Let’s talk numbers. According to the environmental consulting firm Cleantech, which aggregated a series of studies, a single book generates about 7.5 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents—the value of all its greenhouse gas emissions expressed in terms of the impact of carbon dioxide. That includes production, transport, and either recycling or disposal. (Attention students: Your textbooks are particularly bad, releasing more than double the CO2 equivalents of the average book.)

Apple’s iPad generates 130 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents during its lifetime, according to company estimates. Amazon has not released numbers for the Kindle, but independent analysts put it at 168 kg. Those analyses do not indicate how much additional carbon is generated per book read (as a result of the energy required to host the e-bookstore’s servers and power the screen while you read), but they do include the full cost of manufacture, which likely accounts for the lion’s share of emissions. (The iPad uses just three watts of electricity while you’re reading, far less than most light bulbs.) If we can trust those numbers, then, the iPad pays for its CO2 emissions about one third-of the way through your 18th book. You’d need to get halfway into your 23rd book on Kindle to get out of the environmental red.

So far, electronic readers—not the machines, in this case, but their owners—are far surpassing that pace. Forrester Research estimates that the average user purchases three books per month. At that rate, you could earn back your iPad’s carbon dioxide in just six months.

» via Slate

Feds to colleges: If you require students to use electronic-book readers that blind people can’t access, you may be running afoul of the law.

That was the message of a letter released to college presidents Tuesday by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

“It is unacceptable for universities to use emerging technology without insisting that this technology be accessible to all students,” the letter warns.

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

Hopes were high last fall when the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle DX was distributed to a group of students at seven universities around the country in a classroom pilot program for the electronic reader. With students able to download class materials and textbooks easily onto the slender 10.2-ounce device, many thought the era of carrying heavy textbooks would soon be over. Just a few months later, their hopes were dashed, as students reported that the Kindle was a poor replacement for a textbook, hard to use in the classroom, and difficult to navigate.

“It’s an amazing device for recreational reading, but it’s not quite ready for prime time in higher education,” says Daniel Turner, associate dean of the masters and executive education programs at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business (Foster Full-Time MBA Profile), one of the schools that participated in the pilot.

» via BusinessWeek

Speaking Tuesday at the online retailer’s annual shareholder meeting in Seattle, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said that adding color to the Kindle’s “electronic ink” display is a difficult technical challenge and that a color screen is “still a long way out.” Bezos said he’s seen things “in the laboratory” that are “still not ready for prime-time production.”

» via Yahoo! News

Despite a delay of its first and only product, the QUE proReader, Plastic Logic has said it plans on beginning mass production of its successor. It would sport a color e-ink display, with manufacturing slated for late in 2011 and a commercial release sometime in 2012. The color panel will be based on Plastic Logic’s own technology, developed in its Cambridge laboratory.

» via electronista

I don’t know why every bookseller seems compelled to come out with its own e-reader. An e-bookstore, sure, but not the device.

Nevertheless, you can now place orders for Borders’ “Kobo.” It costs $149, and Borders (BGP) promises that you can have in one your hands by June 17. Kobo is a standalone company, but Borders is an investor.

» via All Things Digital