Once again, we’re very pleased by the powerful responses we’ve got to our original Black is the New Green blog and to the follow-up.
I’d like to address a couple of the reservations people have had.
One commenter thought that the wattage estimates yielded by the calculator we linked to were too high. He wrote:
Checking off the closest equivalents to what I have, it recommends a power supply capable of producing 160W, and I'm guessing that if it were up to date it would specify that I need a 350W power supply. The *actual* steady-state power consumption of my system at idle is 80W; that's not a theoretical or computed value, that's a value measured directly with a power meter.
It is worth pointing out that we put up the link to the calculator because one of the responses to the original “Black Is the New Green” was that our estimate that an idle computer uses about 100W was too high. So 80W is pretty close. And another commentator sent a great link to a site that tests Vista running different graphics cards and on different settings. The tests found that the machine idled around 105W. So again, 100W looks like a useful estimate for the original calculation, which was meant only to show just how much electricity is being wasted. The point isn’t that this or that machine uses a given amount of energy. The reason we’re throwing around these huge numbers is to show that the scale of this problem, which we almost never think about, is absolutely staggering.
Another site that makes this case brilliantly is Mr. Electricity’s explanation of power usage. He shows desktops using 60W-250W. He shows that screensavers save no electricity at all, and that standby reduces consumption to 1W-6W. In other words, the available savings, expressed as a percentage, are huge. And given the scale of the computer population, the total potential savings are huge as well.
The fact is, there are billions of “nega-Watt” hours out there – we could save the equivalent of dozens of power plants’ generating capacity (and therefore dozens of powerplants) just by getting a bit smarter.
One organization that has already figured this out is LocalCooling. Our hats are off to them. To those who say that LocalCooling doesn’t go far enough, we’d say, well, sure, people could go into their settings and make their machines more efficient. But if they actually did, there would be no need for a software solution. Projects like LocalCooling just make it easier. The easier it is, the more people will do it. The more people that do it, the better off we’ll be.
As great as we think LocalCooling is, we think there is room for more such endeavors, and for collaboration. We’re not just doing this to create software. We’re making a point about the way our whole civilization is set up. And we’re interested in maximizing the efficiency of not only the world’s PCs, but also its Sun servers and Linux machines. We don’t need to re-invent the wheel. We just want to get it moving.
I read recently that your microwave uses more electricity operating its clock than it does heating your dinner. That’s just not the way it should be. Similarly, if your computer uses more power running a screensaver or keeping the CPU warm than it does doing your actual work, then it’s just not doing what it’s supposed to do.
To go to the Zerofooprint “Black is the New Green” blog, click http://www.zerofootprint.net/green_stories/green_stories_item.asp?type_=53&ID=14973
To go to the main Zerofootprint site, click http://www.zerofootprint.net
To see Mr. Electricity’s account of computers’ electricity use use, click http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html
To see a measurement of the electricity use of Vista machines running various graphics cards, visit http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10945
To see some of the numbers on global computer use and CO2 emissions, click http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/2281?fpsrc=ealert061127
To read about people leaving their machines on over Christmas, click on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6183259.stm
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Black is the New Green: A Follow-Up
We’ve got a heap of responses to “Black is the New Green,” and they tend to fall into three themes. The first is to commend the idea of making computers more energy efficient through power-saving software. The second is to suggest that much of what we suggest is already possible for anyone who takes the time to configure their machine; in other words, the goal should be education, rather than software development. The third is to express incredulity at our numbers.
There’s not much point responding to the first set of responses, except to say thanks. We appreciate it.
As for the second, we agree: education can go a long way. But not far enough. The fact is that we need to be educated about a lot of things right now: about making our cities sustainable, about the environmental consequences of our driving, of our travel, of our consumer choices, of the food we eat, of our landscaping decisions, and so on. The power we waste on our computers is a small piece of the puzzle. That’s not to say that it’s not important. But we have to acknowledge that a lot of educators are vying for our attention, and it could be a while before people get around to changing the settings on their computers. Why not create a tool to make it easier for them?
A software solution has something else to recommend it: whatever we develop will have the ability to quantify the electricity savings, and aggregate those numbers centrally. We will be able to keep a running count of the “nega-watts”⎯that is, the power that doesn’t get used. This is a powerful tool.
For one thing, just seeing the immense savings (in kilowatt-hours, in dollars, in CO2 emissions) will be a powerful educational tool. What gets measured, gets managed. In other words, the more you save, the more incentive you have to save more.
For another, if we can quantify rigorously enough, we’ll be able to issue and sell carbon credits to create revenue to plough back into the project. In other words, the more power we save, the more we’ll be able to save.
