Computer Energy Consumption Figures in USA

One of the most frequently used key combinations to log off a PC is ‘Ctrl+Alt+Del’. But every time we do this and walk away, the computer remains on and consumes energy, resulting in wastage of both money and power.

Not just that, the power consumed by your PC also adds to global warming! A 65 watt power processor in a computer consumes about 234 KW power if it works for 12 hours a day for 300 days. If there are an estimated 15 million PCs in USA, then it could result in consumption of 35.25 terra watts of power a year— which means a whopping 4,92,748,000 barrels of oil to produce that amount of energy. This is just one aspect of the energy crunch faced by many countries like USA, Canada, UK, India and others.
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Tips on better PC power management

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program touts figures estimating that people can save $25 to $75 in energy costs a year (roughly 400 to 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions) by taking these measures.

Energy Saving Tips:
• Increase your RAM to reduce disk usage
• If you’ve set your computer to go into sleep mode when it’s inactive, make sure of the following: close down on Web pages, since animated banners or other content might keep the system’s sleep mode from activating, show down any games or applications that will keep the computer “active”
• Unplug peripherals that are plugged directly into the computer
• Disconnect any virtual private networks
• Unplug power supplies that aren’t being used, since they will still draw power
• Use wired mice and keyboards instead of wireless ones
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Strategic steps down the green IT path

Guidance from Forrester Research, along with real-world examples, shed light on the precarious path toward sustainability

Vendor and analysts can talk about the benefits of pursuing sustainable IT practices until they're blue (or green) in the face. The difficulty at this point isn't necessarily understanding the potential benefits for going green; it's knowing where to start and how to proceed.

Fortunately, organizations with expertise on the subject are stepping forward to dispense and demonstrate guidance down the green path. Among them are organizations such as The Green Grid, vendors such as Sun, HP, and Fujitsu, and research companies such as Gartner and Forrester Research. Forrester, in fact, recently released a report titled "Creating the Green IT Action Plan." As the title suggests, it provides high-level advice on the subject.

The first step companies need to take, Forrester recommends, is identifying and prioritizing your goals. That task in and of itself can demonstrate just how complex a green transformation can be.

For example, your goal might be business-oriented, such as reducing electricity consumption or making better use of existing IT equipment. Then again, your main objective may be geared more toward CSR (corporate social responsibility) and environmental stewardship, such as reducing your carbon footprint, and meeting current and future environmental standards.

Tangentially, Gartner's recent report "Conflating Lean and Green Is Unwise" notes that there may be crossovers between the lean objectives and the green ones, but in general, it's best not to lump them together.

Once you know what goals you want to achieve, the next step is assessment, Forrester recommends. It's like joining a gym on Jan. 1 to fulfill a drunken New Year's resolution to get in shape. First, you submit yourself to a series of prods, pokes, pinches, and a weighing to determine how out of shape you are. That way, if you stick to your regimen, you can go through it again in a couple of months to determine how far you've progressed. (Pants falling down to your ankles as you stride down the hallway is another indicator.)

Where was I? Oh, assessment. Your assessment steps will, of course, reflect the objectives you've set. For example, if you're aiming to reduce energy waste in the datacenter, you might measure the facilities PUE (power usage effectiveness), a measurement devised by The Green Grid consortium that's gaining popularity in the IT world. To measure PUE, divide your total facility power by IT equipment power.

By Green Grid's estimates, "PUEs range from rating of 1.3 (77 percent of the total power supplied to the data center is used to power data processing equipment) to a poor ratio of 3.0 (33 percent of total power actually reaches the IT equipment)," according to the Forrester report.

On the CSR side of the spectrum, Forrester suggests you examine your supply chain and procurement process. The supply chain indeed plays direct and indirect roles in your company's overall green picture, a fact not lost on companies such as HP. The company goes to great lengths to ensure its suppliers don't use chemicals that would violate stringent regulations such as ROHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), which protects HP's bottom line. But it also goes so far as to train its suppliers in places such as China to embrace better environmental and social practices, because it reflects HP's own corporate values.

One other critical piece of advice from Forrester on the subject of assessment: Specify IT's organizational role. "A crucial part of that is identifying the leadership and execution role of IT relative to facilities, HR, legal, and marketing. Green IT must also be explicitly aligned with CSR and other green initiatives including regulatory compliance and reporting. And green IT efforts must fit with the technology organization's anticipated budget and capacity trajectory as dictated by the growth-of-business requirements," the report says.

