Intel and Google announce new plan for energy-efficient computing

Thursday, October 04, 2007 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: energy-efficient computing, health news, Natural News

(NewsTarget) Intel Corp. and Google Inc. recently announced an initiative to promote the development and adoption of more energy-efficient computers, components and power supplies. Twenty-five additional companies and organizations have already signed up for the "Climate Savers Computing Initiative," including computer and component manufacturers, energy companies, electronics retailers, government agencies and environmental organizations.

"Today, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power," said Urs Hölzle, Google's senior vice president of operations. "The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 percent efficiency target for power supplies, which if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year."

According to Hölzle, this reduction would be equivalent to removing 11 million cars from the road.

The initiative has taken the U.S. government's 2007 Energy Star guidelines at its starting point, but plans to eventually surpass them. For example, the guidelines require that all Energy-Star-certified personal computer power supplies be 80 percent efficient, whereas the Climate Savers Computing Initiative aims to hit 90 percent by 2010.

According to Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, Climate-Savers-certified desktop computers are expected to cost approximately $20 more than uncertified ones at first, and servers are estimated to cost $30 more. But Gelsinger hopes that energy companies can be persuaded to offer rebates until the new, more efficient devices become the industry standard and the price declines.

In either case, Gelsinger points out that the energy savings from a Climate Savers device would pay for the higher cost within two years.

In addition to developing new products, the initiative includes plans to push the adoption of new energy-efficiency policies, educate consumers and encourage the widespread adoption of new devices.

"We want to see that this is an expected behavior," Gelsinger said, "with consumers pledging to buy climate saver PCs."

Participating businesses are also expected to commit to buying the new devices.