Green Computing
The video game industry is one of the fastest growing industries out there today. Everyday millions of people all over the world, turn on their gaming console and spend a good portion of their time smashing buttons in order to complete a quest, unlock hidden animations or continuing their head shot killing spree. One of the consequence of this form of entertainment is the energy requirement. Every year, with every multi million dollar video game hit, the program sucks out more power from the console to power their smooth animation, render intense 3d physics, maintain cunning artificial intelligence and display other forms of eye candy effects that gamers have come to enjoy over the years as a result of the industry’s growth.
green computing
Today the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 are the top gaming consoles. According to Greenbiz.com, the energy consumption during game play among the console is as followed. The Wii has an average of 13.7 watts, the PlayStation 3 an average of 84.8 watts, and the Xbox 360 an average of 87.9 watts. It should be noted that the original PlayStation 3 operated at around 130W until lowering the energy requirements with a change in the a newer model. With millions of people playing video games, if the consoles were to lower their energy consumption by 10 Watts the world would save tremendous amount of energy.
With the world’s population increasing exponentially, lower the power consumption of everyday high energy consuming devices will reduce pressure from the power grids, help cut back on the population is that need to produce the energy, save millions in electric bills and provide for a more stable environment. Thus the idea of green computing is born.
“Green computing is the environmentally responsible use of computers and related resources. Such practices include the implementation of energy-efficient central processing units (CPUs), servers and peripherals as well as reduced resource consumption and proper disposal of electronic waste.” – techtarget.com.
A few green-computing practices are as followed:
- Using a laptop rather than a Desktop computer when ever possible.
- Have your computer or certain power intensive devices power off after a period of no usage.
- Using a LCD monitor rather than a CRT monitor.
- Use Energy Star devices that are certified to be energy-efficient.
According to michaelbluejay.com, a typical desktop computer uses about 65 to 250 watts, while most laptop computers use about 15-60 watts, which is far less than desktops. The website shows that the act of setting your computer to turn off after 15 minutes of inactivity can save you hundreds of dollars a year on your electricity bill. They show that the cost of running a high ends desktop 24 hours a day for a whole year leaves you with a $350 bill, at $0.20 per kWh. Alternatively, a high ends laptop set to sleep when it’s not used can lower your bill to $5.50 ( at $0.10 per kWh) a for entire year.
Most devices today have a high ends power hunger version, along with a less powerful energy-efficient counter part. For an example, AMD offers gamers a 3.7GHz Phenom II x6 CPU that operates at 125W. And provides an 3.2GHz Athlon II X2 260 at 65W for the green computing crowd. It should be noted that the Phenom II is more than 3 times the amount for the Athlon II CPU, making you wonder if you should always choose the energy efficient product to cut cost.
With energy becoming a virtual resource in the future, I believe that concept of green computing might soon become a requirement for all devices in the near future. There are simple technique for manufacturer and designers can implement to make their device energy-efficient. And one much
I feel that a promising green computing company is Ballard Power Systems. Ballard Power Systems designs and manufactures clean energy hydrogen fuel cells. We put fuel cells to work through smarter, clean and reliable power solutions. I strongly believe they this company will make it in the future because fuels tells will increase in usage.
References
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/12/16/nintendo-wii-ranked-most-energy-efficient-game-system
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/green-computing
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html
http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-price?symbol=BLDP
