Wonderful 3 G's: Google, GE and Green Energy

In a fear-filled 24-hour news cycle, it's necessary to break away from all that negativity and read about some positive news. As you know, there are some very smart people in our country doing some great things and we need to hear more about them...especially these days.

There are many green energy initiatives taking place. I recently read about a particularly interesting effort that I think you'll find interesting too. Did you know that Google is investing a lot of money - in the millions - to change the country’s energy infrastructure more into the likes of the Internet, making energy decentralized and distributed, and possibly saving you and I lots of money?

Partnered with GE in many green initiatives, the company envisions a smart electric grid that would be controlled and monitored by a vast computer network that would determine prices based on real-time supply and demand. If this happens, it will change the way that you and I use and pay for electricity.

For example: Suppose the hot and humid summer months in Georgia creates a spike in electricity usage, and therefore prices. Instead of automatically being hit with higher energy prices, you'll have a device with a user-friendly interface that allows you to click on an icon and power down several of your appliances. GE already has a smart-grid lab that's working out the details of such a scenario. Or how about having a wireless system in your home, car, etc., that would automatically shut down appliances and devices if prices hit certain preset levels? In addition to the above, there's hope that you'll be able to select your own energy plans that are more customized to your needs.

Google's motivation to reduce its energy costs is commendable. And after getting hit with some pretty high electric bills myself during the summer, I'll say I'm pretty giddy about such ideas. Maybe we can find ways to heal the planet and add a little more money in our wallets.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-2938-Atlanta-Web-Examiner~y2009m2d21-Hip-Hip-Hooray-for-the-Gs--Google-GE-and-Green-Energy
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Going Green On "E-Recycling"

With the switch to digital television coming in June, many of you will be buying new TV's. But with lead, mercury and other poisonous materials lurking inside, what do you do with your old one?

For years, Pueblo County officials have been trying to find ways to keep residents from dumping their old electronics in ditches, alleys and fields. But now, thanks to the Eden Transfer and Recycling Center it's easier than ever for you to go green.

"They can't go to the landfill, they can't be disposed of in the dumpsters around town," said Jack Pendleton, owner of Eden Transfer and Recycling Center.

Pendleton has started a one of a kind program to Pueblo County.

"Right now, there is no other place in Pueblo County for people to take their e-waste, or electronic waste, their TV's, computers and monitors," explained Pendleton.

However, being kind to the plane does come with a small fee.

"The price ranges anywhere from 5 dollars to 50 dollars," he explained. "It's finding a place to be able to get rid of the TV's in an environmentally safe way."

Wednesday was the programs first day and already people have brought their TV's and computers to the center and Pendleton hopes, the trend will continue.

"We expect this to take off, and hopefully we will have a place for everyone in the community to bring their TV's," he added.

And if for some reason you can't bring your electronics to the center yourself, no need to worry. Just call Eden Transfer and Recycling and they will arrange to come pick it up for you.

You can reach the Eden Transfer and Recycling Center at (719) 546-3478

Here's a short list of the fees:

Desktop Computer W/ Monitor - $15.00

Computer Tower Only - $5.00

Lap Top Computer - $10.00

Printer/Fax/Scanners - $8.00

VCR/DVD Player - $5.00

TV (up to 20") - $15.00

TV (21" - 30") - $20.00

TV (31" - 40") - $25.00

TV (41" and larger) - $40.00
Flat-screen TV up to 40" - $20.00

Source: http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9868366
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Green Calculators

It’s well known that going green saves money as well as dwindling resources. But how much green, of each kind, is saved?

If you’re not the math type, never fear – several vendors offer "green calculators" that will do the hard work for you. While doing some research for a sister publication, I came across a number of different calculators for finding out how much green you can save through virtualization, and other common-sense steps.

# Novell’s PlateSpin, which makes a number of green technology virtualization products, has a detailed 'go-green' consolidation-based calculator. Simply input factors like number of physical servers, average power consumption per server, cost per kWh, processor utilization before and predicted utilization after consolidation, etc. The calculator spits out at the other end savings in kWh and dollars.

Note that these are rough estimates only. Your mileage can, and almost certainly will, vary, perhaps significantly. But it serves as a good benchmark.

Other large virtualization vendors have similar green calculators, including VMware, which is more basic than PlateSpin’s.

# Avaya has an interesting take on going green. It offers a calculator to tote up the environmental savings by turning commuters into telecommuters. It claims that working from home three days per week saves about 200 gallons of gas per year.

