I.T. EATS ENERGY BUT CAN BE EFFICIENT

The amount of energy that little computer there consumes is amazing. The electricity it consumes is amazing, too.

Making data centers greener; Study says fast growing computer server facilities will double their energy consumption in five years
Frank Davies, August 4, 2007 (San Jose Mercury News)

WHO
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), computer server facilities

WHAT
A new US EPA study finds that computer server facilities used 1.5% of US energy last year, the same as used by the industry that manufactures all US vehicles, aircraft and seacraft. And digital activity is booming.

Just gonna take care of a few emails and then get on with real life...

WHEN
- US EPA estimate: computer server facilities will use twice as much energy by 2012.
- 2006: $.5 billion spent on energy by server facilities.
- 2006: Intel, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Advanced Micro Devices organized the development of energy-efficiency standards for servers.

WHERE
- Study based on research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
- North and Central California server centers used 400-500 megawatts.

WHY
- The US government accounted for 10% of all computer use, at a cost to taxpayers of $450 million.
- Report recommendations: incentives for energy efficiency, equipment to measure and monitor energy consumption, apply EPA Energy Star standards and labeling for other appliances to computers. Also have federal government set “best practices” guidelines.

CA congressional Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, held a Silicon Valley colloquy and is sponsoring national legislation to apply the report recommendations.
- California utility PG&E named most active utility in the data center sector for rebates to efficient servers.

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QUOTES
- Andrew Fanara, Energy Star administrator, EPA: "Some of those rules are already in place and we need to implement more. The federal government is so big that we have a major impact on the marketplace…Few industries are so well-positioned to deploy their own technology to monitor and control energy consumption…"
- Lowell Sachs, senior manager, Sun Microsystems: "The private sector must continue to lead here…Fortunately, market pressures are already driving IT companies and their customers toward greater adoption of more efficient operations."