Tag: environment

OM Podcast #31: The Impact of AI on Jobs and on the Environment

In our latest podcast, Barry Render interviews Charlie Render, President of Render Analytics, which helps businesses of all kinds implement AI.  Charlie is also the creator of the popular job-search engine, Apply Genie (ApplyGenie.ai). In this episode, Barry and Charlie discuss the impact of AI on the environment and on jobs.

 

 

Transcript

A Word document of this podcast will download by clicking the word Transcript above.

 

Charlie Render

Have you subscribed to this podcast on Apple podcasts? Just go to your Apple podcasts app, search “Heizer Render OM Podcast,” and subscribe to get all

Prof. Barry Render
Prof. Barry Render

our podcasts on your mobile device as soon as they come out!

Instructors, assignable auto-graded exercises using this podcast are available in MyLab OM. See our earlier blog post with a recording of author and user Chuck Munson to learn how to find these, or contact your Pearson rep to learn more! https://www.pearson.com/en-us/help-and-support/contact-us/find-a-rep.html

Guest Post: Pollution as an Operations Management Issue

Prof. Howard Weiss raises an interesting issue that is in the forefront of many student’s minds.

Recently,
 Shell was sued for air pollution from its plastic plant outside of Pittsburgh
 The German government is being sued for allowing high levels of air pollution
 Monsanto paid $100M dollars to settle a pollution suit for contaminating streams and lakes in Pennsylvania.
Your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook has a graphic (Figure 1.5) on transforming Inputs to Outputs– but perhaps one more output should be added – pollution.

Pollution is an ever-growing global concern that adversely affects the environment and human health. Reducing pollution should be part of the feedback loop. Here are 8 different types of pollution:
1. Air Pollution is one of the most widespread and harmful forms of pollution. Sources include industrial processes, vehicular emissions, agricultural activities, and natural events like wildfires and volcanic eruptions.
2. Water Pollution occurs when contaminants enter water bodies, such as rivers, lakes, oceans, and groundwater. It can stem from various sources, including industrial discharges, agricultural runoff, improper waste disposal, and sewage.
3. Soil or Land Pollution involves the contamination of the Earth’s soil with hazardous substances. This can result from improper disposal of industrial waste, agricultural chemicals, and improper landfill practices. Soil pollution negatively impacts plant and animal life.
4. Noise Pollution is the excessive or disruptive noise that interferes with normal activities, causing stress and potential health issues (and is a topic in Chapter 10). It often originates from transportation, industrial processes, urban development, and recreational activities.
5. Thermal Pollution  occurs when there is a significant alteration of water temperature in natural bodies like rivers or lakes. It commonly results from the discharge of heated water from industrial processes, power plants, or nuclear facilities.
6. Light Pollution involves excessive or misdirected artificial light, which interferes with the natural darkness of the night sky.
7. Plastic Pollution is caused by the improper disposal and accumulation of plastic waste. Plastics persist in the environment for extended periods, harming wildlife and marine ecosystems.
8. Radioactive Pollution  involves the presence of radioactive substances in the environment, often from nuclear power plants, nuclear accidents, or improper disposal of radioactive waste.

Addressing and mitigating these various types of pollution is crucial for safeguarding the environment and public health. Implementing sustainable practices, adopting cleaner technologies, and enforcing regulatory measures ( all topics of Supplement 5) are essential steps toward a cleaner, healthier planet.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How can operations managers address each of these concerns?
  2. Clearly industrial processes create many different types of pollution. What types of pollution do service organizations create?

OM in the News: China’s Dominance in the Rare Earth Supply Chain

The minerals, metals and rare earths needed for the green and digital transitions are shaping up to be the oil of this century—complete with a race to secure raw materials and production capacity at home or in friendly locations.

China has the early lead, writes The Wall Street Journal (March 9, 2023), dominating production of many critical materials including lithium and rare earths. Over the past years, China secured deposits around the world and invested heavily in the domestic manufacturing of clean technologies such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels. As the graph shows, China has a clear lead in the rare earth supply chain.

Western nations have now made it a top priority to secure a supply of these materials. The West has been tempted by the economic opportunity but also chastened by the recent semiconductor shortages, Europe’s efforts to replace Russian energy imports, and Beijing’s support for Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

Going back to President Trump, the U.S. signed executive orders for critical minerals– and has had recent success in starting to build local supply chains. The European Union’s latest effort—a Critical Minerals Act—aims to kick-start mining, processing and recycling in that region. There is one area where the EU act is right on the money—accelerating permitting. Permitting has been a key challenge for companies investing across geographies and sectors including mining, processing, power lines, solar, wind and batteries. In the EU, ambitious permitting reforms appears to be be the biggest hurdle to getting political agreement on that bloc’s local production of EV batteries. Limiting or overriding local opposition is rarely a vote-winning stance.

We may also get a G-7 critical minerals buyers club of the Group of Seven advanced democracies to secure supply from mineral rich countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Reduced Chinese supply—if it happens—will force Western policy makers and voters to face the trade-off between the carbon benefits of wind energy or electric vehicles and the environmental and pollution costs associated with manufacturing those technologies.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why are countries and companies so concerned about “rare earths”?
  2. What is the main benefit in dominating the mineral supply chain?

OM in the News: New York Goes After Cryptocurrency Miners

Bitcoin mines need cheap and plentiful electricity

Bitcoin mining – the process by which powerful computers solve complex mathematical equations to validate transactions is a crucial part of the cryptocurrency economy. And while amateurs could once mine coins at home, the complexity of equations, and the energy needed to solve them, has soared with the growing popularity and value of Bitcoin. We have twice posted blogs regarding cryptocurrency mining and its need for massive computers. (See “Going Crazy with Bitcoin Mining” on Nov. 15, 2021 and “Cryptocurrency’s Damage to the Environment” on April 19, 2021.)

But climate advocates have long said that the value of crypto–mining operations were not worth the environmental costs. The process requires an immense amount of electricity – so much so that China banned the practice last year in an effort to meet its climate goals. 

New York became the first state to enact a temporary ban on new cryptocurrency mining permits at fossil fuel plants, a move aimed at addressing the environmental concerns over the energy–intensive activity, reports the New York Times (Nov. 22, 2022). The move in NY comes months after some other states (Montana and Georgia) and Quebec, Canada had adopted more friendly policies toward the industry, offering tax incentives in hopes of luring crypto-mining operations after China cracked down. “This bill will create the pause we need in the current trend of purchasing old power plants in New York for corporate profits and allow us to properly evaluate the impact of this industry on our climate goals before it is too late,” says a NY State legislator.

But it also comes at a moment of intense turbulence, and a potential crossroads, for the cryptocurrency sector. Earlier this month, the crypto exchange known as FTX suffered a swift and public collapse that led to its declaration of bankruptcy. The fall of what had been a trusted player in the new market has led to broader questions about the future of cryptocurrency.

The Chamber of Digital Commerce, a crypto advocacy group, denounced the NY bill as unfairly targeting the cryptocurrency industry, saying: “To date, no other industry in the state has been sidelined like this for its energy usage. This is a dangerous precedent to set in determining who may or may not use power.” 

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Chapter 8 in your Heizer/Render/Munson text discusses location decisions based on government incentives. Relate that political issue to crypto mining.

2. What is your position on NY’s ban?