Green Dell gets greener with new green initiative
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So green they crap leprechauns A lot of PC makers are riding the going green pony pretty hard these days, but the folks at Dell â you've got to give them credit â are making a show out of boiling the poor thing down to eco-friendly glue.â¦
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Corporations are adding a new title to the executive suite â chief sustainability officer â not just an environmental watchdog, but someone to oversee the effort to go green.
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Dell Inc. unveiled an environmental plan Wednesday that the computer maker said will make its operations carbon-neutral by 2008, a year earlier than it previously promised.
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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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Intel, the world&#39;s top chip maker, and Nokia, the number-one mobile-phone maker, plan to lesson their respective impact on the environment, the companies said separately Monday.While Nokia has joined the World Wildlife Fund&#39;s Climate Savers Program, Intel plans to buy 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates. That will make Intel the largest corporate buyer of green energy in the U.S.Buying renewable energy certificates is not, however, the same as directly buying and using renewable energy. Intel is making the purchase through Sterling Planet, a company that will then distribute the investment to a variety of green energy producers across the U.S. The producers use wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biomass sources to produce energy that they then feed into the power grid. Those producers rely on the buyers of certificates to help fund their businesses, so Intel&#39;s investment is important to their success, said Matt Clouse, director of the Green Power Partnership at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Buying renewable energy certificates helps a company like Intel support green energy even if it finds it difficult to directly buy green energy for use in its operations. Many green energy producers feed their power into the grid, but once they do, power users usually can&#39;t discern whether the energy they buy came from the green source or from a coal-powered plant, said Bill Calder, an Intel spokesman.Some electric companies do have green power offerings, but a company like Intel with multiple sites would have to work with various providers in multiple locations to try to buy green power from them, which is an expensive undertaking, especially in states where prices are set by a regulatory process, Clouse said. Buying the certificates can help companies track their environmental effect and hit environmental goals even if they find it cost prohibitive to directly buy and use green energy, he said.Intel may have other reasons for making the investment beyond reducing its carbon footprint. &quot;Many of these companies that are buying green power are customer facing, and they spend enormous amounts of money on their brand and product PR and this is a way that is frankly a low cost option to address the environmental aspects that affect their brand and image,&quot; Clouse said.Intel is not revealing how much it will cost to buy the 1.3 billion kilowatt hours per year. However, Clouse estimated that Intel might be paying between $2 and $4 per thousand kilowatt hours, for a total yearly investment of $2.6 million to $5.2 million. &quot;That&#39;s a pretty inexpensive media undertaking,&quot; he said.Intel&#39;s investment in the renewable energy certificates is in addition to its regular energy costs, Calder said. But by buying the certificates, Intel is helping to fund the production of green power that is fed into the grid, he said. Ultimately, Intel hopes that other companies will follow suit, thus reducing the cost of green energy in the future, he said.The volume of kilowatt hours that Intel agreed to buy per year equates to about 46 percent of its yearly electricity use in the U.S., Calder said.Also on Monday, Nokia pledged to use green electricity to power half of its facilities by 2010 and reduce overall energy needs of its sites by 6 percent by 2012, announcing that it has joined the WWF program. Nokia also plans to reduce energy wasted by mobile-phone chargers.Greenpeace recently knocked Nokia from first place to ninth in a ranking of electronics makers. Greenpeace praised Nokia for its efforts to reduce the use of harmful chemicals in its products but said the company has done a poor job of supporting recycling programs in some countries.
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Small businesses with fewer than 10 pieces of computer equipment to recycle are eligible for a new Dell service.
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Big Blue is going green with an initiative that focuses on environmental technologies and services.
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Dell has its sites on becoming "carbon neutral" in 2008
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Green tech financiers share tips for spotting sustainable startups.
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Eco-friendly, GreenPower family of hard drive consume less power and go idle when not in use.
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Updated Green Electronics Guide gives Apple better marks for its promise to clean up its gear.
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Data center operators are looking for alternative ways of powering their facilities and green technologies that are cleaner are gaining new attention, according to attendees at this week's Afcom data center conference.
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SilverBack's service-delivery platform will be incorporated into the hardware vendor's operations to bolster Dell's IT services.
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Dell gets set to roll out its PowerEdge 1855 blade server line a home-grown design, this month.
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Environmental group's ranking of hardware vendors purports to show which are green, which lag ecologically.
