Depleting ice caps, polar bears on the verge of extinction, declining glaciers and erratic weather are visible signs of global warming. While some governments and industries choose to ignore the crisis, what is the rest of the world doing about it? Green is becoming the theme at consumer fairs (like CES), with many manufacturers launching green products. It’s now fashionable to own a ‘Hybrid’ automobile—one that runs on fuel as well as electricity. Everyone seems to be going ‘Green.’ The environment is being harmed by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power hungry devices. Did you know that your DVD player, TV, or computer is consuming power and emitting CO2 even in the sleep and standby modes? In the story that follows, we talk about certified environmental-friendly equipment. The shocking fact is that even these fall short of the minimum prescribed levels of energy consumption. What happens after you dispose your old computer or peripheral? There are ‘factories’ in India that carelessly rip it apart and extract reusable metals like gold, lead and copper even as toxins leak into ground water and leach the soil. But, there’s hope. Manufacturers are now building more energy-efficient products. They are also enforcing sustainability programs within their organizations. On a broader scale, we have the Kyoto Protocol and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI—global efforts to save the environment which require active participation of governments, organizations and manufacturers. You too can do your bit to save the environment. The next time you boot your PC or notebook, head straight to the Power Options (Control Panel) and choose a scheme that’s a good trade off between performance and power saving. Also, switch off the lights when you leave home, and do use public transport!
How your devices harm the environment!
These days everyone seems to be talking about global warming and ways to protect the environment. Unconsciously, all of us are contributing to unwanted CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from home, through the careless use of our electrical devices. The sheer amount of energy wasted by devices like PCs, televisions, and most other electronic appliances, even when they are in standby mode, is enormous. According to reports from the German Federal Environment Office, devices consume around 17 billion kiloWatts hours (kWh) in a year when they are in the standby mode. This mode is also responsible for CO2 emissions; the CO2 dissipated from ‘sleeping’ devices amounts to about one-seventh the CO2 emitted by an automobile. Twelve million tonnes of carbon dioxide is the price you pay for just keeping the device on standby! The electronic appliance industry is careless with the design of devices. Manufacturers do not provide a proper shut-off button in devices. DVD players, DVD recorders or even multifunctional printers continue to draw electricity because of the absence of an ‘Off’ button. If you press ‘Power off’ on the remote, these devices go into standby mode. The situation is even more serious in the case of PCs. Windows Vista never shuts down or powers off the PC completely. Rather, the default shut down mode is a deep sleep mode that requires power. It’s only when you switch off the mains switch at the back of the computer that the power supply unit stops drawing power. Moreover, operating system shut down options such as ‘Sleep mode’ (Windows Vista) or ‘Standby’ (WindowsXP) mislead us into believing that the computer hardly consumes electricity in these modes. However, it has been proved that such devices can consume as much as 120 Watts in these supposedly powersaving modes! In this story we shall examine how individual devices consume power in the standby mode. But first let’s have a look at some energy saving initiatives.
Inadequate standards Here’s some advice for those planning to buy environment-friendly devices. Many manufacturers label their devices with such tags to enable buyers to identify power-saving devices immediately. But don’t buy blindly, for the guidelines vary to a great extent. Energy Star (www.energystar.gov), initiated by the US Federal Environment Office, has been a standard for PCs since 1992. But the limit values set down by Energy Star seem more suited to the energy supplier rather than the consumer. Labels on some monochrome laser printers indicate if the power consumption for that device is under 20 Watts in standby mode. But devices that require less than 5 Watts are already available in the market. The long overdue standard with lower limit values is expected soon. The European initiative GEEA (Group for Energy Efficient Appliances, (www.efficient-appliances.org/) has stricter guidelines. It suggests that a monochrome
laser printer must consume less than 10 Watts in the standby mode before it gets the certification, but we think this is still too lenient. Devices that have an on/off switch can use the ‘No Energy’ logo. This initiative demands ‘true’ on-off switches that are easy to access, readily visible and clearly labelled.
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