Swivel Mount
| Nut Stripping, Plastic Fracture | Cannot Adjust Vertical Directoin Fan Cannot Effectively Circulate Air | 8 | Overtightening, Material Failure | 3 | Overtightened Screw, Force applied on Swivel Area | 1 | 24 | Use Torque Limited Fastening, Using Stronger Plastic | Swivel | - | 8 | 2 | 1 | 16
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Electronics
| Short Circuit | Completely Inoperable | 8 | Exposure to Water | 3 | Water Exposure Testing | 2 | 48 | Waterproof Housing of Electronics | Housing | - | 8 | 1 | 2 | 16
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Design for Environment
The environmental impact of a single oscillating fan may seem negligible. This seemingly innocent arbiter of consumer comfort provides "cool" circulated air in times of great heat, but could one's fan actually be adding to the problem of global warming? Then one must wonder if the release of greenhouse gases by fan manufactures is just a simple ploy to sell more of their product. Putting this circular logic aside for the moment, the environmental impact of oscillating fans will now be analyzed.
As a baseline for all calculations and data, all analysis will be done per million dollars of economic activity. According to NAICS data from 1997, the economic sector responsible for the manufacture of oscillating fans is 335211 Electric Housewares and Household Fan Manufacturing. Data about this and other sectors associated with it are compiled in the Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) database. This utility allows one to locate data and calculate various aspects of economic and environmental activity related to any economic sector. For sector 335211, the sector responsible for most economic activity is itself. This means that most of the money put into the production of fans (and more) is used by the fan producing industry. The other major sectors associated with the economic aspects of production are wholesale trade, management of companies and enterprises, Plastics plumbing fixtures and all other plastics products, and All other forging and stamping (each accountable for fractional amounts of the total capital of the sector).
A major environmental concern related to manufacturing any product is the amount of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants released into the atmosphere. According the the EIO-LCA database, the leading contributer of conventional air pollutants (SO2, NOx, CO, etc.) related to fan manufacture is power generation, producing over half of all pollutants (power used to create components, etc.). The next closest is the Electric Housewares and Household Fan Manufacturing sector. These two individually contribute the most relative to all other sectors, and it is the remaining 490 associated sectors that produce about 1/5 of the gases released. Totals for emissions are given as about 2 million tons of SO2, over 7 million tons of CO, and 1.6 million tons of NOx compounds, among others. Results for greenhouse gases (specifically CO2, CH4, CFC's, and N2O) are similar. Power generation produces roughly 1/3 of all CO2 release associated with the fan manufacture. Other large producers are truck transportation, steel mills, and of course, the fan manufacturing sector itself. About 600 million tons of CO2 are released for every million dollars of fans produced.
The largest single producer of toxic wastes related with the fan sector is itself, contributing about 1/5 of the several tons of toxic waste released per million dollars of product. Many of these releases are associated with the many plastic components used in fans. Not surprisingly, the plastics sector takes second place in this category. About half of all toxins released are related to most of the smaller sectors involved in production.
These environmental considerations have just taken the production of fans within this sector into account. The environmental impact of the use of the fans will now be considered. For this analysis, some estimations will be used. Taking an average price for a common household oscillating fan such as the one analyzed as $50.00, the total number of fans per million dollars is 20000. The average power consumed during normal use is about 40W. During peak fan use season (Summer, about 90 days)the average fan user likely uses the product for 3 hours a day. 40W * 3h * 90days * 20000fans = 216 million kWh of power consumed by fans. According to EIO-LCA data, the total amount of energy consumed in producing this amount of fans is about 0.5 million kWh.
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