Green computing or
green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT. In the article
Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems—such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems — efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment." The goals of green computing are similar to
green chemistryGreen chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is a philosophy of chemical research and engineering that encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances...
; reduce the use of hazardous materials, maximize
energy efficiencyEnergy efficiency may refer to:*Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency.*Energy conversion efficiency, the ratio between the output and input of an energy conversion machine....
during the product's lifetime, and promote the
recyclabilityRecycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
or
biodegradabilityBiodegradation or biotic degradation or biotic decomposition is the chemical dissolution of materials by bacteria or other biological means...
of defunct products and factory waste. Research continues into key areas such as making the use of computers as energy-efficient as possible, and designing algorithms and systems for efficiency-related computer technologies.
Origins
In 1992, the
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
launched
Energy StarEnergy Star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products originated in the United States of America. It was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have also adopted...
, a voluntary labeling program that is designed to promote and recognize energy-efficiency in monitors, climate control equipment, and other technologies. This resulted in the widespread adoption of
sleep modeSleep mode refers to a low power mode for electronic devices such as computers, televisions, and remote controlled devices. These modes save significant electrical consumption compared to leaving a device fully on and idle, but allow the user to avoid having to reset programming codes or wait for a...
among consumer electronics. The term "green computing" was probably coined shortly after the Energy Star program began; there are several USENET posts dating back to 1992 that use the term in this manner. Concurrently, the Swedish organization TCO Development launched the
TCO CertificationTCO Certification is a series of product certifications for office equipment . It is set by TCO Development, owned by the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, TCO . The certifications are named after years...
program to promote low magnetic and electrical emissions from
CRTThe cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
-based
computer displayA monitor or display is an electronic visual display for computers. The monitor comprises the display device, circuitry, and an enclosure...
s; this program was later expanded to include criteria on energy consumption,
ergonomicsErgonomics is the study of designing equipment and devices that fit the human body, its movements, and its cognitive abilities.The International Ergonomics Association defines ergonomics as follows:...
, and the use of hazardous materials in construction.
Regulations and industry initiatives
The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...
(OECD) has published a survey of over 90 government and industry initiatives on "Green ICTs", i.e. information and communication technologies, the environment and climate change. The report concludes that initiatives tend to concentrate on the greening ICTs themselves rather than on their actual implementation to tackle global warming and environmental degradation. In general, only 20% of initiatives have measurable targets, with government programs tending to include targets more frequently than business associations.
Government
Many governmental agencies have continued to implement standards and regulations that encourage green computing. The
Energy StarEnergy Star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products originated in the United States of America. It was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have also adopted...
program was revised in October 2006 to include stricter efficiency requirements for computer equipment, along with a tiered ranking system for approved products.
Some efforts place responsibility on the manufacturer to dispose of the equipment themselves after it is no longer needed; this is called the
extended producer responsibilityExtended producer responsibility is a strategy designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products.- Definition :...
model. The
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
's directives 2002/95/EC (
Restriction of Hazardous Substances DirectiveThe Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment 2002/95/EC was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union. The RoHS directive took effect on 1 July 2006, and is required to be enforced and become law in each member state...
), on the reduction of hazardous substances, and 2002/96/EC (
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment DirectiveThe Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive is the European Community directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment which, together with the RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC, became European Law in February 2003, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all...
) on waste electrical and electronic equipment required the substitution of
heavy metalsA heavy metal is a member of a loosely-defined subset of elements that exhibit metallic properties. It mainly includes the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and actinides. Many different definitions have been proposed—some based on density, some on atomic number or atomic weight,...
and
flame retardantFlame retardants are chemicals used in thermoplastics, thermosets, textiles and coatings that inhibit or resist the spread of fire. These can be separated into several different classes of chemicals:...
s like
Polybrominated biphenylPolybrominated biphenyls , also called brominated biphenyls or polybromobiphenyls, are a group of manufactured chemicals, of the polyhalogenated compounds. Their chlorine analogs are the PCBs...
and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers in all electronic equipment put on the market starting on July 1, 2006. The directives placed responsibility on manufacturers for the gathering and recycling of old equipment.
There are currently 26 US states that have established state-wide recycling programs for obsolete computers and consumer electronics equipment. The statutes either impose an "advance recovery fee" for each unit sold at retail or require the manufacturers to reclaim the equipment at disposal.
