I. ABSTRACT
GREEN- Global Renewable Energy & Environmental Network.
Initially, the thrust of computing was on faster calculation, faster analysis and solving of many complex problems. Later, the focus was on achieving more energy efficiency and maximizing the power consuming e-equipments. It has also given more attention in minimizing e-waste and use of non-toxic materials in preparation of an electronic equipments. Some of the leaders have taken a move towards this by following some of the principles. Now it is the time for the end users to follow some rule to achieve some of the benefits of green computing. In India, implementation of some principles of green computing is facing a difficult situation due to many socio-economic problems and those are linked to obtain to full India in the mainstream movement of green computing.
Keywords: e-waste, Toxic, Non-Conventional Energy, Bio Plastics, Landfills, Eco Friendly.
II. INTRODUCTION
The primary goal of green computing is to reduce the usage of hazardous equipments and maximizing the efficiency of its energy during product's lifetime and to allow the defunct products and factory waste for biodegradability or recycling. Such practices includes the proper disposal of e-waste, implementing energy efficient CPU's, servers, peripherals and also minimizing the resource consumption. The government also plays a role in following these principles. For example, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) launched a program called "The Energy Star Program" in 1992 to provide energy efficient methods. The EPA plays an efficient role by providing cost effective method along with energy efficient method. In 2006, EPA established a way to save US business and household money about $1.8 billion in energy costs over next 6 years. Now, EPA has announced new method of saving energy for computers and related equipment. These changes are also expected to prevent greenhouse emission equal to annual emissions of 2.7 million cars. Though EPA is an recognizable agency they are not the only one agency providing new ways of growing green in technology. European Union and TCO certification organizations are one of the leading groups in green computing.
III. ETHICAL ISSUES
Growing green is not only the fashion statement, it is a real movement began in 1992 with "The Energy Star Program". It became a way for very big corporations to try and minimize the amount of energy waste they would normally excrete. Now-a-days it is not only expected to be done by big corporations but also by small business and individuals in a similar way who have a responsibility to their community by predicting which is wrong or right. Due to widely known need to save energy and natural resources of our earth, many manufactures have come out with ideas on how to make the device energy efficient. Some of the manufactures will label the product as energy efficient just to sell but later it is sad that it will not work. Consumers can easily be deceived to buy those products that causes more harmful to environment by considering the energy and materials used to manufacture it. Such products are truly a waste like "Eco button that promised to its consumers that they would save energy and their money" on their PC but there was a downloadable content available on the internet that also results the same. It is not moral for such manufactures to lie on the efficiency of their product but it is not illegal to say that consumer had interpreted wrongly about the product.
IV. IMPACTS ON GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
The work habits of computer users and business can be modified to minimize the harmful impact on this global environment. Here are some steps to follow:
· Virtualization is one of the most effective tools to provide energy efficient computing and for most cost effective where each of the server is partitioned into multiple virtual machines that can run distinct applications and provides high server utilization rates and high efficiency.
· More efficient processors are another high energy saving element as Intel, Sun Microsystems have adopted the green religion. Sun's betting on multiple core efficiency of a chip to fuel interest in new high-end servers. Its 32-thread Niagara 1 chip, Ultrasparc 1, consumes 60 to 62 watts whereas, the Niagara 2 chip due in the second half will have 64 threads yet run at 80 watts only.
· Setting the power option of computer by switching to sleep mode when it is not in use is good method. Power options setting is in PC is idle for few minutes, it enables PC's to go to standby mode and turn off the monitor.
· It is better to do computer related tasks during sequence intensive blocks of time y leaving the hardware off at other times.
· Avoidance of use of screen savers contributes to energy savings by allowing monitor to enter into standby mode. Flat panel monitors uses very less energy than Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors.
· Smaller hard disk drives consume less power than larger drives. Unlike disk drives solid state drives are available that store data in flash memory or DRAM without any moving parts. Consumption of power may be reduced for low capacity flash based devices.
· Another good practice is print only what we need and use of recycled content paper. Now-a-days most of the printers have two-sided printing option which can dramatically reduce paper consumption. The ink and toner cartridges which can be recycled may also be used.
· The computer design should be in such a way that it can be powered with low powers obtained from non conventional energy sources like solar energy, pedaling a bike, turning a hand-crank etc.
· Energy efficient display options include:
* No video card or use of shared terminal, shared thin client, or desktop sharing software if display required.
* Use motherboard video output - typically low 3D performance and low power.
* Reuse of older video card that uses little power; many of which do not require heatsinks or fans.
V. ROLE OF IT VENDORS
Now-a-days IT vendors are also applying green standards to their own operations. The main reasons are:
· New revenue opportunities
· Fear of a customer backlash
· Desire to act like good corporate citizens.
Sun created a Sun Eco office to oversee all of the company's green programs, including telecommuting but also core products such as low-power servers. Dell in February launched "Plant a Tree for Me," where consumers pay an extra $2 for a laptop or $6 for a desktop to plant trees aimed at offsetting the equivalent computer emissions. It launched www.dell.com/earth to tout its green policies.
