Energy Efficiency Strategies
From TheStudentWiki
Contents |
Introduction
Leeds Metropolitan University is one of the largest Universities in the country, with over 52,000 students and 3,500 staff. And I assume that almost all of them own a computer. Can you imagine the energy consumption of all this individual computers? The average desktop computer uses about 120 Watts. The monitor uses 75 Watts and the CPU uses 45 Watts. Laptops use less energy than desktop computers, around 30 Watts total.
How home users can cut down on energy waste.
There are a number of different ways which a user can cut down on the energy wasted whilst using a home computer. The first thing to do to save energy is simply to switch the computer off, do not leave it on all the time, this saves energy and also keeps the PC running faster and extends the life cycle. Another pro tip is to turn off the PC at the mains, a computer on average uses 1-6 watts of electricity whilst on standby mode, totted up over the year this comes to a lot of wasted energy. The type of monitor also effects energy waste, a traditional CRT monitor will use 80 watts compared to 35 watts for an LCD screen. So if you want to go green buy an LCD screen. Another energy saver is to not use a screensaver; this actually uses the same amount of electricity as normal viewing would, a solution to this is to set the monitor to switch off after a certain time, if you ever forget to turn the monitor off. The actual PC can be set to be sent into standby or sleep mode after a certain period of inactivity. A laptop computer also generally uses less energy than a full desktop computer, so if the choice between buying a desktop pc and a laptop choose a laptop for the greener option.
How organisations are addressing the issue of energy efficiency..
A number of computing companies, including Intel and Google, have recently teamed up to develop computers that are more energy efficient. This project has been named The Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Their goal is to reduce harmful green house gases such as CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming by producing computers that use up to 50 percent less power by 2010. If the group meet their targets it will be the equivalent of removing 11 million cars from the road!
(According to the US PC Energy Report 2007) • Out of 104 million office PCs in the United States around 31.2 million PCs are left on through the night.
• Shutting down each computer each night within a company that held 10,000 PCs could save up to 165,000 dollars a year. If this was applied to the United States up to 15 million tons of CO2 emissions and over 1.72 billion dollars would be saved.
(According to the UK PC Energy Report 2007)
• 18% of computers owed by adults in the UK are not switched off at night or weekends.
• The amount of energy wasted per year is equivalent to the CO2 emissions of a local authority area the size of chesterfield. (chesterfield population is approximately 100,000)
Sources
Energy efficiency in businesses is a becoming an even bigger problem as more and more people are becoming concerned about the environment and the planet we live on. So the question is what are the bigger companies in the world doing to be more energy efficient?
IBM
Well, IBM one of the worlds bigger and well known computing companies recently introduced a new initiative in may 2007. IBM’s ‘big green project’ will see the company spending $1Billion (£492m) a year on improving the companies energy efficiency. These improvements being made to IBM’s computer systems would see them replace ‘3900 servers with 30 mainframe computers’ the size of a fridge in an attempt to lower an attempt to lower their overall electric usage. IBM has also employed a new ‘green team’ of over 850 energy efficient architects across the company. In implementing these plans IBM hopes to reduce its energy bills by 80% and save over $250 million.
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard is another big company in the field of computing which is planning to increase its energy efficiency and reduce its energy consumption. There plans include trying to reduce the amount of energy it used in 2005 by 20% by the end of 2010. This is all part of the three aspects of a global strategy – products, services sold to customers and internal operations and supply chain management to reduce the amount of energy used in the company. On initiative which will be uses by the company is to offer 80% efficient power supplies which are 33% more efficient than the old models. Another is their dynamic smart cooling which would cut energy costs by 20% - 45%. Hewlett-Packard have also redesigned their printer cartridges that will cut greenhouse gases by an estimated 37 million pounds this year alone
Computer Recycling
Electrical and electronic equipment contain hazardous materials, the disposal of this items to landfills need to be kept to an absolute minimum. These regulations came into force in the UK on the 2nd January 2007. Increased recycling of electronic and electrical equipment will limit the amount of waste going to disposal. Producers are responsible for taking back and recycling the electrical and electronic equipment.
There are also many charities that refurbish donated computers, but due to the new regulations if they are too old to be refurbished it must be recycled into glass, metal or plastic. If the charities are unable to refurbish the donated computers they will pass on the costs of recycling to the donator. The costs of recycling an old computer are approximately £8 for the CPU and £8 for the monitor.
More Energy Efficient Computers
Hardware developers are finding new and inventive ways to make computers greener, this spans from creating PCs that run at a much lower wattage(tranquil PCs manufacturer computers running at 12-30w as opposed to 200w+ that a regular PC uses), to hydrogen cell transport, with the ability to run a computer driven car powered on little more than water. Energy star PCs have been manufactured since 1992 with an easily recognisable logo, allowing users to quickly notice if their computer is energy efficient. Hydrogen Fuel Cells are made from groundbreaking new technology where hydrogen (extracted from water) is used to generate electricity, as these cars of the future are electronically run, they have zero carbon emissions and will not need to burn fosil fuels, making them the green future alternative for ground transport, with several major car manufacturers developing not only cars, but also public transport such as buses and trams, predicting one day, 50+ people will be able to travel 20 miles on the equivalent of a bath full of water. [5]
Summary
Both individuals and companies are becoming more knowledgeable in ways to be energy efficient, organisations are finding new and innovative ways to produce more efficient products, whilst reducing their own carbon emissions, and individuals are becoming more aware of how they effect this planet, and are being encouraged to become more energy efficient, such as turning TVs off instead of leaving them on standby or turning lights off when not in use. However there is a lot more to be done by all of us.
By John Amery, Sarah Catlow, Aaron Macey, Robert Cooper, Oliver Teal and Joao Francisco Faxa.
