Are e-books green? No open and shut case

ROBERT KITCHIN/The Dominion Post

BESTSELLER? E-books will be on sale at Whitcoulls' Lambton Quay store on Thursday.

Opinion poll

Will you switch to reading e-books?

I already have

No, I prefer paper

Maybe in a year or two

I'll give them a go and see

I don't read books

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Experts are at odds over whether Whitcoulls' launch of e-books this week will be good or bad for the environment.

From Thursday, two million e-books will be available from the Whitcoulls website.

Whitcoulls will also sell the Kobo e-reader, a device designed for reading electronic books, but the e-books can be downloaded and read on personal computers, smartphones such as the iPhone and tablet devices such as the iPad.

A study by United States research and media firm Cleantech Group found carbon emissions from electronic books were far lower than from traditional book publishing. On average, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of an Amazon Kindle e-reader would be fully offset after the first year of use, and any additional years of use would result in net carbon savings of about 168 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year, it said. That assumed people would otherwise buy 22 new books a year.

However, the study found e-readers were not squeaky clean. Production of a Kindle created 168kg of carbon dioxide compared with 7.46kg for a book. But e-readers also require electricity to run and are not as environmentally friendly to dispose of as paper-based books.

A New York Times "life-cycle assessment" of books and e-readers found traditional books were by far the greener option.

One e-reader required the extraction of 15kg of minerals and 265 litres of water to produce its batteries and printed circuit boards, it said, while a book used 0.3kg of minerals and only 7.5 litres of water. Manufacturing an e-reader consumed 100 kilowatt hours of electricity and generated 30kg of carbon dioxide, while a book consumed two kilowatt hours and produced 100 times fewer greenhouse gases.

People who enjoy reading in bed at night would be better off with an e-reader – which typically has an energy-efficient screen – because lightbulbs consume more energy.

Other studies sit on the fence, but generally recommend visiting a library or a second-hand bookstore as the greenest way to get a literary fix.

Borders in Australia, also owned by Whitcoulls owner, the REDGroup, launched an e-book service last week.

It is selling the Kobo e-reader for A$199 (NZ$249), and e-books cost between A$10 and A$15 (NZ$12.50 and NZ$18.70). The Australian Publishers Association told the Sydney Morning Herald the "competitive pricing" would feed the appetite for e-books, but the death of the paperback had been overstated.

The iPad has its own e-reader store, iBooks, and will launch in New Zealand in July – when Google will begin selling e-books that can be downloaded to any electronic device.

LIBRARY-GOERS WOULD RATHER STICK WITH PRINT

E-books and e-readers touch down in New Zealand this week, but lunchtime visitors at the Wellington City Library were not thrilled at the prospect.

Chara Sherwood, student, 18: "I'm a student and I can't afford it. With the iPad coming out and stuff it'll probably be something everyone is doing eventually but not right now. I like reading a normal book. It's not even reading a book, it's sitting in front of a computer."

Thomas Gay, recruitment consultant, 31: "I'll probably stick with the old paper books, it's a better reading experience."

Ivan Jakich, accountant, 51: "I think I have got enough technology and books are more tactile. I think books are pretty easily accessible. If you're really mad keen on something you can buy it on Amazon ... and if you don't want to buy, the library has always got something. I use computers all the time. I find I tend to print anything I want to read off anyway."

Heather Ogden, student, 22: "I don't really like reading on a screen. It kind of hurts your eyes after a while."

Jo Maslin, student, 35: "I like a book. I like that they're tactile and something in your hand that's not a computer. I downloaded a PDF [of a book] and started reading it. I liked the book, but I did not like reading it on the screen."

Mike O'Leary, student, 22: "Online books are cool because you don't have to go get them physically, but if you have to buy them I'd rather go to the library. If I was going to pay the money I would probably rather have a physical book to own as opposed to buying a document."

Scott Miller, analyst, 29: "I'm probably not interested, but I'd like to know the cost first. I sit at a computer all day ... the last thing I want to do is have more interaction with technology."

- © Fairfax NZ News