Posted by Savneet Singh on Oct.27, 2009

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Computer data centers have become one of today’s most wasteful power hogs. On average, a desktop PC wastes nearly half of the energy it consumes as heat, which results in higher electricity bills and increased greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Department of Energy up to two-thirds of the electricity consumed by a PC is wasted when the machine is on but not in use.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects the energy consumption of the nation’s data centers will exceed 100 billion kWh by 2011, with an annual electricity cost of $7.4 billion. It has been estimated that 40% of the all carbon dioxide emissions from information technology and telecommunications comes from powering PCs. Moreover, PCs are simply dumped in landfills after users upgrade, which is another source of computer pollution, since some components in a computer may present environmental hazards in a landfill. Check out E-Cycling Central to find a facility near you that recycles computers and components in an environmentally friendly way, and don’t forget to erase your hard drive, first.

A computer running 10 or more hours per day can account for as much as 10% of a car’s annual CO2 emissions. With more than a billion computers in use worldwide today, the wasted electricity and resulting CO2 emissions are tremendous. Some simple adjustments can  make your systems into energy savers. Choose the settings which puts PCs in sleep mode when not being used, or shuts it down, to save up to 50% of the electricity the system uses. Configuring the computing equipment for efficient power use reduces energy consumption and this will further help to produce cost savings and conservation of resources. Here is a sample of configuration settings to save energy:

• Monitor to turn off after 20 minutes of inactivity
• Hard drive to turn off after 30 minutes
• Desktop computer or laptop to go into a standby or sleep mode after 60 minutes
• Turn off your screensaver and put your monitor to sleep, instead.  Screensavers continue to use the monitor at full power and do not conserve energy. Screensavers were created to prevent images from being burned into CRT and plasma monitors, and they aren’t necessary on LCD monitors and laptop screens

If your system has Windows NT, which does not have a standby or sleep mode then turn off your monitor when it is not in use.
If you are leaving office or away from your desk for more then two hours, leave your system in standby mode.

Window’s non-intelligent power saver features keeps the PC on when background processes (only) are still running, such as if a browser is running or a wireless mouse, printer pings the PC.

Computers and monitors with the Energy Star logo, are already energy efficient, but keep in mind that your computer cannot take full advantage of these built-in energy saving mechanisms until the power management features are enabled and configured.

There is another misconception that shutting PC down reduces its lifetime. This is not true. The fact is that the power management options or turning off newer computers does not appreciably shorten their lifetime. In fact, by using these features, the lifetime of newer computer components can even be extended.

Servers should not be turned off, what you can do is shut down the monitor because the monitor on the server is rarely needed.
In case you have group printers in your office, they should not be turned off unless for an extended period of time such as overnight or over a weekend when no one will be using them.

You can reduce your electricity bills by 10% by simply unplugging appliances and electronics when they are not in use.

A new study has found that downloading music reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 80 percent. Thus, downloading music is a better option than buying compact discs. If you buy an album digitally, it is substantially a better way from an emissions perspective. In addition, buying a CD online and having it delivered a your home via a light-duty truck further adds carbon dioxide and leads to global warming. CDs are manufactured, packed and transported over long distances.

Making some simple changes to your computer’s power management settings is an easy and inexpensive way to make a difference in your environmental impact. The best and the easiest way to conserve energy is to configure your computer components to automatically save energy. It not only saves energy and but saves money. It is beneficial to the environment.

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Posted under Eco-Friendly Ideas, Living.