Tech Industry Makes Push for Energy Efficiency
The industry that helps connect our world is now making it a better place - one gadget at a time.
The Information Technology industry, an integral part of how our world communicates, has recently come under fire about its environmentally unfriendly practices. According to researchers for U.S.-based Gartner Research, the IT sector now accounts for 2 percent of all global carbon emissions, the same amount as the airline industry.
In order to shake the "energy hog" tag, several companies are stepping up to curb power consumption and make the tech world more earth-friendly. Cisco is spearheading this initiative by introducing its EnergyWise technology next month. The new software can monitor the energy use of a wide range of devices. When said devices are idle and not in use, EnergyWise shuts them off.
So how much money can one save with something like EnergyWise? A lot more than you may realize. "A bank branch could save nearly 40,000 Euros (USD $53,020) just by turning off phones and wireless access points outside business hours," said David Frampton, to Reuters. Frampton, Cisco's VP of LAN switching business unit, said the software will be compatible with devices like computers, wireless access points and phones at first, but will expand to heating/air conditioning units, elevators, lights and security systems by 2010.
Cisco isn't the only tech company playing nice with the environment, either. Philips is working on a total solution lighting system that will react to people's movements and the amount of natural sunlight. Also, British software makers 1E say their technology, similar to Cisco's, can reduce pollution equivalent to that produced by cars in a medium sized city like Liverpool. "The [British] government wants a 1 million [ton] reduction in carbon emissions from large companies," said 1E CEO Sumir Karayi. "We can achieve 85 percent of that just from our UK pipeline -- just from turning off computers." 1E's software is already in use by several large banks and branches of the British government.
If tech companies around the world follow suit, who knows how much energy could be saved!
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I'm constantly amazed at how few people and businesses shut off their computers at the end of the day. I understand that some people have computers so bogged down with software that it takes them 5 minutes to boot up, but what's 5 minutes compared to the 15 hours the computer was on all night?
On some newer systems that support power management you can actually set the systems to boot before the employee even gets to work. If you (or your IT department) have the time you can also have the computers auto shutoff after hours and when idle for a specific amount of time.
I have 1 of our computers setup this way... the rest are dinosaurs
or the computers themselves do work after hours (or both).
The IT industry uses the same amount as the airline industry? Isn't that really good considering that the IT industry is many times larger?
Yes, we should reduce our demand for power.. so maybe we can demand lower prices from our power companies ? There have been nothing but rate increases in the past few years. How about a reduction!
Yes, we should reduce our demand for power.. so maybe we can demand lower prices from our power companies ? There have been nothing but rate increases in the past few years. How about a reduction!
There is continued increase in demand. Even with our devices becoming more efficient the average person's power consumption has increased simply due to the volume of electronic devices used. Add to this an increase in population and inflation and supply/demand means that rate increases are not only inevitable, but justifiable.