Sun plans for Energy Efficient Servers

With energy efficiency and environmental issues of growing concern, Sun is preparing to tune its servers to be more environmentally friendly by introducing power management capabilities.

Sun plans to introduce the notion of power-managed states, in which future servers will respond to a user's internal energy policies. For example, a 1 kilowatt server might be tuned to run at only 500 watts, and the server figures out how to run under that constraint, Bapat said.

Power management also will be offered for memory components, chips, disk drives, and fans via intelligent firmware that will calibrate power. There will be states like idle and sleep states.

Other suggestions include running datacenters at off-peak hours for activities such as batch jobs and even siphoning off the cheaper nighttime megawatts during the night to freeze water. During the day, air conditioning use is cut by running the hot air off the ice.

County Aims For Energy Efficiency

Schenectady County officials recently announced initiatives aimed at improving energy conservation and efficiency.

The county will give preference to Energy Star products when buying for county facilities. Energy Star, which is managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, is a voluntary labeling program from appliance manufacturers designed to help consumers identify products that are energy-efficient.

IBM Introduces New Energy Efficient Supercomputer

IBM has introduced a new supercomputer powered by one of the world's fastest microprocessors and cooled by an innovative water system.

The new Power 575 supercomputer, equipped with IBM's latest POWER6 microprocessor, uses water-chilled copper plates located above each microprocessor to remove heat from the electronics.

Requiring 80 percent fewer air conditioning units, the water-cooled Power 575 can reduce typical energy consumption used to cool the data center by 40 percent. IBM scientists estimate that water can be up to 4,000-times more effective in cooling computer systems than air.

Climate Change Affecting Human Health

WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said yesterday, World Health Day, that climate change was already affecting human health and was giving "a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale".

Many human diseases are climate sensitive, and warming up the Earth will increase the numbers of people exposed to diseases that today kill millions. These include malnutrition (kills over 3.5 million people a year), diarrhoeal diseases (kill over 1.8 million), and malaria (kills nearly 1 million).

Expert:: Climate change can increase risk of cataract blindness

According to an expert, climate change will increase the risk of people losing their sight through cataracts because of higher levels of ultraviolet rays.

Andreas Mueller of the Fred Hollows Foundation went on to say:

The three main risk factors that lead to cataract blindness are age, smoking and UV exposure, in that order.

Climate change will increase UV levels and therefore increase the risk of developing cataracts.

A spokesman for the foundation, which works mostly in developing countries to restore sight to people with cataracts, said the increased exposure to ultraviolet rays would be caused by depletion of the ozone layer.

San Leandro to tackle Energy Efficiency

In the next few months, the Energy Watch program of the Association of Bay Area Governments will be working with PG&E to make energy-hogging city buildings more fuel-efficient. Energy Watch is funded by the California Public Utilities Commission to provide incentives to local governments looking to reduce energy consumption.

San Leandro now joins the more than 35 Bay Area governments that participate in Energy Watch. Whenever a city or agency signs on, Energy Watch covers three-quarters of the related costs — provided the plans for the new member city align with Energy Watch's budget, officials said.

San Leandro staff have been working with a consultancy called Energy Solutions to survey the city's en-ergy use and analyze how the city can improve its buildings. The consultancy has now developed an energy action plan to help the city implement some of those measures.

Climate Savers Partner With U.S. EPA and in China

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) announced this week two significant partnerships: one finds the group joining with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speed the adoption of Energy Star-rated products, and another marks the group's biggest step into China to date.

Over the next three years, the CSCI will work with the EPA to develop technical specifications and promote the use of energy-efficient PCs and servers and the use of power management to enterprises and consumers.

TVA Considers Energy Conservation Plan

Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority reviewed a staff recommendation to cut electricity growth in the region by about 30 percent over the next five years.

As a result, the TVA board will vote next month on a draft plan to promote energy conservation during peak demand periods through education, time-of-date rates and other new incentives.

The goal of the proposed energy efficiency plan is to cut TVA’s peak electricity demand by 1,400 megawatts by the end of fiscal 2012.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through Energy Efficiency

The EPA has released a report titled "Profiles in Leadership" that highlights 74 award-winning organizations across many sectors of the U.S. economy, including schools, hospitals, real estate, manufacturing, chemicals, and home building.

The award winners were selected from more than 12,000 organizations that partner in the Energy Star program. Through their pioneering efforts, the winners have made substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by means of energy efficiency and awareness. They include large and small organizations and those with long track records of success as well as those that are quickly excelling in their partnership.

Energy-Efficiency Bill Wins House Panel Approval

A bill that would let cities and counties help homeowners and businesses take out loans to install solar, wind and energy-efficiency improvements won unanimous approval Tuesday in the House Transportation Committee.

House Bill 1350, sponsored by House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, and Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, would let people who invest in renewable-energy and efficiency improvements pay back loans through a property lien over 20 years.

HP Workstations Rated Environmentally Friendly

HP today announced that its entire personal workstation line has become the first in the category to achieve a “Gold” listing – the highest rating products can achieve – in the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT™).

With the addition of the workstations, HP now has the largest number of EPEAT Gold registered products in the industry.

Already recognized for their advanced performance and tuning, the HP workstations’ environmental attributes include low energy consumption, use of environmentally sensitive materials and a reuse- and recycle-friendly design.

India assisting EU to combat Climate Change

India is assisting European Union countries to meet their targets in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Energy Trading System (ETS). The protocol was set up in 1997 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the earth’s atmosphere and leading to climate change.

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the largest multinational emissions trading scheme in the world and is a major pillar of EU climate policy.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

Food Lion Earns Energy Star

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized Food Lion LLC with a seventh Energy Star award, the most such awards ever received by a grocer. The award, for sustained excellence, will be presented to Food Lion on April 1, during a ceremony in Washington.

According to the EPA, the 2008 Sustained Excellence Awards are given to a select group of organizations that have exhibited outstanding leadership year after year. These winners have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by setting and achieving aggressive goals, employing innovative approaches and showing others what can be achieved through energy efficiency.

These awards recognize ongoing leadership across the ENERGY STAR program including energy-efficient products, services, new homes and buildings in the commercial, industrial and public sectors. Award winners are selected from more than 9,000 organizations that participate in the program.

IBM New 'Energy Efficient' Data Center

IBM and Telecom Egypt has recently announced the construction of an innovative, state-of-the-art data center for Telecom Egypt that includes the world's most sophisticated energy-efficient "green" technologies.

Telecom Egypt is the leading telecommunications provider in Egypt, and the largest provider of fixed-line services in the Middle East with more than 10.4 million customers. Striving to improve customer satisfaction as a key long term success factor, TE chose IBM in 2007 to design and build the most sophisticated and energy-efficient data center in Egypt. Construction was recently completed.