Electronics makers vie to make machines green
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With its plethora of gadgets that  become outdated almost as soon as they are sold, the consumer  electronics industry is an unlikely champion of the  environment.
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Semiconductor chips that can manage a good bit of their own upkeep are moving closer to reality.
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'Green' PCs adapt to EPA's newest Energy Star label ahead of schedule.
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Major vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Sony are working together to push through a legislative mandate in the U.S. that will make it easier for users to recycle their consumer electronics.The mandate calls for companies to cut&#160;consumer electronics recycling&#160;costs and to make their reuse and recycling the highest priority when manufacturing products, panelists said during a talk at the International Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas.The cost to consumers of recycling products, including things like collection fees, is high, the panelists said, and some manufacturers have taken advantage of weak recycling laws to manufacture products that cannot be effectively recycled or reused.Some companies have standards in place to manufacture products that are easy to recycle, but others hope to drive down their own costs by adopting lower production standards, the panelists said.A legislative mandate would create a level playing field for manufacturers, said Tod Arbogast, director of sustainable business at Dell. A common approach to designing for recycling will promote the production of products that can be recycled and drive down manufacturing costs through effective product design and distribution.As an example of what can be done, Sony&#39;s new OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TV is designed to be disassembled by common household tools, said Douglas Smith, Sony&#39;s director of corporate environmental affairs. It is a step toward making products that can be easily recycled, he said.To be effective, recycling processes will be needed to convert used components back to original raw material for other products, followed by reuse or resale. Production costs can be cut through recycling and reusing materials rather than extracting and processing raw materials, said Dell&#39;s Arbogast.&quot;There are significant economic benefits in doing so as well as significant environmental benefits, which I think are often forgotten,&quot; Arbogast said.HP is adopting standards to recycle printers with plastic that doesn&#39;t convert to raw material, said Renee St. Denis, director of recycling at HP. The end-of-life resale value of printers after seven to 10 years of usage is minimal, but the high cost of plastics versus other printer components has made the company come up with innovative reuses of those plastics, she said.Dell already follows a Texas state law that requires PC manufacturers to dispose of products as easily as they are placed in the market, Arbogast said. The company accepts used Dell PCs for free via mail, Arbogast said.Sony is taking full responsibility for the products its manufactures -- cell phones, TVs and other devices -- by offering the ability to recycle them at no cost, Smith said.In March, Sony will launch a program in the U.S. where consumers can recycle consumer electronics for free by dropping them off at locations within a 20-mile radius of any SonyStyle store. Though the company has only 55 SonyStyle stores in the U.S., the company hopes to expand the effort by involving its distributors and other companies.Sony takes full responsibility for products it manufactures and has already recycled a giant TV screen belonging to the city of Tampa Bay for free, and the company wants to deliver the same recycling ability to users, said Smith.
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eco-IT should take off because of its potential for cost savings and because new tech gear usually has some environmental component anyway.
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Being "green" is all the rage with technology companies these days, but what's not clear is whether or not the environment-friendly approach is bringing in more greenbacks.
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The technology vendor is working with partners on improving the safety and environmental impact of electronic waste-recycling in the region.
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Electronics vendors are working to push through a legislative mandate that will make it easier for consumers to recycle consumer electronics.
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Online auction company eBay Inc.  EBAY.O on Thursday unveiled an initiative to join personal  computer makers and their environmental critics in an effort to  recycle more of the up to 400 million electronic products that  are thrown out every year.
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HP and Dell, which together sell more than half the country's PCs, get kudos for using more eco-friendly components and recycling their products when consumers discard them. By the Associated Press.
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Companies like Microsoft and Google have committed to improving the power efficiency of equipment they make and use.
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Green tech financiers share tips for spotting sustainable startups.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of some of the biggest technology companies said they've committed to a plan to improve the power efficiency of equipment they make and use. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative , which includes companies such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., aims to improve the efficiency of power sources for computers and servers and encourage end users to take advantage of underused power management techniques. Only about 50 percent of the power that leaves a power outlet reaches a PC, because inefficient power cords leak energy, Google's Senior Vice President of Operations, Urs Holzle said Tuesday during a press conference to announce the program. Climate Savers has defined a series of standards for power supply efficiency in servers and PCs that it suggests members adopt between now and July 2010. By 2010, the Climate Savers standard will define a power supply that is above 95 percent efficient, Holzle said. The program asks manufacturing members to build products to the standard and companies to pledge to buy products that have the improved power supplies. The improvement doesn't require the development of new technologies. "This is all do-able today with technology we have and know," Holzle said. The reason that vendors haven't deployed such efficient power cords is because they cost more, said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group. A PC with a more efficient power cord would cost around US$20 more and a server an additional $30, he said. To address that price premium, Climate Savers is encouraging energy companies to issue rebates to users that buy products with the more efficient power supplies. Over time that cost premium is expected to drop with volume production, Gelsinger said. In addition, end users will save on their energy bills, also helping to offset the cost, he noted. Another component of Climate Savers is general education and encouragement for end users to take advantage of power management mechanisms that are typically built into existing PCs. "Ninety percent of PCs are capable but aren't utilizing power management techniques," Gelsinger said. "We want to drive IT policy in enterprises," he said. Improving power supply efficiencies and the use of power management techniques along the timeline Climate Savers has described would reduce global carbon emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons per year. It would save 62 billion kilowatt hours of energy in 2010, worth around $5.5 billion in energy costs, the group said. In its own data centers, most of Google's servers already have power supplies that comply with the Climate Savers standards for 2008 and 2009, Holzle said. Google began investing in the more expensive supplies because "it's worth spending a bit more on the power supply to save on the energy bill," he said. He defended Google's overall carbon footprint, despite questions about company jets that are hard on the environment. He pointed to the solar power used at the company's headquarters and incentives for employees to buy hybrid cars. In addition, he hinted at future energy-saving programs that the company plans to announce soon. Although Holzle said he knows Google's carbon footprint, he declined to share it. Other companies that are already part of the program include Yahoo Inc., Hitachi Ltd., eBay Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., NEC Corp., Red Hat Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., Unisys Corp. and the Linux Foundation.
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Leading hardware and software firms join a campaign to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from computers by cutting energy use.
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A group of technology companies is offering to share some of its patents to encourage the development of environmentally friendly technologies.IBM, Nokia, Sony, and bulk-mailing equipment manufacturer Pitney-Bowes have together donated patents to the Eco-patent Commons, an organization set up to share the patents for technology with environmental benefits.Any organization willing to donate a patent for environmentally friendly technology to the commons can join the group. The patents are made available for use by members and nonmembers alike.So far, patents pledged to the commons cover fields such as waste water treatment, air purification, cell-phone recycling and reducing printer ink consumption. IBM has pledged 27 patents, Pitney Bowes two, and Nokia and Sony one each.The Eco-patent Commons will be administered by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group which brings together CEOs in industries such as cement, electrical utilities, timber, mining and transport.The group wants businesses to donate patents for technologies that have a positive environmental impact, but that are not related to their core business.It hopes that access to patents in the Commons will enable businesses facing environmental challenges that have already been solved by others to develop cleaner, less energy-intensive products as a result.The move is inspired by the success of the free and open-source software sector, where the sharing information has resulted in the creation of many new products, the group said.Together, the companies apply for thousands of patents each year. IBM in particular regularly tops the league tables for&#160;most filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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Recycling of consumer electronics may get a boost in the U.S. through a planned legislative mandate supported by HP, Dell and Sony.
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With oil prices rising people are turning to wood heat, raising concerns about the environmental impact of some older devices that are being used.