technology

we love our computers for all the ways they make our lives (and the
world) better -- the wealth of knowledge (and democratizing force) of the
Internet, the instantaneous communication, the sophisticated tools that
help us work and create and share. But this modern world's greatest tool is among
our most disposable and resource-heavy items. Performance-wise, computer design
has progressed staggeringly well and astonishingly fast but looking at it from a green
perspective, the work has barely begun. It takes a lot of energy to create, package,
store, and move every 10-20 megabytes of data. Even with energy prices as cheap as
they are now, it will soon cost more to power a computer for four years than it does to
buy a new one. When a computer dies it either rots in a landfill, or children in the
developing world end up wrestling its components apart by hand, melting toxic bits to
recover traces of heavy metals.

Normally, computers can contain Manufacturing computers means the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, and other toxics
4 to 8 pounds of
lead alone, according to green experts.
It's no wonder that computers and other
electronics make up two-fifths of all lead in landfills.
To counter this growing pollution
threat all over the world due to the growing use of electronic device in general and
computers in particular there a need to look for a green computer.
So far, consumers haven't cared about ecological impact when buying computers,
they've cared only about speed and price.
But as Moore's Law marches on and
computers commoditize, consumers will become pickier about being green. Devices
use less and less power while renewable energy gets more and more portable and
effective. New green materials are developed every year, and many toxic ones are
already being replaced by them.
The greenest computer will not miraculously fall from
the sky one day, it’ll be the product of years of improvements.
The features of a green
computer of tomorrow would be like: efficiency, manufacturing & materials,
recyclability, service model, self-powering, and other trends.
 Green computer will be
one of the major contributions which will break down the 'digital divide', the electronic
gulf that separates the information rich from the information poor.


As 21st century belongs to computers, gizmos and electronic items, energy issues will
get a serious ring in the coming days, as the public debate on carbon emissions,
global warming and climate change gets hotter.
If we think computers are non-
polluting and consume very little energy we need to think again.
It is estimated that
out of $250 billion per year spent on powering computers worldwide only about 15%
of that power is spent computing- the rest is wasted idling.
 Thus, energy saved on
computer hardware and computing will equate tonnes of carbon emissions saved per
year.
Taking into consideration the popular use of information technology industry, it
has to lead a revolution of sorts by turning green in a manner no industry has ever
done before.
 It is worth emphasizing that this “green technology” should not be just
about sound bytes to impress activists but concrete action and organizational policy.
Opportunities lie in green technology like never before in history and organizations are
seeing it as a way to create new profit centres while trying to help the environmental
cause.
The plan towards green IT should include new electronic products and
services with optimum efficiency and all possible options towards energy savings.
Faster processors historically use more power.
Inefficient CPU's are a double hit
because they both use too much power themselves and their waste heat increases air
conditioning needs, especially in server farms--between the computers and the
HVAC. The waste heat also causes reliability problems, as CPU's crash much more
often at higher temperatures. Many people have been working for years to slice this

inefficiency out of computers. Similarly, power supplies are notoriously bad, generally
as little as 47% efficient.
And since everything in a computer runs off the power
supply, nothing can be efficient without a good power supply. Recent inventions of
power supply are helping fix this by running at 80% efficiency or better.
Power-
management soft-wares also help the computers to sleep or hibernate when not in
use.
 On the far horizon, reversible computing (which also includes quantum
computing) promises to reduce power consumption by a factor of several thousand,
but such systems are still very much in the laboratories.
The best way to recycle a
computer, however, is to keep it and upgrade it.
 Further, it is important to design
computers which can be powered with low power obtained from non-conventional
energy sources like solar energy, pedaling a bike, turning a hand-crank etc.
The electric utility industry is in an unprecedented era of change to meet increasing
customer demand for greater reliability and different services in the face of substantial
regulation and volatile energy costs.
 This requires new approaches and business
models to allow greater network reliability, efficiency, flexibility and transparency. At
the same time, the utility industry is digitizing, transforming from an electromechanical
environment to a digitized one.
New Internet Protocol-enabled networks now allow for
network integration along the entire supply chain – from generation, transmission, to
end-use and metering -- and create the opportunity for Intelligent Utility Networks
(IUN) which applies sensors and other technologies to sense and respond in real-time
to changes throughout the supply chain.
 The IP-enabled network connects all parts of
the utility grid - equipment, control systems, applications, and employees. It also
enables automatic data collection and storage from across the utility based on a
common information model and service-oriented architecture (SOA), which enables a
flexible use of information technology.
This in turn allows utilities to continuously
analyze data so that they can better manage assets and operations.
Electronics giants are about to roll out eco-friendly range of computers (like desktops
and laptops) that aim at reducing the e-waste in the environment.
Besides desktops
and laptops, other electronic hardware products should also be strictly adhering to the
restricted use of hazardous substances.
 In other words, they should be free of
hazardous materials such as brominated flame retardants, PVCs and heavy metals
such as lead, cadmium and mercury, which are commonly used in computer
manufacturing. Reliability about the use of green materials in computer is perhaps the
biggest single challenge facing the electronics industry. Lead-tin solder in use today is
very malleable making it an ideal shock absorber.
So far, more brittle replacement
solders have yet to show the same reliability in arduous real-world applications.

Replacements like the front runner, a tin/copper/silver alloy, also require higher
melting temperatures, which can affect chip life.

Here's how designers plan to make future computer more eco-friendly across its
entire life span, from manufacture to recycling:
energy-intensive manufacturing of computer parts can be minimized by making
manufacturing process more energy efficient
by replacing petroleum-filled plastic with bioplastics—plant-based polymers—
require less oil and energy to produce than traditional plastics with a challenge to
keep these bioplastic computers cool so that electronics won't melt them
landfills can be controlled by making best use of the device by upgrading and
repairing in time with a need to make such processes (i.e., upgradation and repairing)
easier and cheaper
avoiding the discarding will not only control e-waste out of dumps but also save
energy and materials needed for a whole new computer
power-sucking displays can be replaced with green light displays made of OLEDs,
or organic light-emitting diodes
use of toxic materials like lead can be replaced by silver and copper
making recycling of computers (which is expensive and time consuming at
present) more effective by recycling computer parts separately with a option of reuse
or resale
future computers could knock 10 percent off their energy use just by replacing
hard drives with solid-state, or flash, memory, which has no watt-hungry moving parts.
So far, consumers haven't cared about ecological impact when buying computers,
they've cared only about speed and price.
But as Moore's Law marches on and
computers commoditize, consumers will become pickier about being green. Devices
use less and less power while renewable energy gets more and more portable and
effective.
New green materials are developed every year, and many toxic ones are
already being replaced by them.
The greenest computer will not miraculously fall from
the sky one day, it’ll be the product of years of improvements.
The features of a green
computer of tomorrow would be like: efficiency, manufacturing & materials,
recyclability, service model, self-powering, and other trends.
Green computer will be
one of the major contributions which will break down the 'digital divide', the electronic
gulf that separates the information rich from the information poor.

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