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(InfoWorld) - I recently moved from a small apartment in Oakland to a new house in Sacramento. The cat and I are adjusting quite well, thank you, though for about one month, I was without a kitchen. Or a water heater. Or downstairs flooring. It may not have been the best-laid renovation plan. I do have new kitchen appliances, which spent quite some time looming largely and uselessly off to the side of the future kitchen. They're very shiny, which is nice, and they're Energy Star certified, of course I say "Of course," because in this day and age, Energy Starred fridges and stoves and the like are incredibly easy to come by. Plus, they come with little tags that tell you how much you'll save in energy bills per year. Oh, and the local utility will give me money for buying them. So how could I go wrong investing in a green kitchen? Alas, for IT, it's not nearly so easy being green. Swapping out a fridge isn't as quick, straight-forward, or nondisruptive as swapping out a server rack or farm. Determining the potential long-term savings for a bunch of new laptops isn't as simple of figuring out how much you'll save with a new stove (it's right there on the tag). Deciding where to place the dishwasher is pretty much a no-brainer whereas figuring out how to set up your server racks to maximize energy efficiency can be exceedingly complex. In fact, it's likely that you, or whoever runs your business, has seemingly more important things on the brain than developing a strategy for a greener, more energy-efficient operation: boosting sales; keeping the network secure and running; and figuring out who's been stealing Hot Pockets from the Energy Star fridge in the break room. Perhaps youâre not sure where to begin. Or perhaps you're not even convinced that going green -- or greener -- is a worthwhile endeavor, or something you can really afford. Well, let's explore the question -- or rather some answers to the question -- of why going green should matter to you in the first place. 1. Going green really can save you money. For many organizations, that benefit may well be the foremost argument for adopting more eco-friendly practices. Less energy consumption means lower bills -- and hereâs the kicker: You're likely burning (or cooling) away thousands of dollars each year paying for energy that's really not contributing to your bottom line. One of the biggest culprits: cooling costs for the datacenter. In fact, by 2010 IDC predicts that companies will be spending an additional 70 cents per dollar invested in a new server. That's up from 50 cents on the dollar in 2005 and 21 cents per buck in 2000. You'll certainly want to prepare as those costs creep up. It doesn't end there: Waste abounds at organizations, and research has found that companies that work to reduce their environmental impact tend to perform better than their counterparts. Fortunately, there are cost-saving strategies out there. Among them is re-thinking the kind of equipment you can buy (more energy-efficient hardware and standards are coming out all the time), the technologies you employ, such as virtualization and thin clients, and even the way you lay out your datacenter. 2. Going green will help reduce the impact of the imminent energy crisis. Yes, I know: Crisis is often one of those words that media types throw around to cause panic and sell magazines or newspapers or drive Web site traffic. Nevertheless, based on the research I've seen, crisis is an apt word. Right now, energy supply looks to be struggling to keep up with demand. A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concludes that, thanks to the industry shift to low-end servers, global power consumption has doubled since 2000 to more than 123 million kw/hours. Power demands are expected to increase by 40 percent come 2010 -- and that's assuming that per-server power consumption remains at 2005 rates. Or consider what Gartner proclaimed at the end of 2006: Half of datacenters will run out of power by 2008. As explained by Timothy Morgan at ITJungle: "Gartner did not, by the way, literally mean that datacenters would go dark in two years after blowing some fuses or melting under their own heat. What Gartner did say was that by the end of 2008, 50 percent of the datacenters in the world would not have enough power to meet the power and cooling requirements of the high-density computing gear that vendors are increasingly peddling." Although this prediction doesn't mean it's time to get hysterical, or start training an army of hamsters to power your server farm, it should certainly be a compelling reason to start looking at ways to conserve energy. Want more information? Check out this Webcast from The Uptime Institute about "The Invisible Crisis in the Data Center." (Registration is required for viewing.) 3. Going green is good PR. Both environmentally- and economically-conscious people like a good news article about the ways companies are leveraging green technology, be it simply investing in more energy-efficient gear, or putting solar panels on top of their datacenters. That kind of positive publicity is good advertising, which also can offset some of the cost of investing in green IT. (These kinds of case studies can also provide useful guides for other companies looking for ways to cut energy costs.) 4. Going green is good for the environment. Ah yes, the environment. Trees. Oceans. Fresh air. Turtles. I'm personally in favor of all of those things (even those vicious snapping turtles that would bite off a toe without a second thought). And IT commerce in general has a huge impact on the environment, such as landfills piled up with improperly discarded computers and servers, wasted printer paper, as well carbon dioxides contributing to global warming. Yes, I do realize that some people remain skeptical as to whether or not global warming is real and a concern. (Some people also remain skeptical whether the Earth is flat and whether it revolves around the Sun.) Too flippant? Perhaps. Let's just say that even the previously skeptical political leaders of the world are acknowledging that global warming warrants consideration, and that it requires reducing the carbon dioxides and toxins we spew into environment (and later inhale). And even if you disagree with those who proclaim global warming a concern, you'd best prepare for forthcoming regulations on reducing energy waste -- or risk legal headaches. Yes, there may be a significant up-front cost required to switch to leaner, greener machines -- but there are also incentives out there (federal and local) to help you get the job done. I'll help keep you abreast of those in the coming days and weeks. So there you have it: four simple reasons to consider embracing green IT at your organization. Be sure to check in regularly at my Sustainable IT blog for the latest news and analyses about green IT.
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IT can help the U.S. go green, technology CEOs said at a conference in Washington.