[opendtv] Re: California Prepares to Limit TV Energy Use
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:47:30 -0400
At 6:05 PM -0400 10/17/09, Tom Barry wrote:
I can light up the room brightly burning only about 20W of spiral bulbs,
and even less with LED bulbs. TV and computer display power is
significant even if we aren't using CRT's anymore. Don't discount it.
- Tom (who spends much more on electricity than gasoline)
Tom makes a good point, and Peter's comment about Microsoft
indirectly being the planets' largest carbon producer is also an
interesting observation. But...
It seems that more and more, technology has caused some dramatic
shifts in the way we do things as individuals and as a culture in
general.
Today, Internet server farms consume massive amounts of energy - by
the way, they do not produce carbon, just as we do not consume water.
Both carbon and water are abundant resources that are a critical part
of the biological and chemical life cycle of our planet. We transform
these resources and reuse them over and over and over. When we
transform carbon based fuels into energy, we create CO2 and a variety
of other byproducts. The CO2 is fuel for other parts of our
ecological system, which in turn is transformed into fuel again, etc.
etc.
Server farms may consume large amounts of power, but they also help
reduce the amount of energy used for many aspects of our lives and
working careers. There was a time that I was traveling for business
2-3 weeks each month. Those airplane trips consumed huge amounts of
energy too, not to mention all of the time spent traveling that may
have been less productive than working at home or the office. Today
we can hold meetings with people anywhere in the world without
leaving our desks, and move all kids of documents around without
having to call Fed-X for a pickup.
And the shift to mobile platforms is placing far more emphasis on
energy efficiency, although the production of batteries comes with
its own ecological baggage.
The only real downside to the widespread use of computers is that we
tend to keep them turned on 24/7. Clearly there is a need here for
efficient power management, something that is now being taken
seriously by most companies building PCs. But there are still a huge
number of older NOT energy efficient PCs out there, just as there are
still a huge number of CRTs still in use both as entertainment and PC
displays.
Maybe Microsoft should start a cash for clunkers program!
Oh wait, they already have. Spend your hard earned cash on a new PC
with Windows Vista and you officially own a clunker...
;-)
Regards
Craig
P.S. I left my iPhone on the fender of my truck Saturday while
working in the yard. I then went to a feed store to buy hay for our
horses. The phone fell off the fender as I was driving down a local
road at about 45 MPH. I walked along the road for about a mile
Saturday with no luck. Sunday I got my bike out and continued the
search; about 100 yards past where I had stopped Saturday I found the
iPhone lying next to the road still working and fully charged.
Now there's an APP for that problem, at least for the 3G versions of
the phones that have GPS. It can pinpoint within a few yards where a
missing iPhone is located.
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