Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
Posted Sep 25, 2007 21:31 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668)Parent article: Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
Focusing on the power consumption of a computer is like focusing on the gas mileage of a Prius, ignoring the fact that the process to make (and dispose of) either is incredibly dirty and consumes a very large amount of energy.
The biggest problem with computers is that they are essentially disposable devices that get tossed after three years. If they consumed the same amount of power but had an average lifetime much longer than that, you'd have a much cleaner industry overall. But people want new computers all the time, of course, so they justify it with the placebo of energy efficiency, just like Prius owners justify their desire for a big, dirty sedan by sticking a bunch of batteries (full of nickel) into it to reduce gas mileage.
Posted Sep 26, 2007 12:08 UTC (Wed)
by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048)
[Link] (4 responses)
Off topic...
...so they justify it with the placebo of energy efficiency, just like Prius owners justify their desire for a big, dirty sedan by sticking a bunch of batteries (full of nickel) into it to reduce gas mileage.
IMHO, the point of a Prius is not efficiency, but low emissions.
Actually, I found out that the Prius in some way sacrifices efficiency
in order to get lower emissions: it is virtually impossible to get
good efficiency in the first five minutes of driving with a cold
engine, not just because the engine is cold but because the car
insists in warming up the catalyst fast!
Honestly, I don't know if the lower emissions, on a global scale,
balance with the need
to dispose (or, hopefully, recycle) the battery components when the
car will get too old.
I think that, being so massive, the batteries should be easier to
recycle than in other cases (cellphones?).
And anyway I expect this car will last way longer than the typical PC!
Posted Sep 26, 2007 12:17 UTC (Wed)
by cpm (guest, #3554)
[Link] (3 responses)
has anyone taken a look at the resources expended over the lifetime of *any*
Somewhere I read, (without any supporting data of course) that the majority
Posted Sep 27, 2007 23:23 UTC (Thu)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link]
It's crazy to consider consumption of any one resource when buying something. There are thousands of costs to the world we all care about, transferred ad infinitum through a great economic network. We should consider all of them when buying something. Fortunately, in a society with a free market economy, there is one number that sums up all those costs: the price.
Sometimes the costs aren't perfectly monetized. For example, I don't think taxes today sufficiently monetize the cost to the atmosphere of driving a car. But over time, they'll get there. (Or I'm just wrong -- maybe the air is worth more to me than to other people).
A co-worker recently made a proposal to replace a lot of CRTs with new LCDs based on the electricity savings. His numbers showed the world is actually better off with us keeping those CRTs (the reason he made the proposal is that he misunderstood the time value of money and thought the figures showed the opposite).
When the world gets serious about global warming, electricity will cost more, and some of these decisions will go the other way.
Posted Sep 28, 2007 7:26 UTC (Fri)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
if correct it has some interesting results
among them, a hummer H1 is cheaper then a honda Prias, in part because the hummer is designed to last 300k miles compared to the Prias 100K miles
Posted Oct 5, 2007 2:58 UTC (Fri)
by dmag (guest, #17775)
[Link]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/03/20/1858204.shtml
Posted Sep 28, 2007 11:46 UTC (Fri)
by stevan (guest, #4342)
[Link]
To some extent yes, but the specifics he talks about ring bells with me.
I was at a manufacturer bunfight recently (Lenovo) where they happily
But yes, you're right, there is an overall impact, which is one of my
Stevan
Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
You can look at the results of emission analysis, or you can do a
quick test yourself: try to clean with a paper handkerchief the
inside of the emission pipe of a Prius.
You'll see (after some rubbing) that the paper gets a bit grey.
Now do the same on another car, the paper gets
black just at touching the interior of the pipe...
Anyway, the Prius has better emissions than anything else now, perhaps
excepting methane powered vehicles.
[even further off-topic]Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
vehicle including final recovery? Meaning, is there really anything at all
about a clean, fresh, kinda nerdy but fun car like a Prius that justifies
the impact of manufacturing it in the first place, vs driving an old beat-up
5th or 6th hand pickup (4 or 5 time recycled :)
of resources consumed by a vehicle over it's duty cycle were consumed in
it's manufacture. That take has always intrigued me, and I can't seem to
get a handle on any solid information. Nor, it seems, is anyone really
interested in answering the implied question.
Electricity guzzling computers, Priuses, and social responsibility
take a look at http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/ it's got a study showing the total energy cost of various vehicles, including manufacturing, driving, and disposal costsdust to dust
Just for the record, that report is was not scientific at all. They use a lot of "secret formulas" and get a lot of facts wrong. (For example, claiming that the plant that makes the batteries is turning Canada into a wasteland.)dust to dust
>Focusing on the power consumption of a computer is like focusing on Looking for Algae--the Next Voyage (Linux Journal)
> the gas mileage of a Prius
We have a house that is off the grid, and electrical energy is a hard-won
resource from wind and sun. A little via c3 533 mini-itx server makes it
possible for me to run a server there, whereas a "normal" machine would be
completely out of the question.
spoke about the latest Intel chips dissipating more heat per square
centimetre than a nuclear core. I don't know if that's true, or valid,
but the "resolution" to this fact, that it is a problem that needs to be
solved by better cooling, rather than more power-efficient design, seems
to be increasingly overlooked.
justifications for driving a land rover!