration. Even so, a little patience on the part of the questioner would have been nice. Any voyage of discovery takes time, no matter how mundane the trip might appear at first. In fact, many of my most memorable discoveries came as the result of a seemingly routine question on the part of a reader.

When I utter the words, “I don’t know” to you as a reader, it doesn’t mean I lack experience or knowledge—it simply means that I haven’t yet explored the area of information you desire. In many cases, I’ll take time at some point to explore the area and present you with my opinion on it, but you’ll have to be patient until I’m able to discover the answer for you. In the meantime, it’s my hope that you’ll continue to ask questions that cause me to utter, “I don’t know.”

 

Limitations of the FindStr Utility

Readers have noted that I use the FindStr utility quite often. This utility is documented in both Windows Command-Line Administration Instant Reference and Administering Windows Server 2008 Server Core (and also appears a host of my other books). At the time I wrote that documentation, I had no idea of how much comment this particular utility would generate. I’ve written a number of posts about it, including Accessing Sample Database Data (Part 3), Understanding Line-, Token-, and String-Based Command Line Utilities, Using the FindStr Utility to Locate Errors in Visual Studio, and Regular Expressions with FindStr. It might be possible that people think that this utility is infallible, but it most certainly has limits. Of course, the FindStr utility is line-based and I’ve already documented that limitation. However, it has other limitations as well.

The most important limitation you must consider is how FindStr works. This utility works with raw files. So, you can use it to look inside executable files and locate those produced by a specific organization as long as the file contains unencrypted data. When an executable relies on obfuscation or other techniques to render the content less viewable by competitors, the strings that you normally locate using FindStr might become mangled as well—making them invisible to the utility. In practice, this particular problem rarely happens, but you need to be aware that it does happen and very likely will happen when the executable file’s creator has something to hide (think virus).

Another problem is that FindStr can’t look inside archives or other processed data. For example, you can’t look inside a .ZIP file and hope to locate that missing file. You might initially think that there is a way around this problem by using the functionality provided in Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows to look inside archive files and treat them as folders. However, this functionality only exists within Windows Explorer. You can’t open a command prompt inside an archive file and use FindStr with it.

Recently, a reader had written me about his Office installation. Previously, he had used FindStr to locate specific files based on their content—sometimes using content that wasn’t searchable in other ways. This feature suddenly stopped working and the reader wondered why. It turns out that .DOC files are raw, while .DOCX files are archives. Change the extension of a .DOCX file to .ZIP and you’ll suddenly find that your ZIP file utilities work great with it. Old Office files work well with FindStr—new files only work if you save them in .DOC format.

Another reader wrote to ask about network drives. It seems that the reader was having a problem locating files on a network drive unless the drive was mapped. This actually isn’t a limitation, but you do have to think about what you want to do. Let’s say you’re looking for a series of .DOC files on the C drive (with a shared name of Drive C) of a server named WinServer in the WinWord folder that contain the word Java in them. The command would look like this: FindStr /m /s “Java” “\\WinServer\Drive C\WinWord\*.doc”. When using network drives, you must include the server name, the share name, the path, and the file specification as part of the command. Otherwise, FindStr won’t work. What I have found though is that FindStr works best with Windows servers. If you try to use it with another server type, you might experience problems because FindStr won’t know how to navigate the directory structure.

There is a real limit on the length of your search string. Another reader wrote with this immense search string and wondered why FindStr was complaining about it. The utility appears to have a search string length limit of 127 characters (found through experimentation and not documented—your experience may differ). The workaround is to find a shorter search string or to perform multiple searches (refining the search by creating a more detailed file specification). If you can’t use either workaround, then you need to write an application using something like VBScript to perform the task.

These are the questions that readers have asked most about. Of course, I want to hear your question about limitations as well. If you encounter some strange FindStr behavior that affects my book’s content in some way, please be sure to write at [email protected].