Neither of these tools is available if we just show people how to configure their machines.
Finally, a response to those who have concerns about our numbers. It’s true that much of the math is based on speculation. It is meant first of all to show the sheer scale of the problem. We can’t know how many of the world’s 650 million computers are turned on but idling, or what their screensaver settings are, or even exactly how much power all the world’s graphics cards draw. There are too many variables to get an exact number. But we do know the number is huge.
Still, though we did have to use some proxy values, the math is based on real numbers, which we have in some cases discounted to ensure that we’re not overestimating.
First, here is a link to a simple calculator that will give a sense of the power requirements of a system of just about any combination of hardware, not including monitor. It is very easy to get to 200W, which is higher than the number we used.
The graphics card can make a huge difference, in some cases jacking the power usage up over 450W. Again, this is three times the number we used in our calculations.
The monitor also makes a difference, of course. Switching from CFL to LCD offers a savings of about 60%. That’s a drop from 100W to 40W. Imagine what shutting it off altogether would save, and giving the CPU and graphics card a break when you’re not using the machine.
We’re talking about a lot of energy going to waste. That means squandered money for those paying the bills, and it means unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions from the plants that generate the power. The CO2 emissions will vary depending on the source of the power, of course. Computers wasting electricity from a nuclear plant won’t warm the globe as much as machines wasting electricity from a coal-fired plant⎯but it still doesn’t make sense to build expensive, risky nuclear plants to keep computers idling. And let’s take into account that some computer-intensive companies draw more power than the local utility can provide, and are forced to install their own diesel generators, which raise the environmental cost quickly.
With more computers drawing more electricity (to say nothing of all the video games out there—a PS3 uses more than an order of magnitude more power than the first Playstation), the situation is only going to get worse. We can begin the process of turning all that around, we can do it in such a way that the project sustains itself, and in such a way that it helps educate people about energy and its environmental costs.
Let’s not delay.
There’s not much point responding to the first set of responses, except to say thanks. We appreciate it.
As for the second, we agree: education can go a long way. But not far enough. The fact is that we need to be educated about a lot of things right now: about making our cities sustainable, about the environmental consequences of our driving, of our travel, of our consumer choices, of the food we eat, of our landscaping decisions, and so on. The power we waste on our computers is a small piece of the puzzle. That’s not to say that it’s not important. But we have to acknowledge that a lot of educators are vying for our attention, and it could be a while before people get around to changing the settings on their computers. Why not create a tool to make it easier for them?
A software solution has something else to recommend it: whatever we develop will have the ability to quantify the electricity savings, and aggregate those numbers centrally. We will be able to keep a running count of the “nega-watts”⎯that is, the power that doesn’t get used. This is a powerful tool.
For one thing, just seeing the immense savings (in kilowatt-hours, in dollars, in CO2 emissions) will be a powerful educational tool. What gets measured, gets managed. In other words, the more you save, the more incentive you have to save more.
For another, if we can quantify rigorously enough, we’ll be able to issue and sell carbon credits to create revenue to plough back into the project. In other words, the more power we save, the more we’ll be able to save.
Neither of these tools is available if we just show people how to configure their machines.
Finally, a response to those who have concerns about our numbers. It’s true that much of the math is based on speculation. It is meant first of all to show the sheer scale of the problem. We can’t know how many of the world’s 650 million computers are turned on but idling, or what their screensaver settings are, or even exactly how much power all the world’s graphics cards draw. There are too many variables to get an exact number. But we do know the number is huge.
Still, though we did have to use some proxy values, the math is based on real numbers, which we have in some cases discounted to ensure that we’re not overestimating.
First, here is a link to a simple calculator that will give a sense of the power requirements of a system of just about any combination of hardware, not including monitor. It is very easy to get to 200W, which is higher than the number we used.
The graphics card can make a huge difference, in some cases jacking the power usage up over 450W. Again, this is three times the number we used in our calculations.
The monitor also makes a difference, of course. Switching from CFL to LCD offers a savings of about 60%. That’s a drop from 100W to 40W. Imagine what shutting it off altogether would save, and giving the CPU and graphics card a break when you’re not using the machine.
We’re talking about a lot of energy going to waste. That means squandered money for those paying the bills, and it means unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions from the plants that generate the power. The CO2 emissions will vary depending on the source of the power, of course. Computers wasting electricity from a nuclear plant won’t warm the globe as much as machines wasting electricity from a coal-fired plant⎯but it still doesn’t make sense to build expensive, risky nuclear plants to keep computers idling. And let’s take into account that some computer-intensive companies draw more power than the local utility can provide, and are forced to install their own diesel generators, which raise the environmental cost quickly.
