Reducing Power Used by Computers

Global warming is happening because of a buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, most of them produced by power plants that burn fossil fuels to generate electricity. Information and communications technology consumes a good deal of electricity, much of which is wasted as heat, consumed by computers and monitors needlessly left on, or used to cool hardware that is not running efficiently.
Did you know?

* Electricity generation alone is responsible for 40% of carbon dioxide emissions in the US.
* IT around the world generates 2% of all greenhouse gases, roughly equivalent to all the world's airlines
* The average desktop PC wastes nearly half of the energy it consumes as heat.
* Letting your computer sleep can save approximately $60 in electricity costs per year!

It is very easy for you to make small changes that will have a significant positive impact on both the environment and your wallet. Suggestions from Climate Savers Computing.

1. Use computer and monitor power management.
2. Don’t use a screen saver. Screen savers are not necessary on modern monitors and studies show they actually consume more energy than allowing the monitor to dim when it’s not in use.
3. Buying a new computer? Make energy efficiency a priority while shopping for your PC and monitor. Look for the ENERGY STAR label.
4. Turn down the brightness setting on your monitor. The brightest setting on a monitor consumes twice the power used by the dimmest setting.
5. Turn off peripherals such as printers, scanners and speakers when not in use.
6. Fight phantom power; plug all your electronics into one power strip and turn the strip off when you are finished using your computer. When feasible, we also recommend unplugging the power strip from the wall to avoid high voltage surges which may occur during an electrical storm.
7. Use a laptop instead of a desktop. Laptops typically consume less power than desktops.
8. Close unused applications and turn off your monitor when you’re not using it.
9. Use a power meter to find out how much energy your computer actually consumes and to calculate your actual savings.

information taken from TechSoup and Climate Savers Computing.