As a third overall step in crafting your blueprint for a sustainable IT action plan, Forrester recommends going after the low-hanging green fruit; that is, the quick, easy, relatively low-cost steps toward cutting waste. There are plenty of opportunities here: improve datacenter cooling and airflow; cut print waste; and power down PCs and monitors at the end of the day. Savings here can add up, plus they set the tone organization-wide for a green evolution.

Finally, step four. And watch this step, because it's a doozy: "Craft and communicate an action plan." The communication bit is less daunting: It's a matter of effectively promoting the eco-ambitions to employees through various channels, and making sure they're engaged.

But an action plan itself is a complex document. Forrester recommends breaking it down into four components: "revising processes and metrics; optimizing efficiency of existing IT assets; revamping architecture and infrastructure; and [and] positioning IT to enable green business practices."

Revising processes and metrics is pretty clear and highly important. If your goal, for example, is to reduce electricity consumption, you might want to "forge links between IT and facilities" to measure energy consumption and devise methods to measure it. Another procedural shift, drawing from the green supply chain concept, is to review CSR requirements for your suppliers and the methods you use to measure whether your suppliers are meeting them.

Optimizing efficiency of existing IT assets alludes to making the most out of the hardware you already have. Depending on your goals, it might mean a server virtualization project, a storage-consolidation effort, or implementing a system for managing PC power consumption.

Somewhat related, "revamping architecture and infrastructure" means investing in new facilities and gear to meet a green tech goal. If reducing energy consumption is a high priority, you might consider moving from a PC-based office to a thin-client-based office. Building or consolidating an entire datacenter -- a project we've seen companies such as Sun and HP recently undertake -- also fall under this category.

Last on the action-plan list, there's "positioning IT to enable green business practices." This point relates to in-house technology investments that result in a green (and potentially lean) payoff. Examples might include investing in a teleconference solution to reduce environmentally unfriendly air travel or "looking at alternative energy technologies and suppliers," as Fujitsu recently did with the investment in a hydrogen fuel cell.

All told, I commend Forrester on this report, and I've just scratched the surface here of the document. Over the past several months, we've all read about the various technologies, practices, and projects out there that companies are using in the hopes of becoming green organizations. The report is an important reminder that, tempting as it may be to start throwing resources around to reap rewards of sustainability, planning, assessing, monitoring and procedural changes are critical -- and IT has a central role to play in it all.

src: http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2007/10/strategic_steps.html
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Recycling initiative at Sharjah Colleges

I was delighted to read your story on the hazards of electronic waste and how it can be safely disposed of. It was auspicious that your article appeared in 7-days on the same day we in Sharjah Colleges (HCT) announced the opening of our PC recycling centre.

I have been teaching a PC hardware course at Sharjah Men's College for the past 4 years and every year we end up with a mish-mash of working/broken PC components which just pile up as unwanted junk in our stores. So this year, we decided that we could maybe patch together enough working components to make a few working PCs which we would donate to local schools or charities.

Our students have been so enthusiastic about the project that I am having to beg them to go home at 8pm at night! At present our efforts have been focused on staff and students within the college and the response has been overwhelming!

To date, we have built 12 working PCs and we will be making our first donation next week. Our students will decide which school/centre is most in need of our help. Students also plan to offer on-site support and training to staff in the various schools.

The project has suited perfectly, not only with our curriculum and the goals of our college ( a technology-training college), but it has also served to make our students more environmentally aware. They are now totally au-fait with the harm caused by incorrect disposal of PC hardware and of the difficulty ordinary people face when they try to dispose of these items themselves.

They are also very conscious now of how lucky they are to be students at a college which is so wonderfully resourced for their use!

src: http://www.7days.ae/cj2_story.php?id=189
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Green Computer: FAQ2

FAQ. I want to "green" my small office to become carbon neutral. How can I reduce my computing carbon footprint?

Ans. PCs have a carbon footprint by the use of electricity and production of heat. You can't do much about the tonnes of water, energy and raw materials that go into making a PC, but you can opt to buy computers that use fewer resources to manufacture and less energy to run. For example, laptops tend to be much more efficient with raw material, are designed to consume less energy and create less heat. So if you have an older PC with a CRT monitor it is time to dispose of this for a new, lean, green model. How much carbon will you save? Some suggest older PCs generate about 100kg a week or 5.2 tonnes a year, which is roughly equal to 10 trees.

