Computers going green...and more energy efficient

Jul 11, 2007 12:18 GMT  ·  By

Low power, high efficiency, RoHS materials - those are the trends of many industries and particularly of the computer industry and manufacturers. Many small and midrange companies are trying to reduce their energy bills, while a more environmentally-friendly mentality seems to become the norm among people, so we should not be too surprised that more and more of the dedicated computer manufacturers and designers are trying to make the IT industry as "green" as possible. For example in June, several important software, hardware and Internet companies from the U.S. joined forces in an attempt to reduce the amount of energy that computers consume.

The goal would be to cut in half computer energy requirements by 2010, but I just don't see that happening as more and more powerful (and energy-hungrier) hardware emerges. The initiative will involve both the development of computer hardware that meets the "80% efficiency" standard from EPA Energy Star program and the campaign to educate computer users, private and industrial alike on how to use computers in a more energy-saving manner.

Urs H?lzle, senior vice president of operations for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, Inc said that "today the average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power" and that "the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 percent efficiency target for power supplies which, if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year - and save more than $5.5 billion in energy costs." The Climate Savers Computing Initiative( CSCI) was organized by Google and the Californian division of Intel and were quickly joined by a large number of important corporates like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Hitachi Ltd., IBM Corp., Lenovo Group Ltd., Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Matthew Guyer, director of corporate relations for World Wildlife Fund , is reported by Biztimes to have said "In partnership with the WWF, companies commit to absolute, measurable greenhouse gas reduction targets," and "In helping contribute to a lower carbon future, we aim to help slow climate change. We are already witnessing the impacts of climate change on the places we work to protect - from melting glaciers in places like the Himalayas to retreating Arctic sea ice to coral bleaching in the Indo Pacific."

Among the first companies to adhere to the CSCI, were HP and Microsoft as they are investing into energy technologies internally as well in their product development departments, while PDS is educating its customers about "green computing" even if it is not directly linked with CSCI. PDS is a software company focusing on virtualization and blade servers in order to help customers save space and reduce energy costs. Austin Park, vice president of infrastructure services for PDS, said that his company plans to start an initiative for building an entire "green" data center that should require much less energy. "We have as a company directly impacted energy costs for customers," Park said. "We have two main focuses, one on infrastructure optimization, which includes consolidation consulting, and the elimination of waste."

The HP company recently received gold status from the Green Electronics Council, for the first desktop PC to meet the requirements of the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Later this year, Microsoft plans to release a dashboard for enterprise resource planning that can help companies track their environmental footprints and initiatives, said Mike Porter, area general manager from Microsoft, as cited by Biztimes.com. The idea of clean technologies is no longer a dream, but a reality in which smaller companies are investing and a responsibility for larger businesses to promote.