Switch Off PCs, Say eWEEK Readers

While the Green IT movement concentrates on the complexities of data centre power efficiency, a poll of eWEEK readers suggests CIOs should start with the apparently-simpler goal of just switching off all their PCs at night.

A single PC uses around 150W, not including display, so a thousand of them use a significant amount of power, and all too many are left on overnight. That’s why 40 percent of the readers who voted, said that turning their PCs off would be the most important action they could take to reduce their company’s carbon footprint.

Patches without power?

The reason so many PCs are left on overnight is often not simple laziness. HP last year offered a green widget which nags people to switch off, but in large organisations, it may not be up to the individual. Security updates and software patches can be issued at any time, and security staff do not want to leave PCs exposed to newly-uncovered flaws, so they need to be able to push those updates onto people’s desktop computers and laptops.

It’s possible to run desktop management systems that will switch off PCs at night, and which also lets them be woken up and patched when necessary, and then switched off again. However, research suggests that very few companies (around ten percent) are actually doing this.

Around a quarter of the poll – perhaps including the few that have already got their PCs under control – reckoned that the data centre is the best place to cut carbon. There’s a mass of work being done on better ways to cool data centres, and improved ways to measure their efficiency.

Eighteen percent thought less business travel would be the best approach – presumably replacing it with more efficient videoconferencing – though we have yet to see a good comparison between the amount of energy expended getting execs around the world in an average company, and the amount of power used in running the data centre used by the office drones.

Given the normal ratio between high-flyers and drones, we were initially sceptical this could add up to more than the carbon generated from wasted electricity by the masses in the company, but let’s have a quick think.

One long haul flight uses roughly 2000kg carbon per person (4000kg assuming they go come back). 1kW of electricty uses roughly half a kg of carbon. So each PC left on overnight uses 1kg per night. So, roughly speaking, a large company with 1000 PCs which run overnight wastes the equivalent of the carbon produced by two long-haul return flights.

It could go either way, in other words, depending how many flights you can cut per week.

Finally, climate sceptics – or people unable to get corporate backing for green initiatives – scored disappointingly highly. Seventeen percent of the poll said that reducing carbon footprint was not a priority.

What’s your next gadget?

For our next poll, we’re asking you to set aside the dull necessities of business technology, and tell us what you’d like your next gadget for personal use to be. the poll is on the left hand side of the site….

We’ve suggested a short list, but we think it could be looking a bit dull. We reckon there’s many areas we haven’t covered, so we’re expecting some action in the “other” category, from people who can’t live without a ride-on lawnmower, a medium-format digital camera or a wind-up gramophone.

Let us know in the poll and the discussion…