Due to the
ever-increasing costs of energy, and a consumer and industry trend
toward a "greener" computing equipment, PC manufacturers have
focused on building more energy-efficient designs. Today's computing
equipment consumes much less power, thanks to systems and components
designed to observe activity levels and to ramp-down power
consumption as activity levels decrease.
In addition, engineers
now focus on building circuits with considerable computing power
that require far less energy than earlier designs. This applies to a
variety of components, including:
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Power supplies:
Designed to convert alternating current to direct current as
efficiently as possible. |
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Processors: Designed to
spread processing among multiple cores while consuming less
energy. |
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Monitors: Switching
from picture tubes to flat-panel displays can cut power needs
for display by approximately 60 percent.1 |
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In addition, older PCs and
monitors — especially picture-tube devices — as well as the circuit
boards and other peripheral devices they include, are often full of
heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium, mercury, tungsten, and other
toxic materials. E-waste disposal includes proper recycling of this
waste to avoid further pollution of the landfills. Plus, reusing
already processed raw materials is less-expensive than mining and
refining — or manufacturing — fresh materials.
DfE (designed for the environment)
equipment means it's been designed to impose as light an
environmental footprint as possible. This equipment:
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Includes little or no toxic materials in its
makeup. |
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Is manufactured with industrial processes that
also avoid use of toxic materials. |
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Is carefully designed and structured to consume
as little energy as necessary. |
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Note: HP developed its DfE
program in 1992 — well ahead of other manufacturers. The HP
DfE program focuses on energy efficiency, design for ease of
recycling, and materials innovation. |
The take-home point for
organizations is that environmental consciousness saves energy, and
therefore energy costs. In addition, by following energy efficiency
guidelines and making simple purchasing changes, your organization's
TCO (total cost of ownership) for office equipment is reduced
Two key programs come
into play when considering the purchase of new computers,
peripherals, and other office equipment such as copiers, scanners,
and fax machines.
ENERGY STAR |
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| ENERGY STAR is a program designed to help buyers save
money while protecting the environment through labeling and
education about energy-efficient products and practices. The
ENERGY STAR program represents a joint effort between the U.S.
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.S. DoE
(Department of Energy). Equipment with an ENERGY STAR label or
logo has met stringent energy efficiency guidelines set by
these agencies. |
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Note: The latest version
is ENERGY STAR 4.0, effective as of July 20, 2007. This
version uses idle power under the operating system as a metric
to earn the ENERGY STAR 4.0 rating and requires an
80-percent-efficient power supply. HP was the first tier 1 PC
manufacturer to offer products compliant with ENERGY STAR 4.0
guidelines.
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The EPA
also offers tools and resources to help individuals, businesses, and
institutions plan and undertake projects to reduce energy
consumption and improve comfort in the home and the workplace. This
includes EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment
Tool), which is a system designed to help private and public sectors
evaluate, compare, and select desktop computers, notebooks, and
monitors based on their environmental attributes and energy
consumption profiles.
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RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous
Substances) |
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| RoHS originates from a directive within the EU (European
Community) and took effect on July 1, 2006. It restricts the
use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of
electronic and electrical equipment: lead, mercury, cadmium,
hexavalent chromium, and two brominated flame retardants — PBB
(polybrominated biphenyls) and PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl
ether). Although originally European in scope, RoHS has come
to represent a worldwide standard and now commonly appears on
equipment labels in many countries. |
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Note: HP implemented RoHS
standards on all business desktops worldwide and in advance of
the mandated date. |
Although RoHS probably gets the
most attention for computer and consumer electronics, it also
applies to large and small household appliances, all IT and
telecommunication equipment, lighting equipment, and toys, leisure,
and sports equipment
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HP Corporate Environmental Message
Map-Summary 2/13/07: A typical flat panel display uses little
more than half the weight of materials and less than 3% the
amount of lead as a conventional CRT screen, and requires
approximately 60% less energy to operate. |
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Energy-efficient computing |
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