With more computers drawing more electricity (to say nothing of all the video games out there—a PS3 uses more than an order of magnitude more power than the first Playstation), the situation is only going to get worse. We can begin the process of turning all that around, we can do it in such a way that the project sustains itself, and in such a way that it helps educate people about energy and its environmental costs.
Let’s not delay.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Black is the new green
Let’s think for a moment about something we never notice—our screen savers. Around the world, right now, complex geometric shapes and patterns are bouncing around screens in empty offices and quiet suburban basements. Even when you’re gone for lunch, your screen saver labours on.
If electricity were free, this wouldn’t be worth thinking about. But then again, if electricity were free, the world would look very different. Very different.
The fact is, we are scrambling to find new sources of power and new efficiencies. We’re spending billions to do it. And at the same time, we’re using computers that quietly drain the grid.
Does this sound like an exaggeration? Let’s put it this way. It takes about 100 Watts an hour to run a screen saver on a graphics card. (Obviously, that’s the same as keeping a 100W light bulb turned on.) Some systems will use a bit less, some a bit more. But let’s say 100 Watts.
Now, there are over 600 million computers in the world, many of which never get turned off. For the sake of argument, let’s say their screen savers are running around the clock.
That’s 60,000 MegaWatts an hour. Just to keep shapes bouncing around a screen.
Just to put that in perspective, the largest wind turbines out there are rated at 10 MW.
A large coal-fired plant generates about 300 MW.
Even China’s Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, which is so huge that filling its reservoir actually made the Earth wobble on its axis, is rated at 30,000 MW.
Imagine—it takes twice as much power as a generator of this monstrous scale can produce, just to avoid letting our screens go dark. It’s absurd.
No one would leave a 100W light bulb on all day for no good reason. And no one would leave a screen saver on if they thought for a moment about what a waste of electricity it represents. (Indeed, no one runs screen savers on their laptops.) We need to start thinking about these things. And Zerofootprint proposes getting us started.
The fact is that the sheer ubiquity of computers, and the scale of their electricity demand, amplifies every efficiency we find. If we can save millions of MW just by setting our desktops to let their screens go dark, as we do with our laptops, imagine what we could achieve if we looked at the whole system the same way.
Do you know what your computer is doing when you go home at night?
Let’s say you’re one of the people whose computer is humming long after you’ve shut off the lights (if you shut off the lights, that is). Your machine is sipping electricity. And there are millions upon millions of other computers doing the same right now around the world. How much electricity are they using to do nothing at all?
Enough to supply power to the Czech Republic for an entire year.
And have enough left over to charge an electric car to drive around the globe 379,000 times.
The fact is that computers use electricity, and there are about 650 000 000 of them out there. There will soon be a lot more, and every new generation of processor uses more power than the one it replaces. In other words, energy demand from computers is going to continue to rise. The cost of running a computer is quickly overtaking the cost of buying it. Just ask Google.
In itself, this is not a promising model. But it’s even worse to consider that a huge part of the cost is allocated to have your computer do nothing. The cost of all this useless electricity is conservatively estimated at between $5 and $7 billion each year.
And let’s not overlook the environmental cost. Idle computers contribute about 45 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. That’s enough of the greenhouse gas to fill 810 billion birthday balloons.
All this to accomplish nothing.
Is it difficult to imagine 810 000 000 000 balloons? It should be easier to imagine doing something about the problem.
We know that others have recognized this colossal waste of electricity and unnecessary pollution before we did. Zerofootprint didn’t just figure this out. But we’ll take up the challenge. That’s what we’re imagining right now. We want to make all the computers in the world smarter.
After all, it’s not a huge problem. If an idle computer is wasting electricity, shut it down. Your idle computer is like a 600-hp Porsche inching through downtown traffic. The car is not deploying all its power—why should your desktop? We need to find a way tom get it to do its background processing and other non-critical tasks at a much-diminished speed.
Imagine an open-source project that allowed people to come together to write this thing, so that all the Microsoft, Sun, and Linux systems could figure out when to take a rest. Think of the billions of dollars saved. Think of the tons of carbon saved, and the power plants that wouldn’t have to be built.
One of the things that’s so enticing about the prospect of building software to make computers more efficient is that everybody wins. Users save money, a burden is lifted from the environment, and we will have, in effect, generated megawatts of electicity for next to nothing. That is, not using all that electricity is the same as contributing it to the grid. That amounts to generating electricity with a good idea and some smart programming.