 

A Discussion About Green Technology Pollution

I’ve discussed various methods of saving money while consuming less electricity (thereby reducing the amount of pollution that a typical home generates locally) several times in the past. The two most popular posts on the issue are CFLs for Free and More on CFL Usage. It’s true, using Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) reduces local use of electricity, reducing local pollution and saving money. However, no one has proven they really are greener than using incandescent bulbs after examining all of the evidence. The problem is production. Producing a lightbulb of any sort also creates pollution.

Looking at a CFL, you have the glass, which possesses the same ability to pollute (and at about the same amount) as an incandescent bulb. There is also the mercury contained within a CFL, but burning an incandescent bulb actually outputs more mercury into the environment when you rely on coal fired electrical plants. On the other hand, if the electrical source is nuclear, wind, solar, or natural gas powered, then CFLs are a definite loser when it comes to mercury. You must also consider the wiring within the bulb and the base used to screw it into a light socket. Both of these items pollute, but generally at the same or a reduced amount as an incandescent bulb.

However, none of the articles I’ve ever read consider another important issue. CFLs contain electronics. Producing those electronics creates an enormous amount of pollution. Organizations such as the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) will tell you that electronics are hardly clean and they do produce some extremely toxic side effects. Plus, the devices continue to pollute after we’re done with them. Because of the strict environmental laws in the United States, much of the most toxic production is now performed in China or Mexico.

Unfortunately, the production pollution is just the tip of the iceberg. Many of these devices also require the use of rare earths, which produce pollution so toxic that all of the mines in America were shut down until it was discovered that we needed one for strategic purposes. (The last mine, the Mountain Pass rare earth mine, was closed in 2002 after a series of radioactive tailing spills.) So, we’re opening (actually, reopening) one of these pollution super sites in the making in order to keep China from having a monopoly.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that green technology isn’t very green. In fact, what we’re really doing in many cases is moving the pollution to someone else’s yard instead of our own. Even so, after reading about the topic intensely, it appears that CFLs are still a good idea and that they do, in fact, reduce the overall pollution of the planet. The lesson though is that it’s important to embrace green technologies with the idea that they aren’t really green and then discuss just where the pollution goes after you start using them. For example, ethanol production will remain a major pollution producer (not a pollution solution) in my book because it really does cause significant damage to the planet. What ethanol does is move the pollution to someone else’s doorstep—making it the worst sort of pollution.

There are also significant questions about both solar and wind power. In both cases, you have pollution created by electronics production and the use of rare earths. Additional pollution is caused when these two forms of power actually reduce the efficiency of power plants that are needed when solar or wind sources are unavailable.

This brings me to new technologies. Scientists are experimenting with all sorts of new ways to produce energy that is cleaner. Recently I read about an artificial leaf that produces power using photosynthesis—the same technique used by plants. However, like many other techniques for producing power, this one relies on electronics and will therefore contribute to pollution somewhere. The issue is whether the pollution is less than other techniques of producing power now. This technology has promise because it appears that it uses less silicon than solar panels. In addition, it’s less expensive than solar energy and there is the potential to reduce costs more. The part that intrigues me most about this particular new technology is that its output is easily stored in a form that doesn’t require constant replacement of batteries. The output is hydrogen and oxygen, both of which can be stored using tanks and then released as needed. The combination of lower cost and low-technology energy storage could make this new method a much better deal than wind or solar power.

People keep looking at the technologies we have now as an end point. Yes, they are an end point, but one that is at the beginning of the route needed to produce truly clean energy, not the end of the road. Many scientists suggest now that the existing clean energy sources actually produce more pollution than the fossil fuel sources they’re designed to replace—we need to do better. The artificial leaf is an example of the kind of technology we could see in the future. Yes, it still pollutes, but possibly at a much lower level than anything to date and it doesn’t require anything special to use it.

What is your take on green technology and pollution? Have you considered issues such as the pollution generated during production and post usage, and the overall effect of using a technology on the system as a whole? Let me know your thoughts on the matter at [email protected].