Until recently, power consumption in use has received most attention and laptops have been judged the greenest. A more balanced appreciation of life-cycle costs is growing, especially of the very high environmental costs of manufacturing and distribution. Perhaps long life is environmentally more important than low power consumption in use.

Without dependable data on the non-financial life cycle cost of computers, both laptop and desktop, it is hard for consumers to choose the least harmful. Meanwhile how about this list of discriminators?

An article about expanding categories in the 80 Plus incentive program for high efficiency computer power supplies has been posted at our affiliate site, Silent PC Review. Nearly 500 models are now 80 Plus approved, and they processed 230,000 rebates last year, but market penetration of high efficiency powered computers remains at under one percent. Story link

Today Google announced their new RE "less than" C initiative.

The initial focus of the program will be on: advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems, and other potential breakthrough technologies.

Google's ultimate goal is to develop renewable energy sources that are cheaper than coal.

Available in the US until 26 Nov. 07: A $400 donation to the OLPC project nets you one laptop (value $200) and a tax receipt for $200 donation of one laptop to a child. Fanless, Solid state storage, WIFI, very low power draw, runs Linux, about 2W power draw.

Hitachi goes very green by implementing features to greatly reduce hard disk drive power consumption in the latest Deskstar line...

Continue reading the news piece at DailyTech.

The Green Grid, a consortium of IT companies and professionals, seeks to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe. Membership already includes all the major players in the PC industry. Launched at the start of 2007, the organization is chartered to develop meaningful, platform-neutral standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve energy efficient performance of global data centers.

Lenovo's A61e EPEAT Gold status desktop features 85% power supply efficiency, a 45W AMD x2 processor, the potential to recycle some 90% of the components and packaging used, and an optional solar panel. According to their calculations, the base model (without solar panel) will reduce carbon emissions by 400 pounds and electricity bills by $20 per year.

This fanless 500MHz addition to the VIA Eden ultra low voltage (ULV) processor line has an idle power of just 0.1 watt to meet the low power requirements of a wide range of industrial, commercial and ultra mobile applications. The ultra compact 21mm x 21mm NanoBGA2 package enables the x86 platform to squeeze into a smaller chassis than ever.

Zonbu claims their new green computer received the highest certification possible from the Green Electronics Council's EPEAT tool and consumes an average of just 15W. They offer a free end-of-life take-back service.

Verdant Computing is a new online store for eco-friendly PC products.

Early this summer Intel released Powertop, which detects software that that keeps the CPU awake. Hyperactive software prevents modern CPUs from entering sleep states and save power. This kind of behavior decreases notebook battery life and wastes energy. The tickless feature of the recent Linux kernel 2.6.21 made this kind of software possible.

What is an environmentally friendly computer? This is the first question on every visitor's mind as they peruse EcoPCReview. It's both easy and difficult to answer. One of the first observations is that it's almost impossible to conceive of a completely green computer. There are too many complex, technological components that go into a computer, and all of these components have associated raw materials, energy, toxins, and greenhouse gases associated with their manufacture and use.

AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team has recently installed 590 solar panels on the stadium roof, to generate about 120 kW of power to be fed back into San Francisco.

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