So if you’re a programmer, we need your opinion, and we need your know-how. Are you interested in joining an open-source project to reduce our computers’ footprints? Then respond to this blog. We’re looking for the wisdom of the crowd to sort out a bit of a mess. Talk to your friends and your colleagues. Think about the problem. Think about a solution. Let’s put our heads together to do some good for the world.
If electricity were free, this wouldn’t be worth thinking about. But then again, if electricity were free, the world would look very different. Very different.
The fact is, we are scrambling to find new sources of power and new efficiencies. We’re spending billions to do it. And at the same time, we’re using computers that quietly drain the grid.
Does this sound like an exaggeration? Let’s put it this way. It takes about 100 Watts an hour to run a screen saver on a graphics card. (Obviously, that’s the same as keeping a 100W light bulb turned on.) Some systems will use a bit less, some a bit more. But let’s say 100 Watts.
Now, there are over 600 million computers in the world, many of which never get turned off. For the sake of argument, let’s say their screen savers are running around the clock.
That’s 60,000 MegaWatts an hour. Just to keep shapes bouncing around a screen.
Just to put that in perspective, the largest wind turbines out there are rated at 10 MW.
A large coal-fired plant generates about 300 MW.
Even China’s Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, which is so huge that filling its reservoir actually made the Earth wobble on its axis, is rated at 30,000 MW.
Imagine—it takes twice as much power as a generator of this monstrous scale can produce, just to avoid letting our screens go dark. It’s absurd.
No one would leave a 100W light bulb on all day for no good reason. And no one would leave a screen saver on if they thought for a moment about what a waste of electricity it represents. (Indeed, no one runs screen savers on their laptops.) We need to start thinking about these things. And Zerofootprint proposes getting us started.
The fact is that the sheer ubiquity of computers, and the scale of their electricity demand, amplifies every efficiency we find. If we can save millions of MW just by setting our desktops to let their screens go dark, as we do with our laptops, imagine what we could achieve if we looked at the whole system the same way.
Do you know what your computer is doing when you go home at night?
Let’s say you’re one of the people whose computer is humming long after you’ve shut off the lights (if you shut off the lights, that is). Your machine is sipping electricity. And there are millions upon millions of other computers doing the same right now around the world. How much electricity are they using to do nothing at all?
Enough to supply power to the Czech Republic for an entire year.
And have enough left over to charge an electric car to drive around the globe 379,000 times.
The fact is that computers use electricity, and there are about 650 000 000 of them out there. There will soon be a lot more, and every new generation of processor uses more power than the one it replaces. In other words, energy demand from computers is going to continue to rise. The cost of running a computer is quickly overtaking the cost of buying it. Just ask Google.
In itself, this is not a promising model. But it’s even worse to consider that a huge part of the cost is allocated to have your computer do nothing. The cost of all this useless electricity is conservatively estimated at between $5 and $7 billion each year.
And let’s not overlook the environmental cost. Idle computers contribute about 45 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. That’s enough of the greenhouse gas to fill 810 billion birthday balloons.
All this to accomplish nothing.
Is it difficult to imagine 810 000 000 000 balloons? It should be easier to imagine doing something about the problem.
We know that others have recognized this colossal waste of electricity and unnecessary pollution before we did. Zerofootprint didn’t just figure this out. But we’ll take up the challenge. That’s what we’re imagining right now. We want to make all the computers in the world smarter.
After all, it’s not a huge problem. If an idle computer is wasting electricity, shut it down. Your idle computer is like a 600-hp Porsche inching through downtown traffic. The car is not deploying all its power—why should your desktop? We need to find a way tom get it to do its background processing and other non-critical tasks at a much-diminished speed.
Imagine an open-source project that allowed people to come together to write this thing, so that all the Microsoft, Sun, and Linux systems could figure out when to take a rest. Think of the billions of dollars saved. Think of the tons of carbon saved, and the power plants that wouldn’t have to be built.
One of the things that’s so enticing about the prospect of building software to make computers more efficient is that everybody wins. Users save money, a burden is lifted from the environment, and we will have, in effect, generated megawatts of electicity for next to nothing. That is, not using all that electricity is the same as contributing it to the grid. That amounts to generating electricity with a good idea and some smart programming.
So if you’re a programmer, we need your opinion, and we need your know-how. Are you interested in joining an open-source project to reduce our computers’ footprints? Then respond to this blog. We’re looking for the wisdom of the crowd to sort out a bit of a mess. Talk to your friends and your colleagues. Think about the problem. Think about a solution. Let’s put our heads together to do some good for the world.
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