# IT consultancy 1E has an "Energy Savings Calculator" that computes the greening of your business from the simple act of turning off computers not in use. It even translates the savings into reduced carbon emissions and trees.

# The Uptime Institute bills itself as a vendor-neutral organization concerned with increasing efficiency in enterprise settings. It publishes a “True TCO Calculator,” which acts as a guide for building a high-density, high-performance, green data center. This would be of more value to companies starting from scratch, rather than those making changes to an existing data center.

# Many computers already have power-saving measures built in, but not activated, in the form of Energy Star-approved computers. The Website Greener Computing has an Excel spreadsheet available to calculate how much greener each computer could be if the power-saving features were activated.

# On a personal level, Google has started the "U.K. Carbon Footprint Project." Going through its calculator gives you an idea of how much pollution you and your household contribute to Great Britian. Then, you can input your location and statistics, and compare your usage vs. others who have done the same. Different-colored balloons separate the good from the bad -- from the ugly. Very cool.

Source: http://virtualizationreview.com/blogs/weblog.aspx?blog=3469
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D-Link Expands Green Technology Initiative

In recent years, networking solutions provider D-Linkhas been greening technology to the computer networking space, and now its Green switches have gotten a bit greener.

The Fountain Valley, California-based company has expanded its role in the development of energy-saving products and initiatives by introducing green technology to computer networking through the introduction of its second-generation D-Link 5-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch (DGS-2205).

Steven Joe, president and CEO or D-Link Systems, said the DGS-2205 provides up to 73 percent reduced power consumption without sacrificing network performance.

"Our goal is to maintain industry leadership as a pioneer of Green networking technology by building in even more energy-saving features into our products without sacrificing performance," said Joe.

D-Link Systems is an end-to-end networking solutions provider for consumer and business, and the first company to introduce green technology to computer networking, according to Joe.

The DGS -2205, which is already shipping, is one of four “environmentally friendly” small office/home office (SOHO) unmanaged gigabit switches from the company that will ship this year with newly enhanced power-savings.

"We plan to continue the momentum of success we've realized with our first generation Green products as we seek new avenues that protect the environment and help our customers save money in the process," said Joe.

The next-generation D-Link 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch (DGS-2208); the 16-port (DGS-1016D) and 24-port (DGS-1024D) unmanaged gigabit switches will also receive enhanced power-savings later this year.

The computing initiative follows a greater trend throughout the technology industry that has seen an increased effort to bring “green” products to market. D-Link Systems says it focuses on manufacturing environmentally-responsible products, eco-friendly packaging, optimizing devices for ENERGYSTAR certification, and providing consumer education and recycling programs.

The DGS-2205 Green desktop switch can, when used for 10 hours and then powered down for 14 hours over a 24-hour period, and connected via Ethernet cables, represents a 66 percent energy reduction, according to the company.

Source:http://green.tmcnet.com/topics/green/articles/50638-d-link-expands-green-technology-initiative.htm
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High-performance PC successfully developed in China

The Dawning PHPC100, the first high-performance personal computer independently-developed in China, was officially launched in the Hi-tech Green Industry Base of Huayuan Software Park under the Tianjin Hi-tech Industry Park (THIP). To date, orders for the PHPC100 have gradually reached nearly 30.

This computer, only twice the size of a normal desktop computer, has a maximum computing speed of 250 billion times per second, equivalent to the combined computing speed of 40 ordinary desktop computers. The launch of the PHPC100 will accelerate the popularization of high-performance computers that were previously scarcely available, enabling more people to own their own high-performance computer.

Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6592410.html
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5 reasons to consider PC power management

The rolodex of Green IT projects available to IT leadership is seemingly endless. But at some point, prioritization is necessary, and IT professionals tend to gravitate to those projects that produce an acceptable financial return with the path of least resistance. And in recent interactions with Forrester clients, it’s becoming clear that PC power management — the act of powering down PCs when not in use (e.g. nights, weekends) — is one of those projects IT leadership are willing to act on.

Do I agree? In short yes. And here’s why: PC power management can reduce costs, cheaply and effectively, while at the same time help justify more strategic IT investments and improve your green “credentials.” Let me elaborate:

1. Save money — and lots of it. The top motivation for pursuing greener IT is to “reduce the energy-related operating expenses of IT.” And PC power management can do this very effectively. By powering down PCs during periods of inactivity, Energy Star estimates that firms can save $25 to $75 per PC per year. Take AT&T as a real-world example. By powering down their 300,000 PCs during non-working hours, AT&T expects to save more than 135m kilowatt hours of electricity – assume an average U.S. price per kilowatt of $.095, savings top $12.8m per year.

