Green computing involves designing, using, and disposing of IT equipment in an environmentally friendly way. Non-green computing releases harmful gases and leads to more energy use and e-waste. Common electronics waste a large percentage of energy even when not in active use. Manufacturing IT equipment can involve hazardous materials like lead, mercury, and cadmium. Benefits of green computing include reduced pollution, lower energy use, and encouraging reuse and recycling. Methods include using renewable resources, recyclable materials, and cloud-based systems.
2. What is Green Computing?
The study and practice of designing,
manufacturing, using and disposing of
computers and associated subsystems such as
monitors, printers, storage devices,
networking and communication systems
efficiently and effectively with no impact on
the environment.
3. Consequences of Non-Green Computing
Release of harmful gases from electronics
More utilization of power and money
Increase of E-waste and improper disposal
4. Annual Power Wastage and Cost
Appliances
Hours per
Day
Watts
Annual
when ON Cost of use
Watts on
Stand By
Annual
Cost on
Stand By
% Wasted
TV
2
75
£7.12
14
£14.61
67%
VCR
1
15
£0.07
8
£9.07
99%
COMPUTER
2
60
£5.69
13
£13.57
70%
MICRO WAVE
25
1700
£20.17
24
£27.05
57%
BATTERY
CHARGER
6
12
£3.41
10
£3.79
53%
TOTAL COST
£49.36
£104.5
5. Manufacturing of PCsHazards.
Lead:
Mercury:
Cadmium:
Used in soldering of printed circuit boards.
Lead can cause damage to the central and
peripheral nervous system , blood systems
and kidneys.
Used in batteries, switches . Mercury spreads
out in water transforming into methylated
mercury that can cause chronic brain damage.
Used in resistors for chips and in
semiconductors . Cadmium is classified as toxic,
these compounds accumulate in the human body,
particularly the kidneys.
6. Benefits of Green Computing
Reduces the amount of pollutants in the
surroundings.
It saves the power consumption and reduces
the amount of heat produced from the
electronics.
It reduces the burden on paper industry.
Encourages the use of Renewable Resources.
Promotes effective utilization of natural
resources.
7. Green Manufacturing
Bamboo : is becoming increasingly popular for making casings for computers
and peripherals.
Recyclable plastics : computers are constructed from non-recyclable plastics
ie recyclable polycarbonate resin.
Eco-friendly flame retardant : there are flame retardant silicone compounds
available that are flame retardant and completely non-toxic.
Inventory management : reducing the quantity of both hazardous materials
used in the process and the amount of excess raw materials.
Volume reduction : removes hazardous portion of waste from non hazardous
portion.
8. Disposal of components
Europe has outlawed using landfills for computer components
Disposal of these devices constituted 20-50 million tons per year (about
5% of the total waste of the planet)
this waste is called e-waste
Toxic chemicals in electronics products can reach into the land over time
or are released into the atmosphere, impacting nearby communities and the
environment.
This releases heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury into the air
and ashes.
9. Green Disposal
Reuse: donate your computer components to people who may not have or
have lesser quality computers.
Refurbish: rather than discarding your computer upgrade it. Change its
some of the parts in order to make it new.
Recycle: One of the major challenges is recycling the printed circuit
boards from the electronic wastes. The circuit boards contain such precious
metals as gold, silver, platinum, etc. and such base metals as copper, iron,
aluminum.
10. Powering in an E-mail System
Energy is consumed in three places when a user check their email
• The Client: The PC, laptop, phone or other device directly accessing
email is called the client. Its using electricity as it fetches and displays
email.
• The Network: Wireless routers, network switches and all the
intervening networking equipment between the client and the email
server use electricity.
• The Server: The computer or group of computers receiving, sending
and storing email is called email server. This machine and group of
machines is constantly ON and consuming electricity.
11. Computer Housing and Cooling
The energy email servers consume directly is only one component of the
energy used to store and deliver email. Additional energy is required to
house and cool the servers.
Cloud providers take advantage of this efficiency in scale by providing
servers for millions of users—maximizing the utilization of machines while
cutting down on the total number of servers required. The result is fewer
machines and less energy over all.
Google has developed Gmail for Google Apps, a cloud-based email service
used by over 4 million organizations, small and large. Gmail is constantly
improving as we integrate new efficiency improvements, develop ways of
streamlining our operations, and, of course, increase capabilities. Software
developers, hardware designers and data center technicians have a unified
goal of optimizing Google services to use as few resources as possible.
12. Research and Development
IBM in 1990 saved around 4.6 billion kWh of electricity and
prevented almost 3 million metric tones of CO2 emissions.
Since 2007, Google has been a carbon neutral company,
utilizing energy efficient improvements, green power and
carbon offsets to bring our footprint down to zero.
Users of Gmail also enjoy this benefit of zero carbon
emission email.
Choosing Gmail over a locally hosted server can mean an
annual per-user power savings of up to 170 kWh and a
carbon footprint reduction of up to 100 kg of CO2
13. How to go Green
Turn off the computer when not in use, even if just
for an hour
Turn off the monitor when not in use
Use power saver mode
Use hardware/software with the Energy Star label
Don’t print unless necessary and you are ready
Use LCDs instead of CRTs as they are more power efficient
Consider a smaller monitor-a 14-inch display uses 40% less energy
than a 17-inch one.
Enable Stand By/Sleep mode.
Recycling
Switching from a locally hosted email system to cloud based email
14. Energy Star
One of the first manifestations of the green computing movement was the launch of
energy star program back in 1992.
Energy Star served as a kind of voluntary label awarded to computing products
that succeeded in minimizing use of energy while maximizing efficiency.
Energy Star applied to products like computer monitors, television sets and
temperature control devices like refrigerators, air conditioners, and similar items.
15. How to save energy while
working on the internet ?
Blackle is a website powered by Google Custom Search and
created by Heap Media, which aims to save energy by
displaying a black background and using grayish-white font
color for search results.
Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly
black
Blackle claims having saved 3.12 MWh (megawatt hours) of
electrical energy up to now (May 28th 2012)
16. How to save energy while
working on the computer?
Sleep mode:
Sleep or standby mode conserves energy by cutting off power to your
display, hard drives and peripherals.
After a pre-set period of inactivity, your computer switches to a low power
state.
Hibernate mode :
Saves energy and protects your work by copying system data to a reserved
area on your hard drive and then completely turning off your computer.
Reduces wear and tear on your components.