Printers waste paper and some produce copious amounts of ozone (lasers), and they use inks and toners, some harmful to the atmosphere. To reduce paper, buy a printer that duplexes (prints on both sides). Choose printers that have multi-functions (print, fax, scan, copy) as these generally use less electricity than standalone devices. Finally, buy more environmentally friendly printers. Energy Star ratings have been introduced in the US (www.energystar.gov) and Australia will soon follow. Greening IT is part of a wider plan. Reduce, recycle and reuse is the mantra and the sooner we all start thinking about it and doing something the better.

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Lenovo ships out green, thin 19-inch L193p LCDs

Lenovo today upgraded its ThinkVision displays with a trio of 19-inch LCDs that help meet green targets and occupy little space on a desk. The standard-ratio L193p is the first LCD to meet the EPEAT environmental standard that demands both a low power draw as well as eco-friendly materials. More than a quarter of the screen is made from recycled material, Lenovo boasts. It includes both a DVI port with HDCP encryption support and VGA for analog video and should be available next month for $299.

As an alternative, the L190x is designed for multi-monitor layouts, according to the PC maker. Also a standard-aspect LCD, the second model touts a bezel just 0.26 inches thick and creates a much less conspicuous gap. Though less environmentally responsible, it compensates with a 1,500:1 contrast ratio, a wide color range, and four USB ports to attach virtually every peripheral without reaching down to connect them to a tower. It also releases in November for $379.

One widescreen display joins the lineup. The L194w shifts to a 1440x900 landscape view with a 1,000:1 contrast ratio and both HDCP-protected DVI and VGA inputs that suit it to viewing 720p HD video. Pricing for the display positions it as the least expensive of the three ThinkVisions, costing $259 when it ships in November.

Src: http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/10/23/lenovo.thinkvision.19.inch/
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Hitachi Announces New Approach to Green Hard Drives

Hard drive manufacturers seem increasingly determined that their component not be the cause of serious draws on system power. Western Digital recently began shipping its Green Power line of hard drives. And now, the latest news comes from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, which today announces new models that feature significant power consumption refinements.

Hitachi takes a very different approach towards power consumption as compared with its competitor. Hitachi's introduction is simply its latest line of one- and two-platter drives, the Deskstar P7K500. The drives have up to 250GB per platter, and are available in 250GB, 320GB, 400GB, and 500GB capacities, in either Parallel ATA or Serial ATA flavors.

Unlike WD, which varies the rotations-per-minute of its Green Power drive, the Hitachi drives maintain 7200rpm across the board. "7200 rpm is what our desktop customers want," says Lee Johnson, 3.5-inch product marketing manager at Hitachi. With regard to power consumption, "our specs are up to 59 percent better than the competition. We've reduced idel power by 40 percent as compared with our previous drives, the T7K500."

Johnson says that Energy Star 4.0 played a role in Hitachi's current push to reduce power consumption. The hard drive typically uses 7 watts of power-- about 14 percent of the overall system requirement for a an Energy Star-compliant PC. Reducing power consumption has other advantages, too--lower power translates into lower heat, which in turn translates into better drive reliability.

In order to achieve significant power savings, Hitachi made several technology changes. For one, it adopted the system-on-chip design from the Travelstar line of 2.5-inch notebook drives, which the company says are already characterized by their low power consumption.

In addition, Hitachi carries its HiVERT voltage regulation technology over from its notebook drives to its desktop drives. "We've improved efficiency by using switching regulators instead of linear regulators as we're converting the voltages down to those used by the electronic components," explains Jim Wong, senior product strategist at Hitachi. "In addition, with this new system-on-chip design, we also have a more power efficient core module for SATA and PATA interfaces."

The final component is Hitachi's sixth-generation approach to power management. Dubbed Advanced Power Management, this system uses load-unload technology, so the heads are unloaded from the disk when the drive is powered off. This process can provide up to 11 percent power savings in a single-platter drive design, and 15 percent power saving in a two-platter design. The other component of Advanced Power Management is referred to as low RPM idle: in this state, the heads are unloaded from disk and the rotational speed of the disk is slowed down to 5400rpm, resulting in up to a 44 percent power savings in the single-platter drive, and 52 percent savings in the two-platter product.

Johnson says Hitachi expects no performance hit on its power friendly hard drives. Instead, she says, she expects the P7K500 drives to be equal to or slightly better in performance to previous generation on desktop PCs.

"Eventually all of our drives will have the low power technologies in these drives," says Johnson.

The drives should be available in the fourth quarter of this year, with no price premium as compared to the current line of same-capacity drives. The MSRP for the P7K500 is $160.

src: http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005740.html
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