Google has pointed out how the PC industry could save 40 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity over three years – or more than $5 billion in power at current California electricity rates – at “virtually no cost.”
Two Google data-center employees called on the PC industry to dramatically improve PC energy-efficiency. In a white paper presented at the Intel Developer Forum, in September 2006, they pointed out how new power supply standards could save 40 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity over three years – or more than $5 billion in power at current California electricity rates.
Typical power supplies in PCs today use 65-80% more power than necessary. The authors of the white paper present a solution that can be implemented at “virtually no cost.”
Urs Hoelzle and Bill Weihl of Google point out that most power supply units (PSUs) needlessly provide multiple output voltages, a legacy of computing requirements 25 years ago but pointless today. The industry must move to a super efficient single 12-volt standard rather than the inefficient multi-voltage power supplies.
It would actually save power supply makers money as the new power supplies would not be as complex as the current ones.
This is another example of why Environment Minister John Baird is so off base when he says that meeting our Kyoto goals will bankrupt the economy. Here is yet one more example of how energy efficiency will save billions of dollars at no cost.
The savings calculation was based on only 100 million PCs having the new power supplies. Given that there will be 1 billion PCs worldwide by the end of 2008 according to estimates -- moving to the best available energy efficiency standard would have a profound impact.
The federal government's inaction on this issues and so many others -- such as fuel efficiency standards, standby power regulation, and mandating taxis as hybrids -- highlights that the Conservatives are so opposed to addressing climate change that they even reject measures that make billions of dollars and reduce electricity use/CO2 emissions.
See the white paper below as an attachement.