Green Campus Computing

Act Green! Think Green!

Green Computing used is the positive (or least negative) relationship between the physical computer and its impact to the environments in which it moves through during its journey from cradle to grave. I've heard about it last year when the third year students introduced it during our Acquaintance Party. The advocacy is just easy. There are steps that we could tag along in order to be a real advocate. However, if these steps are not used on the right track, it's still useless. So, I have three Sites down here that I believe a Green Campus Computing advocate also.

University of Colorado, Environmental Center
http://ecenter.colorado.edu/energy/projects/green_computing.html

In this site they have introduced a book for more Green Computing Guide. As we all know, technology have arises to its higher level at this moment. So, computers have been present for so many years to campuses and Universities in order to do a more efficient and accurate job. But, have we think of the disadvantage brought by these technology? In this site they have showed us the Computer Operating Costs, Energy Efficient Computing, and other Green Computing Practices. They have shared many concepts, but let me just quote the things from their site that I think could help us to have a more greener environment.

Screen savers save no energy

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.

So if we could adopt this on our University, especially on our Computer Laboratories, we could definitely save more energy and electricity which I believe, a great problem that our University is facing right now. With this simple move, we could greatly contribute to a low power consumption campaign.

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.

A very basic thing that we should always remember. Obviously, we the user of these devices have the sole responsibility to turn it off especially when not in use. Not just computers, also the lights and other appliances in the University, should not be forgotten to be switch off when they are not in use in order to conserve more energy. The employees or even the students should turn off the entire computer system (CPU, monitor and printer) or at least the monitor and printer when going out for lunch or will be out of office for a meeting or an errand. If we would just follow it, little by little, the University would learned from these and we're hoping that this could be implemented wisely.

Reducing Paper Waste
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.

Paper usage is really a great part of our University. Especially, during enrollment and even in the day to day basis, paper is very important. But why not recycle and reused paper? It could minimize waste and decrease paper consumption throughout the University.



CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2006/08/where-green-and-it-meet.aspx

One of the article on this site entitled Where Green and IT Meet By Linda L. Briggs, caught my attention. She featured some interesting facts about U.S. colleges and Universities. On how much they spend each year on energy and estimates the average PC wastes up to 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. With this, they have discovered that IT people is not that particular when it comes to energy preservation. Although the cost of energy is soaring and computers are voracious energy consumers on campus, many in IT know very little about what their school is doing to save energy. That’s partly because most energy dollars don’t come out of the typical IT budget. The energy it takes to run PCs and servers across campus generally belongs to the facilities side, and is regarded as a set cost of doing business.

Computers are playing a growing role in energy management, as schools rely on sophisticated computerized energy management systems that rival the complexity of mission-critical systems on campus. Adopting a strategic approach to energy management, especially as new buildings are planned or retrofitted, can lower a university’s energy bills by 30 percent or more, according to figures from the government’s Energy Star Web site. Computerized energy management systems, also called building automation systems or direct digital control systems, offer software and hardware specifically for measuring and controlling energy consumption.

This strategy could be apply to our University if and only if many staff, especially the IT personalities would initiate. Though, it would cost that much, but still we will not regret it. As far as I know, Energy management systems are typically connected with different systems across the campus to collect data on everything from room temperatures, CO2 levels, and occupancy rates, to the energy used by soda machines and exit signs. The IT people could be a great help for they have the role for helping to select, install, and manage these complex systems. If this be pursue, hopefully in the near future, a lot of savings on the University overall budget can be acquired. Which we can never denied that it could ultimately benefits everyone.


http://www.edtechmag.com/higher/september-october-2007/seeing-green.html

On this site, I've found another article which promotes a greener environment. "Seeing Green" Adelphi University finds seven ways to save power by Nancy A. Feldman.

The following are the things that we should do so we can profit along the way.

Spend Now, Save Later

You spend roughly 50 cents on energy for every dollar of computer hardware, according to analyst firm IDC. And this figure is expected to increase to 71 cents over the next four years. So if you have the budget for new equipment, these tips can save you money in the long run — and reduce your carbon footprint to boot.

* Power down all electronic equipment when not in use.
* Don’t use screen savers — they consume 28 percent more energy than sleep mode.
* Run updates during the day to avoid leaving PCs on overnight.
* Set printers to sleep mode. They return to active status quickly when new print jobs are submitted.
* Buy Energy Star-compliant products. Americans saved $12 billion last year through the Energy Star program.
* Consider notebooks over desktops wherever feasible. They use up to 90 percent less energy.
* Replace CRTs with LCDs; they use one-half to two-thirds of the energy.
* Consider an all-in-one rather than separate fax, printer and copier. All-in-ones save on electricity and space, and reduce equipment heat emissions.
* Enhance the energy efficiency of your storage infrastructure by using consolidation, storage tie ring, single-instance archiving, snapshot and cloning technology.
Sources: HP, EMC and IDC

As we can see, those listed above are the fundamental ways that we could perform in order for our University to save more, in electricity, space and even reduce equipment heat emissions. Though they are basic, if neither of us will initiate in doing these things, still we can never progress. Let's start on switching off all the electronic equipments especially when not in use. 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. Again, if we would just support it all the way no more doubts that our University would be one of the prime advocate of Green Campus Computing.

It is up to us to keep our campus, our workplace, our home and Earth green. We are all accountable for our one and only planet Earth.

References:

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2006/08/where-green-and-it-meet.aspx
http://www.edtechmag.com/higher/september-october-2007/seeing-green.html
http://ecenter.colorado.edu/energy/projects/green_computing.html