Computer Energy Waste a Major Cause of Pollution

Introduction “Computer can waste so much electricity that they are causing power plant to spew out tons of unnecessary green house gases. The emissions is equivalent to what is put out by 3 million cars.” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Companies and Individual computer users can do a lot for the environment if they change a few settings.

History 10 years ago EPA convinced computer manufactures to equip their computers and monitors with sleep or standby mode. This shouldn’t be confused with screen savers. The sleep mode function is when the computer powers down and goes dark if it hasn’t be used for a specific amount of time.

History Sleep is good! But not everyone implements it, so what is the problem?

Problem – Humans ? According to Bruce Nordman (Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) , Manufactures have installed this feature on their computer, but it’s the users who are not flicking on the “switch” to make these computer go to sleep mode. It's not a technological problem but a human problem.

Problem – or technology ? It also is a technological problem A lot of companies in the beginning ran into network problems when their computers went to sleep. So they disabled the computer sleep mode along with the monitor sleep mode (although the monitors didn’t cause the problem)

Nordman’s Research Walked around office building late at night to find: 90% of Computers and 40% of Computer Monitors Had Sleep Function disabled. The US has over 1 million computers, a lot of electricity is going to waste.

Fact Steve Ryan (Manager for EPA’s Energy Star program) says that: “US companies taken together are wasting over $1 BILLION a year on electricity for computer monitors alone that are switched on when they are not supposed to be”

1 Billions Dollars wasted on ….…. Is enough electricity to power all the household in Chicago for a year.

Energy Star…… “is a government-backed program helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency “ They have set up two programs: Monitor Power Management (MPM): Inactivate your monitor into low-power sleep mode Computer Power Management (CPM): Inactivate your computer into low-power sleep mode

Energy Star They have set also up the “Million Monitor Drive”. The goal is to see MPM enabled on 1 million monitors annually. Some companies that are participating in this program are:

General Electric They are planning to activate the sleep mode to 100,000 monitors. This will save the company $ 3 million a year This is the same as preventing 6000 cars a year from emitting green house gases. According to Mark Stoller (Director of Environment, Health and Safety), It was a something they could work on quickly. It had great results. He urged other companies and individuals to look at it. People have to also make sure to work with their Information System people to make sure there are no operational hitches with some of the sleep settings.

New Development EPA has developed software (EZ-GPO) for companies to activate the sleep mode on thousands of computers at once. This software can be found at http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_pm_ez_gpo "With 800 computers, it seemed impossible to find a way to enable all [the monitors] of them in a timely way. But, EZ Save allowed us to enable the entire network in about one-half day through the work of just one person. The savings are incredible." - Stewart Uretsky, Associate Dean and Chief Financial Officer at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Energy-Saving Tips Turn off your computer and monitor when not in use for more than an hour. Screen savers do not save electricity. When purchasing new or replacement computers, consider buying efficient flat screens and laptops bearing the 'Energy Star' label.

Work Cited http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_management http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1960428