In 2010, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into legislation by President Obama. The bill allocated over $90 billion to be invested in green initiatives (renewable energy, smart grids, energy efficiency, etc.) In January 2010, the U.S. Energy Department granted $47 million of the ARRA money towards projects that aim to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. The projects will provide research on the following three areas: optimize data center hardware and software, improve power supply chain, and data center cooling technologies.
Industry
- Climate Savers Computing Initiative
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of consumers, businesses and conservation organizations dedicated to promoting smart technologies that can improve the power efficiency and reduce the energy consumption of computers...
(CSCI) is an effort to reduce the electric power consumption of PCs in active and inactive states. The CSCI provides a catalog of green products from its member organizations, and information for reducing PC power consumption. It was started on 2007-06-12. The name stems from the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers program, which was launched in 1999. The WWF is also a member of the Computing Initiative.
- The Green Electronics Council offers the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool
The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool is a method for consumers to evaluate the effect of a product on the environment. It ranks products as gold, silver or bronze based on a set of environmental performance criteria....
(EPEAT) to assist in the purchase of "greener" computing systems. The Council evaluates computing equipment on 51 criteria - 23 required and 28 optional - that measure a product's efficiency and sustainability attributes. Products are rated Gold, Silver, or Bronze, depending on how many optional criteria they meet. On 2007-01-24, President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
issued Executive Order 13423, which requires all United States Federal agencies to use EPEAT when purchasing computer systems.
- The Green Grid
The Green Grid is a non-profit, open industry consortium of end-users, policy-makers, technology providers, facility architects, and utility companies collaborating to improve the resource efficiency of data centers and business computing ecosystems...
is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. It was founded in February 2007 by several key companies in the industry – AMD, APCSchneider Electric's Critical Power and Cooling Services Business Unit, formerly known as American Power Conversion Corporation, is a manufacturer of uninterruptible power supplies, electronics peripherals and data center products....
, DellDell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
, HP, IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Intel, MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Rackable Systems, SprayCool, Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and VMwareVMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004, and operates as a separate software subsidiary ....
. The Green Grid has since grown to hundreds of members, including end-users and government organizations, all focused on improving data center infrastructure efficiencyData center infrastructure efficiency , is a performance improvement metric used to calculate the energy efficiency of a data center...
(DCIE).
- The Green500 list rates supercomputers by energy efficiency (megaflops/watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
, encouraging a focus on efficiency rather than absolute performance.
- Green Comm Challenge
Green Comm Challenge is an organization founded and led by Francesco De Leo that actively promotes the development of energy conservation technology and practices in the field of Information and Communications Technology ....
is an organization that promotes the development of energy conservation technology and practices in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
- The Transaction Processing Performance Council
Transaction Processing Performance Council is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 to define transaction processing and database benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable TPC performance data to the industry...
(TPC) Energy specification augments the existing TPC benchmarks by allowing for optional publications of energy metrics alongside their performance results.
- The SPEC
-Specification:* Specification , an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service** "Spec sheet" or datasheet used to describe something technical...
Power is the first industry standard benchmark that measures power consumption in relation to performance for server-class computers.
Approaches
In the article
Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems — such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems — efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment." Murugesan lays out four paths along which he believes the environmental effects of computing should be addressed: Green use, green disposal, green design, and green manufacturing. Green computing can also develop solutions that offer benefits by "aligning all IT processes and practices with the core principles of sustainability, which are to reduce, reuse, and recycle; and finding innovative ways to use IT in business processes to deliver sustainability benefits across the enterprise and beyond".
Modern
ITInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
systems rely upon a complicated mix of people, networks, and hardware; as such, a green computing initiative must cover all of these areas as well. A solution may also need to address end user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, and return on investment (ROI). There are also considerable fiscal motivations for companies to take control of their own power consumption; "of the power management tools available, one of the most powerful may still be simple, plain, common sense."
Product longevity
GartnerGartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....
maintains that the PC manufacturing process accounts for 70 % of the natural resources used in the life cycle of a PC. More recently, Fujitsu released a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a desktop that show that manufacturing and end of life accounts for the majority of this laptop ecological footprint. Therefore, the biggest contribution to green computing usually is to prolong the equipment's lifetime. Another report from Gartner recommends to "Look for product longevity, including upgradability and modularity."