The Top 12 Green-IT Vendors are:
1. IBM
Armonk, N.Y.
www.ibm.com
2. BT Group PLC
London
www.btplc.com
3. Qualcomm Inc.
San Diego
www.qualcomm.com
4. Aplicor Inc.
Boca Raton, Fla.
www.aplicor.com
5. Fujitsu America Inc.
Sunnyvale, Calif.
www.fujitsu.com/us
6. Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, Wash.
www.microsoft.com
7. Hewlett-Packard Co.
Palo Alto, Calif.
www.hp.com
8. Network Appliance Inc.
Sunnyvale, Calif.
www.netapp.com
9. Other World Computing
Woodstock, Ill.
www.otherworldcomputing.com
10. Verizon Wireless
Basking Ridge, N.J.
www.verizonwireless.com
11. Computer Sciences Corp.
Falls Church, Va.
www.csc.com
12. Sun Microsystems Inc.
Santa Clara, Calif.
www.sun.com
VI. ECO FRIENDLY APPROACH
Electronic giants are about to roll out eco-friendly range of computers (i.e., like desktops and laptops) that aims to reduce the e-waste in the environment. They are likely to be free of hazardous materials such as brominated flame-retardants, PVCs and heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury, which are commonly used in computer manufacturing. The biggest problems facing in the electronics industries are to bring the reliability about the use of green materials in computers. Lead-tin solder use of today is very malleable making it an ideal shock absorber. So far, more brittle replacement solders have yet to show the same reliability in real-world applications. Replacements like the front-runner, a tin/copper/silver alloy, also require higher melting temperatures, which can affect chip life. Here's how designers plan to make future computer more eco-friendly across its entire life span, from manufacture to recycling:
· Energy-intensive manufacturing of computer parts can be minimized by making manufacturing process more energy efficient.
· By replacing petroleum-filled plastic with bio-plastic plant-based polymers which require less oil and energy to produce in comparison to traditional plastics with a challenge to keep these bio-plastic computers cool so that electronics won't melt them.
· Landfills can be controlled by making best use of the device by upgrading and repairing in time with a need to make such processes easier and cheaper.
· Avoiding the discarding will not only control e-waste out of dumps but also save energy and materials needed for a whole new computer.
· Power-sucking displays can be replaced with green light displays made of OLEDs (Organic Light-Emitting Diodes).
· Use of toxic materials like lead can be replaced by silver and copper which make recycling of computers more effective by recycling computer parts separately with a option of reuse or resale
VII. PERSPECTIVE WITH RESPECT TO INDIAN SCENARIO
For a long time there was no considerable improvement in the growth of indigenous authentic hardware equipment manufacturer in the country and almost every companies and the household customers were dependant on foreign companies who were either importing the equipments or producing part of them in Indian subsidiaries. Mainly those subsidiaries were using the low priced human resource for assembling purpose (following the Ricardian theory of competitive cost advantage) Lack of basic research initiative and congenial infrastructure has resulted in absence of good patents and commercial production of indigenously built equipments. Due to tax relief given by the Government in the last few years for importing computer hardware accelerated the import and resulted in the minimization of the machines, equipments and peripherals. In this situation many small and medium scale industries were induced to start procuring the hardware at low prices and venture into the building of IT infrastructure for the company. But during the activities price was the most important criterion. At that point of time the basic objective was to build basic infrastructure without considering the principle of green computing. In the later stage when at the recent time the concept is grown enough it is not possible for most of the small and medium scale companies to redo the task of IT infrastructure development over and above bearing the cost of maintenance and procurement of software.
Leading vendors such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer are adopting 'green computing' in a major way in India. Apart from rolling out energy-efficient computers made from recyclable materials, the vendors are launching recycling programmes in India to reduce e-waste. But as in every other cases until the awareness is built up there will be no true development of green computing in the country.
The awareness programme may include the following major issues:
· Green computing minimizes the energy consumption of the organization i.e. minimizes the power bill.
· Use of non-toxic material in the equipments make the worker safe from health problem and occupational hazards.
· It saves the resource of the country as a whole.
· In the long term these green equipment will be less costly without any hidden cost of waste and enhanced resource consumption without any detrimental effect of accuracy, performance and longevity.
VIII. POTENTIAL BENEFITS
The rapid growth of technologies and innovations in this scientific world brings out its positive impact along with its benefits. The benefits of Green computing is very large. It doesn't depend only in the benefits of business, customer or a country's attitude towards an issue, it's a global benefit. Green computing helps in reducing e-waste reduces cost based on the technology used and also reduces energy demands. The method of green computing provides benefits in very simple ways such as turning off the pc's or some other during the night time or when the computer is not in use because it reduces the electricity cost and also the greenhouse gases. Overall benefits of green computing will result in reducing cost, saving money and conserves energy along with helping the environment.
IX. CONCLUSION
So far, consumers haven't cared about ecological impact while buying computers, they have cared only about speed and price. But as Moore's Law marches on and computers commoditize, consumers will become pickier about being green. Devices use less and less power while renewable energy gets more and more portable and effective. New green materials are developed every year, and many toxic ones are already being replaced by them. The greenest computer will not miraculously fall from the sky one day, it'll be the product of years of improvements. The features of a green computer of tomorrow would be like: efficiency, manufacturing & materials, recyclability, service model, self-powering, and other trends. Green computer will be one of the major contributions which will break down the 'digital divide', the electronic gulf that separates the information rich from the information poor.
