3D Printing And Climate Change

Climate change needs to be taken seriously as a force that threatens to significantly alter sea levels, increase extreme weather events, and create potentially massive levels of unimaginable human suffering. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, world governments are slowly coming around to the benefits of 3D printing technologies that can be used in disasters or in preparation for future climate change effects. 3D printing can be cost-effective, practically applied, and reductive of greenhouse gas emissions -- and the U.S. government has the opportunity to commit resources to combatting climate change while empowering people globally to apply 3D printing technology in all of the imaginative ways that we have already seen so many examples of. More on this discussion can be found here: http://3dprint.com/71924/3d-print-climate-change/
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I have expressed the same opinion myself that 3D printers have the potential to substantially reduce wasted energy. And there for reduce carbon emissions.

One of the things not many people mention is how much materials and energy goes into making items that never get used and just end up being disposed of.

Take for instance the automotive industry, by law they are required to keep parts of vehicles available for so many years after they stop making the parts. Used to be 10 years. Think about how much waste goes into making items that may never be used. There's also the energy involved in having those items shipped to other warehouses, they of course need to be stored somewhere wasting storage space energy. Finally they might put into recycling but that still requires energy.

Instead you have a 3d printer and a stock of raw material. Someone needs a part, it gets printed then and only then. It also means that there's no reason that those parts can't be still available when someone needs a part 20, 30 or more years later.

I was at a seminar on 3D printing where one of the professors doing a presentation talked about his travels through poorer countries. He had noticed equipment sitting idle, and sometimes only because the one part they needed to get it working again was no longer available. Makes you wonder how much of the broken stuff we throw away could be easily fixed with just 1 or 2 3d printed parts.

If anyone can make a harmonic drive I can make a perpetual motion cellphone charger
Would you please locate someone to make a harmonic drive for me

Thank you

eventually every rubbish dump in the world will be full of BENCHIES !
What is their point ??????? :-)

On the positive side the maize pla is made from removes co2 from the atmosphere and replaces it with oxygen - that's good for the environment.