For instance, manufacturing a new PC makes a far bigger
ecological footprintThe ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...
than manufacturing a new
RAM-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
module to upgrade an existing one.
Algorithmic efficiency
The efficiency of algorithms has an impact on the amount of computer resources required for any given computing function and there are many efficiency trade-offs in writing programs. While algorithmic efficiency does not have as much impact as other approaches , it is still an important consideration. A study by a physicist at Harvard, estimated that the average Google search released 7 grams of carbon dioxide (CO₂). However, Google disputes this figure, arguing instead that a typical search produces only 0.2 grams of CO₂. More recently, an independent study by
GreenIT.fr demonstrate that Windows 7 + Office 2010 require 70 times more memory (RAM) than Windows 98 + Office 2000 to write exactly the same text or send exactly the same e-mail than 10 years ago
Resource allocation
Algorithms can also be used to route data to data centers where electricity is less expensive. Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Akamai have tested an energy allocation algorithm that successfully routes traffic to the location with the cheapest energy costs. The researchers project up to a 40 percent savings on energy costs if their proposed algorithm were to be deployed. However, this approach does not actually reduce the amount of energy being used; it reduces only the cost to the company using it. Nonetheless, a similar strategy could be used to direct traffic to rely on energy that is produced in a more environmentally friendly or efficient way. A similar approach has also been used to cut energy usage by routing traffic away from data centers experiencing warm weather; this allows computers to be shut down to avoid using air conditioning.
Larger server centers are sometimes located where energy and land are inexpensive and readily available. Local availability of renewable energy, climate that allows outside air to be used for cooling, or locating them where the heat they produce may be used for other purposes could be factors in green siting decisions.
Virtualization
Computer virtualization refers to the abstraction of computer resources, such as the process of running two or more logical computer systems on one set of physical hardware. The concept originated with the IBM
mainframeMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
operating systems of the 1960s, but was commercialized for
x86The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...
-compatible computers only in the 1990s. With virtualization, a system administrator could combine several physical systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system, thereby unplugging the original hardware and reducing power and cooling consumption. Virtualization can assist in distributing work so that servers are either busy or put in a low-power sleep state. Several commercial companies and open-source projects now offer software packages to enable a transition to virtual computing.
Intel CorporationIntel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
and
AMDAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
have also built proprietary virtualization enhancements to the x86
instruction setAn instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
into each of their CPU product lines, in order to facilitate virtualized computing.
Terminal servers
Terminal servers have also been used in green computing. When using the system, users at a terminal connect to a central server; all of the actual computing is done on the server, but the end user experiences the operating system on the terminal. These can be combined with
thin clientA thin client is a computer or a computer program which depends heavily on some other computer to fulfill its traditional computational roles. This stands in contrast to the traditional fat client, a computer designed to take on these roles by itself...
s, which use up to 1/8 the amount of energy of a normal workstation, resulting in a decrease of energy costs and consumption. There has been an increase in using terminal services with thin clients to create virtual labs. Examples of terminal server software include
Terminal ServicesRemote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, formerly known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and previous versions, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allows a user to access applications and data on a remote computer over a network, using the Remote Desktop...
for Windows and the
Linux Terminal Server ProjectLinux Terminal Server Project is a free and open source terminal server for Linux that allows many people to simultaneously use the same computer. Applications run on the server with a terminal known as a thin client handling input and output...
(LTSP) for the Linux operating system.
Power management
The
Advanced Configuration and Power InterfaceIn computing, the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface specification provides an open standard for device configuration and power management by the operating system....
(ACPI), an open industry standard, allows an operating system to directly control the power-saving aspects of its underlying hardware. This allows a system to automatically turn off components such as
monitorsA monitor or display is an electronic visual display for computers. The monitor comprises the display device, circuitry, and an enclosure...
and hard drives after set periods of inactivity. In addition, a system may hibernate, where most components (including the
CPUThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
and the system RAM) are turned off. ACPI is a successor to an earlier Intel-Microsoft standard called
Advanced Power ManagementAdvanced power management is an API developed by Intel and Microsoft and released in 1992 which enables an operating system running an IBM-compatible personal computer to work with the BIOS to achieve power management.Revision 1.2 was the last version of the APM specification, released in 1996....
