Greening Computer Issues Particularly for SMEs and Indivuals - Coursework Example

October 31, 2007 Greening Computers Defining the Problem The unprecedented development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the last couple of decades has cast its influence over every walk of life and in every field of work. Every office, almost every home, and every other perceivable place this side of the Digital Divide now flaunt computers and all the associated paraphernalia. The computer has become all pervasive, it is in many ways more ubiquitous than many common household or office item; say the tooth brush or even the pen. The mouse has not only become mightier than the sword, it has become more popular than the pen. One obvious manifestation of the ICT revolution is that it literally flooded the world with computers and communication equipment and a plethora of other electronic goods. This has been more so because of the very rapid pace of development of the technology. No sooner have people started using the latest in the technology, that the next more advanced generation hits the market. In the last decade, the effective lifespan of a computer system has been found to be just over a year. Once a computer system and its associated generation of equipment gets obsolete, it is replaced by the succeeding generation of electronic equipment. Then there are the consumables in the form of printer cartridges and ribbons, used and damaged compact discs, DVDs, laptop batteries, etc. Thus, we have e-waste all over the place. The piling up of e-waste is however not the only reason of concern. Many of the components of computers and other electronic products contain chemicals that are potentially harmful to human beings. Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) used in the display system of monitors contains lead. A typical CRT contains about 3 pounds or 1.36 kg of lead. Computer components also use hazardous substances such as cadmium, hexavalent chromium – an identified carcinogen – and decabromodiphenyl ether. Arsenic and mercury are used in the manufacture of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). As the e-waste piles up, so do the accumulation of all these toxic substances. The e-waste pile up has reached a crisis situation. e-waste is however not the only source of what can be termed as e-pollution. Emissions by computer and electronic products are also reaching alarming proportions. Research firm Gartner shows that the IT industry, excluding consumer electronics devices such as DVD and CD players, accounts for roughly 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions – roughly the same as the stigmatized airline industry (Fildes, N.). Computers are contributing to global warming in large measures. Power wastage by computers is even more alarming. The average server wastes one-third of the power it consumes; and the average PC wastes half its power. Moreover, power consumption increases with performance of computers. It is a vicious cycle. Organizations need to pack more computers into their offices and data centers. Office and data centre floor space is precious. Take the case of servers. To improve data centre floor space usage, the size of servers has been decreasing dramatically, and have reached the blade server size specifications. As a result the server packaging density in data centers has also increased dramatically from a little over 300 watts per equipment footprint of one square feet in 1996 to as high as 4,000 watts per equipment footprint at the present. (Wang, D.). And it does not stop at that. As the computer density increases so does the heat generated. This again calls for cooling systems to dissipate the heat which requires a similar amount of energy. Gartner estimates that energy costs represent about 50 per cent of a companys IT budget over the next few years, compared to about 10 per cent currently (Fildes, N.). Contrary to expectations, computerization has not brought about the ‘paperless office’ that could result in cutting down of less tress and saving of the dwindling forest cover. In fact we are using more paper than ever before. At the rate that things are going, the earth and its inhabitants are already face to face with an environment disaster caused by the very technology that had promised deliverance not so long ago. The Solution Green computing is said to be the solution to all these perplexing problems being created by computer and electronic products. Green computing implies a multi-dimensional strategy focused on the more efficient use of computing resources. Green computing is a three-pronged or ‘triple bottom line’ approach which incorporates the fundamental principles of economic viability, social responsibility and environmental impact. Many governments and industry leaders have joined hands to take up the cause of making the computer industry green in an attempt to curb the negative fallout of the ICT revolution in the world. Energy Star, a program of the US Government’s Environment Protection Agency which was launched in 1992 to promote energy efficient consumer products, was revised in October 2006 to incorporate stricter efficiency requirements for computer and electronic equipment (Wikipedia). Energy Star has a tiered ranking system for approved products which indicates to the potential customer the level of efficiency of the product. The European Union has been ahead of the United States in adopting green computing measures. The European Union directive on restricting the use of hazardous substances in electronic and electrical products, known as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS, was adopted as long back as in February 2003 and given effect in July 2006. It restricts the use of substances such as lead, arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals in the production of computers and other electronic goods. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive also took effect from February 2003. The WEEE directive requires computer makers to implement product lifecycle management programs, including free take-back programs. In the US, the Government has directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct a study on the rapid growth of data centers and the resultant increase in energy consumption. Through its Energy Star Program, the EPA will analyze state-of-the-art data centers belonging both to the Federal Government and private enterprise for potential cost savings from the use of energy-efficient products. The EPA is then supposed to recommend new ways to attract interest in energy-efficient products, which has been the goal for years of the governments Energy Star initiative (Wang, D). To assist in the purchase of efficient computing systems, the Green Electronics council has come up with the Electronic Products Environment Assessment Tools (EPEAT). President George Bush has issued an Executive Order directing all United States Federal Agencies to use EPEAT when purchasing computer systems. Market leaders such as Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft have been in the forefront of the ‘green’ initiative. Google and Intel joined the bandwagon recently and signed up to the Climate Savers computing Initiative, which is backed by the World Wildlife fund with the goal of “setting aggressive new targets for energy efficient computers and components" (Fildes, N.) Many reputed IT companies have started providing consultancy services to help other companies reduce the negative effects of their IT setups on the environment. Role of the Individual In the final analysis it is always the basic units that add up to make the whole. So will it be in the case of green computing. Whatever the efforts or initiates of the Government or the ICT companies, success will ultimately depend on the deliberate choices of aware and conscious individuals. (Gowan, M.) outlines eight steps to green computing: i. Turning on the computer’s energy saving features could result in considerable savings in power bills. Almost all operating systems nowadays come with low power-consumption sleep modes. If no one uses the machine for a set period of time, it automatically goes off to sleep. Apple claims that a Mac uses a whooping 77 per cent less energy when in this low power mode than when it is running at full power. Laptops also incorporate sleep mode features both they are running on adapters and on batteries. ii. Even though operating systems are now stable and rugged enough to run continuously for extended periods of time, turning off all equipment once the work is done is a high energy saving practice. By turning of the computer instead of leaving it on the sleep mode after office can save about 40 watts of power every day. Computer systems can be scheduled to automatically start and shut off at fixed timings for the user convenience. iii. Few people know that when a computer system is shut down and the monitor screen goes black, the display is actually on standby mode waiting for the computer to turn back on. That is why a small green LED keeps blinking in most monitors. A 20-inch apple monitor uses o.7 watts in this mode. The same applies to camera, cell phone and iPod adapters that are left plugged on even after the device have been disconnected. Such adapters keep on consuming energy at a rate of around 2 watts per day per adapter. Adapters should therefore be taken out of electric sockets, and a more convenient way to avoid power leakage in monitors and other computer peripherals is to plug them on to power strips that can be switched off after use. According to Michele Krim of the Office of Sustainable Development in Portland, Oregon, turning off all office equipment at night can result in an annual energy saving of 100 – 400 kWh for every computer. iv. A flat-panel LCD monitor uses about one-third the energy of a similar CRT monitor. Also, the lead content of LCDs is much lower than CRT monitors. v. Going by the Energy Star ratings when buying computer equipments can lead to considerable energy savings. Every product has to meet certain specified guidelines to be approved for an Energy Star rating. According to the Energy Star site, an Energy Star-compliant scanner may use as much as 50 percent less energy than a noncompliant one. Energy Star printers can use as much as 60 percent less. vi. Getting fully digital can pay rich dividends in forest and nature conservation efforts. Wastage of paper should be avoided by unnecessary filing hard copies of mails and other documents. An adequate backup system can ensure confidence in going fully digital. vii. Obsolete computer equipment should not be dumped. This leads to accumulation of e-waste and toxic substances in the systems. Instead, companies should be approached for take back deals. In many countries, where suitable directives are in force, companies not only take back the old equipment, they also give considerable discounts, ranging to as much as 10 per cent, on new equipment purchased. The companies recycle the old equipment. This cuts down on the pile up of e-waste to a great extent. viii. Using the keyboard to fly is a nice cliché that shows how modern ICT can be effectively used to cut down drastically on other costs such as travel. With the availability of high bandwidth all over the world, facilities such as videoconferencing and net meetings can be used to interact with other people across the world instead of physically flying out to attend meetings at some designated place. This is not only a huge time and cost saver but also cuts down on fuel, power and all other forms of energy spending processes related to travel. SMEs and Data Centers Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are facing a very difficult situation. They have to be concerned about not only with the computer infrastructure that is used by their own personnel but also about the computing resources they make available to their clientele in the form of data centers. As the performance of PCs and servers increases, so does power consumption in terms of machine functioning and cooling requirements. State-of-the-art servers that support IT systems consume about three to five times more power than conventional servers. Almost as much the times electricity is required to dissipate the heat generated by these cutting-edge servers. Gartner estimates that over the next few years, energy costs will climb to 50 per cent of a company’s total IT budget compared to the 10 per cent at the present. An average British data center now uses more power in a year than the city of Leicester (Fildes, N.). Energy consumption by data centers worldwide has doubled from 2000 to 2005. “The situation is leading many data center managers to at least start examining how they can implement ‘green’ strategies in their enterprises, from installing energy-efficient cooling systems to choosing products to setting policies for long-term energy use.” (MacKinnon, C., A.) The cooling down of equipment in a data center is very essential, but cooling down can be achieved not only by air conditioning equipment but also by effectively channelling hot air out of the room. Much of the green effort will have to concentrate on different types of heat rejections. For SMEs, success in maintaining an effective data center depends to a great extent on the location of the center. If the data center is housed in a conventional older office building, then there is every possibility that the building is not equipped for heating and cooling vents and the power equipment is not routing the power to the data center in the most effective way. Many of the smaller data centers can gain in efficiency by shifting to managed data center environments with a pool of clients rather than companies attempting to run data centers independently. Many data center managers make the mistake of planning long-term and building around the mission-critical applications or equipment one at a time. This can lead to a lot of wastage all along the way as there is a plan time overshoot that does not actually go together with the equipment or applications undercut. The solution lies in what is known as the ‘pod architecture’ in which data center size increases gradually as do central core components such as a generator or transformers (MacKinnon, 2007)dc. Setting up a data center to be more efficient from all aspects requires an eye for details. The larger details of cooling and heating vents are important, but so are the locations of cable trays, racks and other infrastructure elements. Managing airflow is as important as managing cooling and power. Virtualization is an efficiency increasing and energy-consumption reducing technique that SMEs can resort to in their own ICT setups. Virtualization is the process of running two or more logical computer systems on one set of physical hardware. “A virtual machine can represent almost any operating system, and virtual machines representing different operating systems can reside on the same physical server hardware. Natural consolidation occurs when multiple physical servers are turned into virtual servers and aggregated on one physical server. This reduces the space, cooling, and power requirements of the data center.”(Przybyla, D. & Pegah, M.) Virtualization can be combined with lean computing in which thin clients with the minimum of computing resources work on the resources of a centralized server. British Telecom offers ‘green’ consulting, and also practises what it preaches. It has concentrated on buying more environment-friendly technology for quite some time now with the objective of increasing the efficiency of its data centers. A spokesman of BT puts the experience in words: “All our new metro node data centers consume just 40 per cent of the energy of a traditional data center, and we are in the process of reducing the power consumption of existing data centers by, for example, retrofitting fresh air cooling systems. These energy efficiency strategies do make a real difference - BT has reduced its total energy consumption by 1 per cent in the past six months alone.” (Fildes, N.) Expected outcomes Green computing is expected to show good results in a very short time period. The signing of the Climate Savers computing Initiative by the two technology giants Google and Intel is expected to make a big difference. This is evident in the optimism that is shared by the two leading players. The Climate Saving Computing Initiative is setting the power efficiency bar of all computing systems at 90 per cent which is much above the present 50 per cent and 60 per cent for PCs and servers respectively. This, as reported by Fildes is expected to reduce greenhouse emissions by 54 million tonnes per year and save more than $5.5bn in energy costs. Intel corps on the other hand claims that by 2010, the Initiative will “will cut greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equal to removing more than 11 million cars from the road or shutting down 20 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants - a significant step in reducing the emissions affecting our planet.” (Fildes, N.) There are others who are sceptical of the entire effort and claim that main objective of businesses is to reduce costs in the name of ‘green computing’. There is a view that redundancy is a bigger issue than inefficiency in machines. The average server is only used to between 5 and 10 per cent of its capacity, while data storage is used only 25 and 30 per cent of its capacity, despite being powered 24 hours a day (Filedes, N.). This implies that more than half the available computer resources are going waste, and that a greater part of the current environment degradation is because of emission by and energy consumed in computer resources that are simple not being used. What is very clear here is that the green initiative should not be restricted to manufacturing eco-friendly electronic products. Green computing should also initiate efforts to cut down on production of computing resources that are simply not necessary or required. Making increasingly powerful machines without taking their practical potential for utilization into consideration with only the profit motive in mind would certainly lead to impending disaster. Green computing will have to consider both sides of the ICT coin. References -01 1. Fildes, Nic, Can Green Computers help save the World?, June 14, 2007 http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2656139.ece 2. Wang, David, Meeting Green computing Challenges, 2007, Proceedings of HDP, 2007, 1-4244-1253-6/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE 3. Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, Green Computing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis 4. Gowan, Michael, Eight Ways for Green computing, 2007, MacWorld http://hgcnow.com/2007/05/04/eight-ways-for-green-computing/ 5. MacKinnon, Chris, A., Green Computing in the Data Center, June 22, 2007, Processor, Volume 29, No. 25, p. 10. 6. Przybyla, D.; Pegah, M., Dealing with the Vieled Devil: Eco-Responsible Computing Strategy, SIGUCCS’07, October 7 - 10, 2007, Orlando, Florida, USA. p. 296 - 301 Read More