Forbes highlighted the issue as early as 1999, when it ran a story entitled, dig more coal, the PCs are coming. In it author Peter Huber made some sobering predictions as to energy consumption by personal computers and networking equipment. His analysis was not well received by the industry. And industry giants like Intel helped by the Department of Energy (DOE) quickly went on the offensive attacking Huber's numbers.
The industry also took another straightforward tack. One that was easy and appeased many. It touted efficiency. And not surprisingly for a technology under development, efficiency was increasing with leaps and bounds. More and more computing power became available for the same amount of energy consumption. But therein lies a big problem. First and foremost, it is doubtful that the extra computer power was really needed. Given that almost 20% of computer and network use is in emailing, one wonders why the extra speed is so essential.
The average CPU of today spends 95-99% of its time waiting for input. While humans slowly type letters, the CPU idly sits around for millions of cycles. Only a very small percentage of computer consumers fully utilize their cycles most of the time. And what do these guys do? You guessed it, they play games. They are the energy hogs, but in all fairness, at least they see the benefit of their consumption. The others just plain waste it.
The software industry, and most notably Microsoft - since MS have a virtual monopoly- is a very active accomplice in all this. By continually adding on "features" they drive demand for more and faster hardware. The flagship Word application has so many features it would hardly fit on a PC that is more than 5 years old. The application is so overloaded that less than 1%of users have ever tried all its features. For the average user, Word has made little practical improvement since 1995, when Windows was first launched.
And just how dirty is the information superhighway? The average desktop PC uses somewhere between 150-250W. A 250W PC uses 1kWh every four hours. If you leave it on all the time as many do, it uses the equivalent of one barrel of oil every 90 days. When using oil to generate electricity it puts out 9 lbs of CO2 every day, for a total of 1.6 tons per year. That is the clean scenario. Most of the electricity in the US is generated from coal, a much dirtier fuel.
A UK study found that 40% of UK adults use a computer at work. 18% of those are never switched off. Another 13% are often, but not always left on. The waste is estimated at 1.5 billion kWh per year. That is just from idle time, i.e. when the computer is left on but the user is not there. Given the true "duty cycle" of the machine, the real numbers for waste are more than twice as high.
Fifteen "average" PC's equal one car in pollution. But that is not all. It roughly takes as much energy to produce a PC as the machine consumes in one year. And its true life-expectancy is only 2-3 years. Then it most likely ends up in China, India or Kenya, where its components are "recycled" or better released in the environment. These components are most toxic, yet they freely flow into Guiyu's rivers and the China sea. Guiyu, where the water is too toxic for humans to drink.
Estimates are that the internet, that is the collection of all PC's, servers, data storage units, switches, routers, etc. uses 350 billion kWh per year in the US alone. That is nearly 10% of the US energy budget. When Forbes estimated 8% for PC's alone, the industry revolted as mentioned before. Their estimate for PC's was more like 1%. Lest you think that is good, remember that the US Department of Defense currently uses "only" 2% of all US energy. And that powers their jets, aircraft carriers, battle ships, etc.
But the industry's numbers do not include peripherals, servers, routers, and data storage. They also omit the cooling needed for servers, which adds more than 100% to the cost. Or the energy needed to produce a machine that lasts less than 3 years. If you do add these in, the real numbers are closer to 10%. For the world the number is close to 5% of the total energy budget of the planet.
What you can do is very simple. Turn your computer off when you don't use it. Don't bother with the screensaver because it does nothing at all. Even sleep or hibernation modes in most models consume vast amounts of energy. The rule is simple: turn it off. Also turn off your cable modem and wireless transmitters. Rebooting all this equipment takes less than 2 minutes. And contrary to popular myths, it does not take extra energy to get things started.
Turning stuff off all the time is only a minor inconvenience. However, it will save you more than $500 a year in energy per PC. And tons of CO2.
As an added benefit, it will make you far less vulnerable to viruses, trojan horses and other security attacks. It will make it far more difficult to steal your information or hijack your machine. As a method it is far better than any firewall, or other software protection. And it is free.
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