Green computing

Here are some tested suggestions and information that may make it possible for you to reduce your computer energy consumption by 80 percent or more while still retaining most or all productivity and other benefits of your computer system, including network connectivity.

Screen savers save no money

Enable power management features

When to turn off your computer

Computer operating costs

Energy efficient usage

Reducing paper waste

Reusing and recycling

If screen saver images appear on your monitor for more than 5 minutes, you are wasting energy! Screen saver programs may save the phosphors in your monitor screen, but this is not really a concern with newer monitors, especially LCD screens. And they do not save any energy.

A screen saver that displays moving images causes your monitor to consume as much as electricity as it does when in active use. These screen saver programs also involve system interaction with your CPU that results in additional energy consumption. A blank screen saver is slightly better but even that only reduces monitor energy consumption by a few percent.

Thanks to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), personal computer systems purchased today can be easy on energy. These “Energy Star” computers and monitors can be programmed to automatically “power-down” to a low power state when they are not being used. These efficiency gains can be achieved without any sacrifice in computing performance.

The EPA has estimated that providing computers with “sleep mode” reduces their energy use by 60 to 70 percent – and ultimately could save enough electricity each year to power Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, cut electric bills by $2 billion, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of 5 million cars.

Follow these simple steps to access computer and monitor power management features for Macintosh and Windows

Macintosh: From any application select the Apple menu Select “System Preferences...” (OS X) or “Control Panels” (OS 9) and then click on “Energy Saver”. Windows: Point your cursor at the desktop background and right-click. Choose “Properties” from the pop up menu Go to the “Screen Saver” page; in the lower right-hand corner near the ENERGY STAR® logo click the “Settings” button. This brings up another dialog box where you choose power management settings.

The recommended settings are 20 minutes for monitor sleep and 30 minutes for system sleep. Remember that to save energy with your monitor’s built-in power management system, your monitor must go to sleep (shut itself down).

When not in use, turn off the juice
This is the most basic energy conservation strategy for any type of equipment. Consider the following:

• Turn off your computer and/or peripherals when they are not in use. Turning on and off will not harm the equipment.
• Don’t run computers continuously unless they are in use continuously.
• Turn off at night and on weekends
• Look for ways to reduce the amount of time your computer is on without adversely affecting your productivity.

Research reveals that most personal desktop computers are not being used the majority of the time they are running and many personal computers nationwide are needlessly left on continuously. Every time we leave computers or lights on we waste electricity. Burning fossil fuels generates most of our electricity and it also emits pollutants, sulfur, and carbon dioxide into the air. These emissions can cause respiratory disease, smog, acid rain and global climate change.

How a user operates the computer also factors into energy costs. First let’s take the worst case scenario, continuous operation. Assuming you operate a 200 watt PC system day and night everyday, direct annual electrical costs would be over $125 (at $0.075/kWh). In contrast, if you operate your system just during normal business hours, say 40 hours per week, the direct annual energy cost would be about $30 – plus, of course, the cost of providing additional cooling.

Considering the tremendous benefits of computer use, neither of the above cost figures may seem like much, but think of what happens when these costs are multiplied by the thousands of computers in use at the district. The energy waste dollars add up quickly.

Some specific suggestions

• Unless you require immediate access to e-mail or other Internet services, break the habit of turning on all your computer equipment as soon as you enter the office each day.
• If practical, informally group your computer activities and try to do then during one or two parts of the day, leaving the computer off at other times.
• Avoid using the switch on a powerstrip to turn on all your equipment.
• If you use a laser printer, don’t turn your printer on until you are ready to print.
• Turn off your entire computer system (CPU, monitor and printer) or at least your monitor and printer when you go to lunch or will be out of office for a meeting or an errand.

While the energy saving suggestions listed above are appropriate for many district PC users, some of the suggestions may be inappropriate for certain computer applications or work situations. When in doubt, discuss possible energy conservation measures with your colleagues, supervisor, or computer lab director to determine which steps can be taken without harming productivity.

You can take a giant step toward environmentally responsible or “green” computing by conserving energy with your computer. But green computing involves other important steps as well. These pertain to paper use, toner cartridges, disposal of old computer equipment and purchasing decisions when considering new computer equipment.

Rather than creating a paperless office, computer use has vastly increased paper consumption and paper waste. Here are some suggestions for reducing waste:

• Print as little as possible. Review and modify documents on the screen and use print preview. Minimize the number of hard copies and paper drafts you make. Instead of printing, save information to disks.
• Recycle waste paper.
• Buy and use recycled paper in your printers and copiers. From an environmental point of view, the best recycled paper is 100 percent post consumer recycled content.
• Save e-mail whenever possible and avoid needless printing of e-mail messages.
• Use e-mail instead of faxes or send faxes directly from your computer to eliminate the need for a hard copy. When you must fax using hard copies, save paper using a “sticky” fax address note and not a cover sheet.
• On larger documents, use smaller font sizes (consistent with readability) to save paper.
• If your printer prints a test page whenever it is turned on, disable this unnecessary feature.
• Before recycling paper, which has print on only one side, set it aside for use as scrap paper or in printing drafts.
• When documents are printed or copied, use double-sided printing and copying. If possible, use the multiple pages per sheet option on printer properties.
• When general information-type documents must be shared within an office, try circulating them instead of making an individual copy for each person. This can also be done easily by e-mail.

FHDA generates hundreds of spent printer toner and ink jet cartridges and batteries a year. Instead of tossing these in the garbage, they can be recycled, saving resources and reducing pollution and solid waste. To recycle spent toner or ink jet cartridges (printer and some fax), take them to the mail room, and they can mail them back to the manufacturer to be reused.. To recycle batteries, click here to download a file listing locations of battery disposal bins around the district,.

Members of the district realize that recycling old electronics equipment is the “right thing” to do and have made a commitment to recycle old equipment rather than landfill it. When landfilled, computer equipment leaches lead and other heavy metals into ground water and the soil.

Further educate yourself on how technology affects our environment and health, and how to minimize your environmental footprint when using technolgy. A couple of great sites are:

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition

Green computing per Wikipedia

Greenercomputing.com

THANKS FOR BEING GREEN!!!!

Last Updated: Friday, September 7, 2007 at 2:27:03 PM
©2008 Foothill-De Anza Community College District