, which allows a computer's
BIOSIn IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface....
to control power management functions.
Some programs allow the user to manually adjust the voltages supplied to the CPU, which reduces both the amount of heat produced and electricity consumed. This process is called undervolting. Some CPUs can automatically undervolt the processor, depending on the workload; this technology is called "
SpeedStepSpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software...
" on Intel processors, "
PowerNow!PowerNow! is speed throttling and power saving technology of AMD's processors used in laptops. The CPU's clock speed and VCore are automatically decreased when the computer is under low load or idle, to save battery power, reduce heat and noise...
"/"
Cool'n'QuietCool'n'Quiet is a CPU speed throttling and power saving technology introduced by AMD with its Athlon 64 processor line. It works by reducing the processor's clock rate and voltage when the processor is idle. The aim of this technology is to reduce overall power consumption and lower heat...
" on AMD chips,
LongHaulVIA LongHaul is a CPU speed throttling and power saving technology developed by VIA Technologies. By executing specialized instructions, software can exercise fine control on the bus-to-core frequency ratio and CPU core voltage. When the system first boots, the ratio and voltage are set to...
on
VIAVIA Technologies is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets...
CPUs, and
LongRunLongRun and LongRun2 are power management technologies introduced by Transmeta. LongRun was introduced with the Crusoe processor, while LongRun2 was introduced with the Efficeon processor...
with
TransmetaTransmeta Corporation was a US-based corporation that licensed low power semiconductor intellectual property. Transmeta originally produced very long instruction word code morphing microprocessors, with a focus on reducing power consumption in electronic devices. It was founded in 1995 by Bob...
processors.
Data center power
Data centers, which have been criticized for its extraordinary high energy demand, are a primary focus for proponents of green computing. The federal government has set a minimum 10% reduction target for data center energy usage by 2011. With the aid of a self-styled ultraefficient evaporative cooling technology, Google Inc. has been able to reduce its energy consumption to 50% of that of the industry average.
Operating system support
The dominant desktop operating system, Microsoft Windows, has included limited
PC power managementPC power management refers to the mechanism for controlling the power use of personal computer hardware. This is typically through the use of software that puts the hardware into the lowest power demand state available...
features since Windows 95. These initially provided for stand-by (suspend-to-RAM) and a monitor low power state. Further iterations of Windows added hibernate (suspend-to-disk) and support for the
ACPIIn computing, the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface specification provides an open standard for device configuration and power management by the operating system....
standard. Windows 2000 was the first NT-based operating system to include power management. This required major changes to the underlying operating system architecture and a new hardware driver model. Windows 2000 also introduced
Group PolicyGroup Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems. Group Policy is a set of rules that control the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. Group Policy provides the centralized management and configuration of operating systems, applications, and...
, a technology that allowed administrators to centrally configure most Windows features. However, power management was not one of those features. This is probably because the power management settings design relied upon a connected set of per-user and per-machine binary registry values, effectively leaving it up to each user to configure their own power management settings.
This approach, which is not compatible with Windows Group Policy, was repeated in Windows XP. The reasons for this design decision by Microsoft are not known, and it has resulted in heavy criticism. Microsoft significantly improved this in Windows Vista by redesigning the power management system to allow basic configuration by Group Policy. The support offered is limited to a single per-computer policy. The most recent release, Windows 7 retains these limitations but does include refinements for more efficient user of operating system timers, processor power management, and display panel brightness. The most significant change in Windows 7 is in the user experience. The prominence of the default High Performance power plan has been reduced with the aim of encouraging users to save power.
There is a significant market in third-party
PC power managementPC power management refers to the mechanism for controlling the power use of personal computer hardware. This is typically through the use of software that puts the hardware into the lowest power demand state available...
software offering features beyond those present in the Windows operating system. available. Most products offer
Active DirectoryActive Directory is a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems. Server computers on which Active Directory is running are called domain controllers....
integration and per-user/per-machine settings with the more advanced offering multiple power plans, scheduled power plans, anti-insomnia features and enterprise power usage reporting. Notable vendors include
1E1E is a privately owned software company based in the United Kingdom. 1E has offices in London, New York, Frankfurt, Paris, and Noida. The company develops automated software solutions to address complexity, management costs and power consumption...
