Tech CEOs push for green computing
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IT vendors can play a major role in reducing the world&#39;s energy consumption, but information about the benefits of technology has been lacking in an ongoing environmental debate in Washington, D.C., three tech CEOs said Wednesday.While IT consumption of energy in the U.S. has grown in the last decade, technology also displaces more than its share of energy-consuming activities in other sectors, members of the Technology CEO Council said. The advocacy group highlighted a report, released Wednesday, saying that every kilowatt hour of energy used by IT replaces 10 kilowatt hours of energy that would have been used elsewhere.IT currently uses about 6 percent of U.S. electricity, up from 2 percent to 3 percent in 2000, said John &quot;Skip&quot; Laitner, co-author of the report and director of economic policy analysis at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). But through a wide variety of IT products, including tech that enables video conferencing, telecommuting, and e-mail, technology results in a net decrease in energy consumption, he said.Instead of flying to a conference in Sweden recently, Laitner attended by video conference, he said. And in preparing the ACEEE&#39;s report, Laitner received thousands of pages of documents by e-mail or downloads, instead of having them delivered.Few studies have explored the energy efficiencies created by IT, he added. &quot;We have to look at what that&#39;s displacing,&quot; he said.Users of computers and other tech products should expect more energy savings in the future, said Dell CEO Michael Dell. He joined Mike Splinter, president and CEO of Applied Materials, and Joe Tucci, chairman, president and CEO of EMC, at a press briefing focused on green technologies.&quot;As an industry, we have begun to take up the [environmental] issue in a serious way,&quot; Dell said. &quot;It&#39;s an issue that customers care about.&quot;The IT industry has come under some criticism for its energy use, particularly at large data centers. In January 2007, U.S. Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, introduced a bill that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to analyze and report to Congress about the growth and energy consumption of computer datacenters by the federal government and private companies.Congress needs to &quot;more fully understand the impact that the growing number of computers in use throughout the country has on energy consumption,&quot; Allard said then.The Technology CEO Council isn&#39;t concerned about congressional mandates because the IT industry is already taking steps to reduce its energy consumption, said Bruce Mehlman, the group&#39;s executive director.But the U.S. government has a huge impact on energy consumption by adopting more green technologies, said Applied Materials&#39; Splinter. &quot;The government is the largest user of energy in our country,&quot; he said.In addition to the ACEEE report, the Technology CEO Council released its own report, called &quot;A Smarter Shade of Green.&quot; The report lays out the group&#39;s environmental policy principles, including:*&#160;The president should select a federal agency as a center for energy efficiency excellence, a model for other agencies going green.*&#160;The government should invest more in green research.*&#160;Governments across the world should reduce tariffs on green technologies.*&#160;The U.S. government should explore tax incentives for deploying energy-saving technologies.*&#160;Companies shouldn&#39;t wait for government mandates or incentives but should adopt energy-efficient strategies on their own.
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Pay more to pay less Intel and Google have taken it upon themselves to lead yet another "green computing" project.â¦
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The CEO of the world's largest chipmaker wants hardware developers thinking about graphics, low-power applications, and Intel's determination not to let AMD get the best of it again.
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Technology company GigaBeam has come up with an alternative to the bottleneck that bedevils businesses everywhere.
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By Associated Press  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- A coalition of technology companies and environmental groups led by Google Inc. and Intel Corp.
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A group representing technology industry executives yesterday called on the Bush administration to step up efforts to protect the nation&#39;s computer and Internet infrastructure, and it proposed
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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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The economic rebound might be sluggish, but technology investments matter more than ever. That's what three of the industry's biggest CEOs told 6,500 attendees last week at the Gartner Symposium and Information Technology Expo, one of the biggest annual gatherings of tech professionals. Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers, Intel CEO Craig Barrett and Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy also met with USA TODAY reporter Michelle Kessler to sound off on new technologies, stock options and globalization. Here's what they had to say, edited for clarity and space.
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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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Customers including Allstate Insurance are actively pursuing green strategies, but say they want standards to help them gauge data-center energy efficiency.
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Columnist Bert Latamore explores environmentally unfriendly computing practices and possible actions that companies can take now to address the problem and save money at the same time.
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New initiatives aim to help businesses create server clusters for high-performance computing tasks.
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A coalition of technology companies and environmental groups led by Google Inc. and Intel Corp. launched an initiative Tuesday to conserve electricity and curb global warming emissions by making the world's computers and servers more energy-efficient.
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(InfoWorld) - Dell will neutralize its carbon emissions and become carbon neutral by the end of 2008, chairman and CEO Michael Dell announced Wednesday. Dell is the first major computer manufacturer to announce its intention to balance its carbon emissions with activities that reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Companies have a responsibility to improve the environment, Dell said during a speech in Washington, D.C. "There's been a time in history of business where it's more important for organizations of all sizes to partner together to positively impact the Earth that well all share," Dell said. "It's not enough for Dell to be an environmental leader. We also need to partner with our customers ... to dramatically improve our own customers' environmental impacts." Dell will reduce its net carbon emissions in several ways, Dell said. The company will focus on creating more energy-efficient products and will purchase more energy-efficient electrical power, he said. Dell, the world's second-largest PC manufacturer, will also push its major suppliers to report and reduce their carbon emissions. If a supplier's carbon emissions are excessive, the company may penalize the supplier, although Dell didn't offer details about the penalties. Dell has also expanded itsÂ Plant a Tree for MeÂ program, which allows individual customers to pay a small amount to plant a tree as a way to offset the energy consumption of the laptops or PCs they purchase from the company. Dell has announced a Plant a Forest for Me program, partnering with companies including Salesforce.com, Ask.com, and Advanced Micro DevicesÂ in a reforesting program intended to offset carbon emissions. Companies can do many things to reduce carbon emissions, Dell said. They can purchase energy-efficient IT equipment, consolidate servers through virtualization, and use software to turn off computers and monitors after employees go home. Customers demanding energy efficiency are pushing IT vendors away from the old price/performance metric to a new "performance per watt" metric, Dell said. "Thinking about IT in terms of performance per watt forces businesses like ours to rethink the way products are designed and the way they're used," Dell said. In June, the company set the goal of becoming "the greenest technology on the planet." Governments can also play a role in encouraging companies to protect the environment, Dell added. Governments could give research credits to companies to improve energy efficiency and could provide incentives for companies to encourage green policies such asÂ telecommuting, he said. The 3.9 million telecommuters in the United States saved 840 million gallons of gasoline in a year, according to a recent Consumer Electronics Association report. Dell will continue to work with other tech vendors on environmental issues, Dell said. "While we vigorously compete in many areas in our business, when it comes to the environment, there actually are not competitors, only partners," he said. Dan Burton, senior vice president for global public policy at Salesforce.com, praised Dell's speech. With its focus on improving the environment through its business practices, "Dell is really redefining what is corporate philanthropy," Burton said.
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Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from computers is to be the aim of a new government taskforce.
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Science & environment: Billionaire businessman pays tribute to computing industry ahead of his Microsoft exit
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Oracle, Dell, EMC and Intel have joined with other tech companies to create an industry standard for enterprise grid systems. &quot;Project MegaGrid&quot; will help maximize the use of computing resources, according to the group.