Technology Articles

Green Computing

Suggestions as to how your organisation can lower your I.T carbon footprint by Steve Tron

Up until recently scientists thought that the levels of green house gasses would in line with the world’s economy. Latest figures show however, that over the last several years concentrations of greenhouse gases have grown 35% faster.

With the trend towards high-density, high-power consumption equipment such as blade servers makes the cost of housing, powering and cooling of even the most modest of datacenter’s more relevant than ever. Not only does this impact the bottom line in terms of power costs, it also creates a larger carbon footprint for your organisation. Indeed Gartner recently reported that the world’s data centres are responsible for the same volume of carbon emissions as the average European country. It is estimated that only half of the electricity consumed in a typical computing environment is actually used by the servers, with 25% going to cooling, 12% to air conditioning and 13% to electricity transformation and lighting. It is ironic then that most servers typically run at only 5-10% of their resource utilization.

Google is probably has the most ambitious global warming action plan on Earth. Fortunately, it has the budget too. Google has long indicated a commitment to addressing climate change, from both the Foundation perspective and from the standpoint of business operations. Google currently partially powers their huge data centres with solar power, installing 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at their headquarters in Mountain View. in the United States. The search engine not only invests in renewable energy and greener technologies, it has made a commitment to reducing its behemoth carbon footprint to zero.

Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol means that limiting greenhouse gas emissions will eventually become part of most organisations’ regulatory compliance initiatives, and IT as a major power consumer will be a prime target for compliance. So how can smaller organisations help reduce carbon emissions from IT?

1. Visualisation

Computer virtualisation is not a new concept, virtualisation originated with the mainframe environment in the 1960s, but was commercialised for x86-compatible computers only in the 1990s. With virtualisation, a system administrator could combine several physical systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system, thereby unplugging the original hardware and reducing power and cooling consumption. Several commercial companies and open-source projects now offer software packages to enable a transition to virtual computing. Processor manufactures have also built proprietary virtualisation enhancements to the x86 instruction set into each of their CPU product lines, in order to facilitate virtualised computing.

2. Power Management

An open industry standard called Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) provides a standard programming interface that allows an operating system to directly control the power saving aspects of the hardware. This allows the system to automatically turn off components such as monitors and hard drives after set periods of inactivity. In addition, a system may hibernate, in which it turns off nearly all components, including the CPU and the system RAM, greatly reducing the system's electricity usage. To resume from this state, some components, such as the keyboard, network interface card, and USB ports may remain powered, to receive input from the user. In the absence of ACPI support, some external components, such as computer displays, printers, scanners, speakers, and hard drives may be turned off manually when not in use.

3. Deploy Newer Hardware

Many computer vendors’ ship dedicated low-power thin client PCs. These systems are designed primarily for the purpose of reducing power consumption, by providing minimal hardware peripherals and low-voltage components. These design decisions limit the computational performance of such machines, however when coupled with virtualisation technologies for example virtual PC’s and thin client technologies such as terminal services and Citrix offer organisations with the same computing experience as more traditional power hungry solutions.

Solid state drives store persistent data which do not need any mechanical parts, unlike traditional platter-based hard disk drives. The spindle motor and the data platters are primarily responsible for a hard disk drive's power consumption. LCD monitors typically use a cold-cathode fluorescent bulb to provide light for the display. Newer displays use an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in place of the fluorescent bulb, which reduces the amount of electricity used by the display.

Desktop computer power supplies (PSUs) are generally about 70–75% efficient to produce 75W of DC output they require 100W of AC input and dissipate the remaining 25W in heat. An industry initiative called 80 PLUS certifies PSUs that are at least 80% efficient. Typically these models are drop-in replacements for older, non-certified PSUs of the same form factor. As of 20/07/2007, all new Energy Star 4.0-certified desktop PSUs must be at least 80% efficient.

4. Power Generation

All computers require electrical power to operate, regardless of the system's efficiency. One of the goals of green computing is to use power generated from sources that are more environmentally friendly than coal-fired power stations. Some companies provide power from low impact sources, like wind turbines and hydroelectric dams. Other sources include locally-installed photovoltaic panels, which generate electrical energy from the Sun, or power produced by nuclear power plants.

5. Recycling

Obsolete, but still functional computer systems can be donated to various charities and non-profit organisations. Many charities have minimum system requirements for acceptable computer systems.
Recycling old computers has the benefit of keeping defunct systems and the harmful materials contained within, such as lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, among others out of the regular waste stream and thus, out of landfills. However, some observers note that some old computers, gathered through recycling drives, end up shipped to developing countries, where environmental standards are less strict than in UK and Europe.

6. Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting is the act of mitigating ("offsetting") greenhouse gas emissions. A wide variety of offset methods are in use while tree planting was initially a mainstay of carbon offsetting, renewable energy, energy conservation and methane capture offsets have now become increasingly popular.

Carbon offsetting as part of a "carbon neutral" business strategy has gained some appeal and momentum mainly among consumers in western countries who have become aware and concerned about the potentially negative effects of energy-intensive lifestyles and economies on the environment. Current commercial systems have contributed to the increasing popularity of voluntary offsets among companies. Offsets may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing one's own fossil-fuel consumption. However, some critics object to carbon offsets, and many have questioned the benefits of certain types of offsets, such as tree planting.

Further information about developing greener strategies can be found at www.carbontrust.co.uk, www.carbon-label.co.uk