NightWatchman., Data Synergy
PowerMAN (Software)PowerMAN is a computer software program that allows PC power management to be centrally monitored and managed. The software allows an enterprise-wide power management strategy to be implemented. The product is used by many public sector organisations in both the US and UK. It is also used by...
,
Faronics- Company Profile :Faronics Corporation is a privately held software company with offices in Vancouver, BC, Canada, San Ramon, CA, USA, and Bracknell, UK. Faronics develops computer software for multi-user IT environments...
Power Save and
VerdiemVerdiem is a software corporation based in Seattle, WA. The company is privately owned and backed by venture capital. . Verdiem produces the Surveyor enterprise-class PC power management software and the free Edison home-use solution. The company has OEM agreements with Hewlett-Packard and Cisco...
SURVEYOR.
Power supply
Desktop computer power supplies (PSUs) are in general 70–75% efficient, dissipating the remaining energy as heat. An industry initiative called
80 PLUS80 PLUS is an initiative to promote energy efficiency in computer power supply units . It certifies products that have more than 80% energy efficiency at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load, and a power factor of 0.9 or greater at 100% load....
certifies PSUs that are at least 80% efficient; typically these models are drop-in replacements for older, less efficient PSUs of the same form factor. As of July 20, 2007, all new Energy Star 4.0-certified desktop PSUs must be at least 80% efficient.
Storage
Smaller form factor (e.g., 2.5 inch) hard disk drives often consume less power per gigabyte than physically larger drives. Unlike hard disk drives,
solid-state driveA solid-state drive , sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block i/o hard disk drive...
s store data in flash memory or
DRAMDram or DRAM may refer to:As a unit of measure:* Dram , an imperial unit of mass and volume* Armenian dram, a monetary unit* Dirham, a unit of currency in several Arab nationsOther uses:...
. With no moving parts, power consumption may be reduced somewhat for low-capacity flash-based devices.
In a recent case study,
Fusion-ioFusion-io is a computer hardware and software systems company based in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, that designs and manufactures what it calls a new memory tier based on NAND Flash memory technology...
, manufacturers of the world's fastest Solid State Storage devices, managed to reduce the carbon footprint and operating costs of
MySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
data centers by 80% while increasing performance speeds beyond that which had been attainable via multiple hard disk drives in Raid 0. In response, MySpace was able to permanently retire several of their servers, including all their heavy-load servers, further reducing their carbon footprint.
As hard drive prices have fallen, storage farms have tended to increase in capacity to make more data available online. This includes archival and backup data that would formerly have been saved on tape or other offline storage. The increase in online storage has increased power consumption. Reducing the power consumed by large storage arrays, while still providing the benefits of online storage, is a subject of ongoing research.
Video card
A fast
GPUA graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
may be the largest power consumer in a computer.
Energy-efficient
displayA video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors...
options include:
- No video card - use a shared terminal, shared thin client
A thin client is a computer or a computer program which depends heavily on some other computer to fulfill its traditional computational roles. This stands in contrast to the traditional fat client, a computer designed to take on these roles by itself...
, or desktop sharingDesktop sharing is a common name for technologies and products that allow remote access and remote collaboration on a person's computer desktop through a graphical Terminal emulator.The most common two scenarios for desktop sharing are:* Remote log-in...
software if display required.
- Use motherboard video output - typically low 3D performance and low power.
- Select a GPU based on low idle power, average wattage, or performance per watt
In computing, performance per watt is a measure of the energy efficiency of a particular computer architecture or computer hardware. Literally, it measures the rate of computation that can be delivered by a computer for every watt of power consumed....
.
Display
CRT monitors typically use more power than LCD monitors. They also contain significant amounts of lead. LCD monitors typically use a
cold-cathode fluorescent bulbA cold cathode is a cathode used within nixie tubes, gas discharge lamps, discharge tubes, and some types of vacuum tube which is not electrically heated by the circuit to which it is connected...
to provide light for the display. Some newer displays use an array of
light-emitting diodeA light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
s (LEDs) in place of the fluorescent bulb, which reduces the amount of electricity used by the display. Fluorescent back-lights also contain mercury, whereas LED back-lights do not.