2. Reduce costs without capital expenditure. While more energy-efficient equipment and computing architectures are a surefire way to reduce energy costs and environmental impact they require capital investment. So if you’re seeking effective cost-saving tactics with zero to little investment, get familiar with green PC power management. There are a variety of tools to assist in implementing power management organization wide. Many of these tools are free while some are license fee based, but include added features, such as reporting or advanced provisioning and power management settings.

3. Address your most energy-consuming environment. What consumes more energy: your data center, or the IT assets outside of your data center? According to a recent Forrester survey, IT professionals report that more electricity is used outside the data center by a margin of 10%. While every organization is different, recognize that your energy reduction efforts in the PC environment might offer a larger payoff than in the data center.

4. Justify investments in client management suite technology. One of the biggest challenges IT ops professionals face is managing an increasingly distributed and heterogeneous client environment. Client management suite technology can help by automating software distribution, patches, and general systems management. And some vendors — such as 1E, BigFix, LANDesk, and ScriptLogic — are even starting to offer PC power management capabilities. So if you’re struggling to justify budget, reallocate the dollars saved from PC power management to improving the ROI on client management suite investments.

5. Demonstrate your commitment greener business practices. While the primary motivation for Green IT is financial, the second most popular driver is to “doing the right thing for the environment.” And curbing the energy consumption of your PC environment in turn cuts emissions related to global climate change. To paraphrase the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, the average desktop PC wastes half of the energy it consumes and by turning on energy-saving features you can reduce your CO2 emissions by nearly half a ton.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/forrester/?p=149
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Computer Recycling Program Launched by Dell & Goodwill

Arkansas is one of six states being added to a computer recycling program. Reconnect" is a joint effort of computer maker Dell and Goodwill Industries.

The free drop-off program for consumers who want to responsibly recycle any brand of unwanted computer equipment was announced in Little Rock today.

“The program is another great example of Goodwill Industries of Arkansas’ triple bottom line, of people, planet, and profit,” said Brian Itzkowitz, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Arkansas. “By finding environmentally safe options for the end of life of computers and computer equipment, Goodwill is demonstrating its 82 year history in Arkansas of recycling initiatives that keep products out of landfills. More importantly, with the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in Arkansas over 50 percent, the program offers work activity to our participants with disabilities who would not have a job without Goodwill. The revenue generated by the program helps fund our job training programs and employment that helped 1,300 people in 2008; and, 267 in January 2009 alone.”

Today’s announcement brings the total number of participating Goodwill retail stores to more than 1,000 nationwide. In keeping with its mission of job creation, Goodwill plans to hire additional staff to oversee the expanded recycling program.

“Today we’re making it even easier for environmentally-conscious customers to do the right thing,” said Mike Watson, senior manager of Dell Global Recycling Services. “Every technology provider has a responsibility to provide free, easy and responsible recycling to consumers worldwide. We hope 2009 is the year that brings the industry together around this shared principle.”

“In addition to free and responsible computer recycling, the Dell-Reconnect partnership is enabling job creation and skill training at a time when both are very much needed,” said Jim Gibbons, President and CEO for Goodwill Industries International. “We commend Dell for setting a leadership example for the rest of the industry and for playing an important role in the creation of green-collar jobs.”

Program goals are to divert used computers and computer equipment from area landfills; and provide consumer education on the importance of environmentally-responsible computer disposal. Reconnect can also help create job opportunities for individuals who have barriers to employment or independence.

Consumers can drop off used computers at participating Goodwill stores and donation centers across the region. Goodwill will accept and sort the donated computer equipment and Dell's product recovery partner will recycle and remarket the recycled materials.

Consumers are responsible for removing data from hard drives and other storage media before donating to Goodwill. Consumers can also request a Goodwill receipt at time of donation.

Other states that are now a part of Reconnect include: Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont. Additionally, Akron, Ohio, Frederick, Md. and New Haven, Conn. are being launched as new Reconnect cities.

Click here for a list of participating Goodwill locations in Arkansas.

Source:http://arkansasmatters.com/content/green_is_universal_Fulltext?cid=190161
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