Green Computing
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009The irony of any website purporting to be “green” is that just by its sheer existence, the site is using energy and creating carbon. The images and code that make up any site are housed and mirrored in server farms that require energy to run the hard drives and hardware as well as fans for ventilation and cooling.
One half of the energy delivered to a PC is lost as heat. Meanwhile, 50 million tons of e-waste is produced yearly worldwide. Information Technology energy usage is increasing 15% percent annually and as computers become more common in developing world, this trend isn’t likely to flatten.
So how can we do our part to be efficient?
First off, turn off your computer when you’re not using it… like at night. This helps you save power and can protect you from viruses that lurk at night. You can do your virus scan and backups during the day. Also, don’t use screensavers… they require a lot of processing power, thus using a lot of energy.
Old batteries take forever to charge, they lose their charge quickly and they use a lot of energy. If your laptop battery is worn out, get a new one. A plugged in computer still uses power even when it is off. Get an energy efficient power strip… such as a Smart Strip, which will turn off your peripherals when you turn off your computer. Old ones can use power just by being plugged in.
Speakers use as much power when they are playing music as when they are just on and silent. Turn them off when you are not using them. You can also use a Kill A Watt device to find out how much energy your appliances are actually using.


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