Materials recycling
Recycling computing equipment can keep harmful materials such as lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium out of
landfillA landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
s, and can also replace equipment that otherwise would need to be manufactured, saving further energy and emissions. Computer systems that have outlived their particular function can be re-purposed, or donated to various charities and non-profit organizations. However, many charities have recently imposed minimum system requirements for donated equipment. Additionally, parts from outdated systems may be salvaged and recycled through certain retail outlets and municipal or private recycling centers. Computing supplies, such as printer cartridges,
paperPaper recycling is the process of recovering waste paper and remaking it into new paper products. There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper...
, and
batteriesBattery recycling is a recycling activity that aims to reduce the number of batteries being disposed as municipal solid waste. Batteries contain a number of heavy metals and toxic chemicals, their dumping has raised concern over risks of soil contamination and water pollution.-Battery recycling by...
may be recycled as well.
A drawback to many of these schemes is that computers gathered through recycling drives are often shipped to developing countries where environmental standards are less strict than in North America and Europe. The
Silicon Valley Toxics CoalitionThe Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition , is a San Jose, California based research and advocacy group that promotes safe environmental practices in the high tech industry...
estimates that 80% of the post-consumer e-waste collected for recycling is shipped abroad to countries such as
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.
In 2011, the collection rate of e-waste is still very low, even in the most ecology-responsible countries like France. In this country, e-waste collection is still at a 14% annual rate between electronic equipments sold and e-waste collected for 2006 to 2009.
The recycling of old computers raises an important privacy issue. The old storage devices still hold private information, such as emails, passwords, and credit card numbers, which can be recovered simply by someone's using software available freely on the Internet. Deletion of a file does not actually remove the file from the hard drive. Before recycling a computer, users should remove the hard drive, or hard drives if there is more than one, and physically destroy it or store it somewhere safe. There are some authorized hardware recycling companies to whom the computer may be given for recycling, and they typically sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Telecommuting
TeleconferencingA teleconference or teleseminar is the live exchange and mass articulation of information among several persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system...
and
telepresenceTelepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance of being present, or to have an effect, via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location....
technologies are often implemented in green computing initiatives. The advantages are many; increased worker satisfaction, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions related to travel, and increased profit margins as a result of lower overhead costs for office space, heat, lighting, etc. The savings are significant; the average annual energy consumption for U.S. office buildings is over 23 kilowatt hours per square foot, with heat, air conditioning and lighting accounting for 70% of all energy consumed. Other related initiatives, such as
hotellingHoteling is a method of supporting unassigned seating in an office environment. It is similar to hot desking, and is sometimes confused with it, since both methods support unassigned seating...
, reduce the square footage per employee as workers reserve space only when they need it. Many types of jobs, such as sales, consulting, and field service, integrate well with this technique.
Voice over IP (VoIP) reduces the telephony wiring infrastructure by sharing the existing Ethernet copper. VoIP and phone extension mobility also made
hot deskingHot desking originates from the definition of being the temporary physical occupant of a work station or surface by a particular employee. The term hot desking is thought to be derived from the naval practice, called hot racking, where sailors on different shifts share bunks...
more practical.
Green computing degree programs
Degree programs that provide training in a range of information technology concentrations along with sustainable strategies in an effort to educate students how to build and maintain systems while reducing its negative impact on the environment.
Green computing certifications
Some certifications demonstrate that an individual has specific green computing knowledge, including:
- Green Computing Initiative - CGCUS, CGCA, CGCP certifications
- CompTIA
The Computing Technology Industry Association , a non-profit trade association, was created in 1982 as the Association of Better Computer Dealers, Inc. by representatives of five microcomputer dealerships...
Strata Green IT is designed for IT managers to show that they have good knowledge of green IT practices and methods and why it is important to incorporate them into an organization.
- Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) Foundation Certificate in Green IT is appropriate for showing an overall understanding and awareness of green computing and where its implementation can be beneficial.
- Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF) Singapore Green IT Professional is industry endotrsed professional level certification which uses a Green IT framework (adopted by over 13 countries) and is inclusive of vendors which provides a in depth understanding of Green IT and the implemetnation of these practices.
See also
- Camara (charity)
Camara is a charitable organisation that sends refurbished computers from Ireland to schools and other educational institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Donations are accepted from individuals, and in addition, a corporate recycling programme issues recycling certificates to businesses who dispose of...
(Ireland)
- Challenging the Chip
Challenging the Chip is a 2006 book on "labor rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry". It is published by Temple University Press, Philadelphia. In three parts, the book looks at global electronics, environmental justice and labor rights, and electronic waste and...
