Health Issues
From TheStudentWiki
Green Computing: Health Issues
Harmful affects of computers
The computers can also be harmful to your health because toxic chemicals evaporate in a computer room, are absorbed by your body through your lungs. http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/greendesign/flame_retard.htm and the radiation that is emitted from computer monitors can pose a serious health risk especially to those with long hours of exposure. They will be major changes towards a eco-friendlier system and these steps should be consider to product our friendly computer system.
COOL RUNNING This means a cooling fan isn't required. The computer will be powered up by a cooling pack like the size of an adapter battery.
LIGHTS OUT There will be no more lights on the computer instead there will have old-style push buttons.
ON THE CASE All of the materials used in making these friendly computers will be from re-cycle products.
WOOD This will be used in place of plastic screen, mouse and keyboard casing. The sustainable beech, ash or sapele (a tropical wood like mahogany) felled in Africa, Germany and the US. This would be the first mass-market wooden computer accessories.
HEAT RESISTANT The case is to conduct heat away from the computer's main chip, so it needs no fan. This helps cut the power it requires. The whole system runs on 20-40 watts while normal tower PCs use up to 250-300 watts.
Monitors
With Green Computing almost all companies have switched from the old and big CRT monitors to the new and slim TFT flat screens. The new TFT monitors are much better for the user’s eyes, as there is much less glare. Also the fact that the monitors are a lot much smaller and slimmer allows the user to reposition the monitor further away from them which is much better for the eyes. This in turn will result in greater productivity due to the lower power emissions, more space in the offices and produce a lot less heat. They will make the organisation on a whole much more cost efficient as the companies can spend less on air conditioning as they don’t produce as much heat so therefore they will be able to spend costs else where.
CRT Monitor
TFT Monitor
CO2 Emissions
‘A study says making the average PC requires 10 times the weight of the product in chemicals and fossil fuels’ This would affect the users health when deposing of the computers but also the affect on the environment on the general public. As green computing is reducing the use of these toxic chemicals and using less fossil fuels, the environment will be much cleaner for the people to live in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3541623.stm
Can green computers help save the world?
Making computers more environmentally friendly has given google and Intel an extra credit that are now working together to prove their green credentials. Talks over making carbon emissions goes down are mostly focus on sectors like aviation and motoring which shows pollution from vehicle has impact on environment but IT industries accounts is about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions which is almost the same stigmatised as airline industry.
As computer play a big part with global warming google and Intel working together like Dell Computer, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Microsoft are in process to reduce carbon. The two companies unveiled some impressive targets, arguing that the initiative aims to save billions in energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially each year.
The average desktop wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 per cent efficiency target for power supplies which, if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54m tonnes per year - and save more than $5.5bn in energy costs.