, a book about labor rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry
- Desktop virtualization
Desktop virtualization , as a concept, separates a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client–server model of computing....
- Data migration
Data migration is the process of transferring data between storage types, formats, or computer systems. Data migration is usually performed programmatically to achieve an automated migration, freeing up human resources from tedious tasks...
- Digger gold
Digger gold is the common slang term for gold recovered from electronics components such as board fingers, CPUs, and connector pins. For the gold fingers on boards or circuits, often a stripping solution is used to remove the gold from the board material, nitric acid also works well in this regard...
- e-cycling
- eDay
eDay is a term that refers to the peak sales day for the online retail sector in the United States. The term was coined by web analytics and precision marketing firm Coremetrics.-eDays by year:* December 5, 2005....
, an electronic waste collection day in New Zealand
- Electronic Waste Recycling Act
The Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 is a California law to reduce the use of certain hazardous substances in certain electronic products sold in the state...
- Energy Efficient Ethernet
Energy-Efficient Ethernet is a set of enhancements to the twisted-pair and backplane Ethernet family of computer networking standards that will allow for less power consumption during periods of low data activity. The intention was to reduce power consumption by 50% or more, while retaining full...
- Energy consumption of computers in the USA
- Interconnect bottleneck
The interconnect bottleneck, the point at which integrated circuits reach their capacity, is expected sometime around 2010.Improved performance of computer systems has been achieved, in large part, by downscaling the IC minimum feature size. This allows the basic IC building block, the transistor,...
- IT energy management
IT energy management is the analysis and management of energy demand within the information technology arena. IT energy demand accounts for approximately 2% of global CO2 emissions, approximately the same level as aviation...
- Minimalism (computing)
- Optical communication
Optical communication is any form of telecommunication that uses light as the transmission medium.An optical communication system consists of a transmitter, which encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel, which carries the signal to its destination, and a receiver, which reproduces the...
- Optical fiber cable
An optical fiber cable is a cable containing one or more optical fibers. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube suitable for the environment where the cable will be deployed....
- Optical interconnect
Optical interconnect is a way of communication by optical cables. Compared to traditional cables, optical wires are capable of a much higher bandwidth, from 10 Gb/s up to 100 Gb/s....
- Parallel optical interface
A parallel optical interface is a form of fiber optic technology aimed primarily at communications and networking over relatively short distances , and at high bandwidths....
- Plug computer
A plug computer is a small form factor server for use in the home or office. Compared to their PC-based counterparts, plug computers are lower cost, consume less power, often do not have a video card, and are intended to be powered up at all times...
- Power factor
The power factor of an AC electric power system is defined as the ratio of the real power flowing to the load over the apparent power in the circuit, and is a dimensionless number between 0 and 1 . Real power is the capacity of the circuit for performing work in a particular time...
- Power usage effectiveness
Power usage effectiveness is a measure of how efficiently a computer data center uses its power; specifically, how much of the power is actually used by the computing equipment ....
(PUE)
- Rebound effect
In conservation and energy economics, the rebound effect refers to the behavioral or other systemic responses to the introduction of new technologies that increase the efficiency of resource use. These responses tend to offset the beneficial effects of the new technology or other measures taken...
(paradoxical negative effect)
- Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive
The Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment 2002/95/EC was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union. The RoHS directive took effect on 1 July 2006, and is required to be enforced and become law in each member state...
(RoHS)
- Standby power
Standby power, also called vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load, or leaking electricity , refers to the electric power consumed by electronic and electrical appliances while they are switched off Standby power, also called vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load, or leaking electricity...
- Sustainable Electronics Initiative
Sustainable Electronics Initiative is an initiative started in the United States in the summer of 2009 by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, which is a division of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
(SEI)
- Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
- Thunderbolt (interface)
- Trashware
Trashware in North America or Totally reconditioned hardware in the UK and Ireland is computer equipment that is assembled from old hardware, using cleaned and checked parts from different computers, for use by disadvantaged people to bridge the digital divide.Trashware, with its social aims, is...
- Virtual application
A virtual application is an application that has been optimized to run on virtual infrastructure. The application software along with Just Enough Operating System is combined inside a virtual machine container in a manner that maximizes the performance of the application...