
Earth Talk: Questions & Answers About Our Environment from the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: As an online gamer, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer. What’s the environmental impact? And are “greener” PCs available? ~ Bob Grant, Burlington, VT Online gamers and other heavey computer users are definitely leaving an envirnomental mark. Depending on when it was made and how it was designed, a standard desktop PC can use anywhere from 60-300 watts when in use, while an inefficient gaming PC with powerful graphics card, multiple hard drives and optical drives, flash memory reader and a 30 -inch LCD migh consume as much as 750 watts, or about as much as a typical refrigerator. Until July of 2007, government Energy Star requirements only measured a computer's energy use while in standby mode, which allowed the majority of brands to carry the label. New stricter efficiency requirements have brought greener models. You’ll find the largest selection from companies like Dell and Hewlett Packard. Many businesses use the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) to assist in the purchase of greener computing systems, and the evaluations can be useful to consumers, too. EPEAT evaluates and rates computing equipment on 28 efficiency and sustainability criteria, awarding them bronze, silver or gold for overall performance. Technology company VIA is well regarded as an industry leader in low-wattage processors (central processing units or CPUs), with some barely sipping only a dozen or so watts from the power supply. Some typical VIA designs can outperform competitors using only 23 watts, or less than half the power called for by Energy Star specifications. Of course graphics cards used by PC gamers are serious energy hogs. Your top-end ATI or nVidia card will render great graphics, but use 300 watts or more. Newer cards are better, but much depends on their use. The best advice is to buy only the graphics power you need. One of the easiest ways to save on computer power is to use technology that automatically rests when you do, and to shut your computer down when you’re not using it. Windows XP allows users to configure power management settings, and Vista Ultimate lets you configure power-saving options in even more ways. Vista can actually throttle its power consumption for some tasks and power down at other times. If you’re just typing a Microsoft Word document, performance will back down, whereas if you are editing video in a powerful program like Adobe Premier Pro, Vista will use all the processing power available. Bear in mind that screen savers are not energy savers. In fact, power-down features may not work if you have a screen saver activated. Happily, LCD color monitors do not need screen savers. In terms of shutting down, while PCs use a small amount of energy when they start up, it’s considerably less than the energy used when they are on for long periods of time. Consider turning off the monitor if you aren’t going to use your PC for more than 20 minutes, and both the CPU and monitor if you’re not going to use your PC for more than two hours. If you’re concerned about the “wear and tear” of turning PCs on and off, don’t be. Most PCs reach the end of their “useful” life due to advances in technology long before the effects of being switched on and off multiple times can have a negative impact on their service life. *It’s Still Carbon Dioxide* by Sunshine Lemme I’ve been investigating producer gas as an alternate fuel. Basically, producer gas is the incomplete combustion of carbon or hydrocarbon based fuel. By introducing steam into a hot carbon matrix, the result in carbon monoxide and hydrogen (C + H2O -> CO + H2). These gasses can then be burned in an internal combustion engine or as a gas. This is the poisonous gas that people used when they put their heads in the oven as a means of suicide before natural gas became abundant. That is, coal gas and producer gas are one in the same, and the CO content of producer gas is toxic. If you are going to make producer gas, be sure you understand this and don’t let any of the gas escape into a living space. The nice thing about CO toxicity is that it readily reacts with the oxygen in the air to produce non-toxic carbon dioxide. The bad news is that carbon dioxide is poisoning the entire planet. The argument for using producer gas made from biological sources is that nature made the cellulose from CO2 in the atmosphere, and will recycle it. Though this is true, all carbon dioxide is the same in the atmosphere, whether it is made from coal, respiration, alcohol, biodiesel, or producer gas. Even coal was biologically derived before its geological processing, but I certainly don’t advocate burning it on that basis. So here is the real problem of using any carbon-based fuel; how can we keep the results from becoming atmospheric pollutants? Sequestration seems to be the only way we can do that. We have to store the CO2 somewhere, somewhere it will not be able to return to the atmosphere. There are a lot of candidates, each with its own problems. Deep ocean freezing works until there is enough heat to melt it. Underground storage, with or without hydrocarbon extraction, doesn’t seem to be as reliably permanent as it should be. Chemical reaction works well and is binds it for a considerably long time, until there is another chemical reaction, but is expensive and uses scarce mineral resources. Biochemical reaction, that is, using photosynthesis to change it back into hydrocarbons, will also work, but it is slow and inefficient. The hope for biochemical reaction lies in genetic research. If bacteria can transform carbon dioxide and water into sugar at a fast enough rate, or some other technology can sequester carbon, then biofuels and producer gas will become truly nonpolluting technology. Until we reach that point, biofuels will only reduce our dependence on oil, and not do anything to reverse global warming. CONTACTS: Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-policy.org; Energy Federation, Inc., www.efi.org; Earth 911, www.earth911.org. GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 ~or~ submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/ or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php
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Earth Talk: Questions & Answers About Our Environment
from the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: As an online gamer, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer. What’s the environmental impact? And are “greener” PCs available?

~ Bob Grant, Burlington, VT

Online gamers and other heavey computer users are definitely leaving an envirnomental mark. Depending on when it was made and how it was designed, a standard desktop PC can use anywhere from 60-300 watts when in use, while an inefficient gaming PC with powerful graphics card, multiple hard drives and optical drives, flash memory reader and a 30 -inch LCD migh consume as much as 750 watts, or about as much as a typical refrigerator. Until July of 2007, government Energy Star requirements only measured a computer's energy use while in standby mode, which allowed the majority of brands to carry the label.

New stricter efficiency requirements have brought greener models. You’ll find the largest selection from companies like Dell and Hewlett Packard. Many businesses use the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) to assist in the purchase of greener computing systems, and the evaluations can be useful to consumers, too. EPEAT evaluates and rates computing equipment on 28 efficiency and sustainability criteria, awarding them bronze, silver or gold for overall performance.

Technology company VIA is well regarded as an industry leader in low-wattage processors (central processing units or CPUs), with some barely sipping only a dozen or so watts from the power supply. Some typical VIA designs can outperform competitors using only 23 watts, or less than half the power called for by Energy Star specifications. Of course graphics cards used by PC gamers are serious energy hogs. Your top-end ATI or nVidia card will render great graphics, but use 300 watts or more. Newer cards are better, but much depends on their use. The best advice is to buy only the graphics power you need.

One of the easiest ways to save on computer power is to use technology that automatically rests when you do, and to shut your computer down when you’re not using it. Windows XP allows users to configure power management settings, and Vista Ultimate lets you configure power-saving options in even more ways. Vista can actually throttle its power consumption for some tasks and power down at other times. If you’re just typing a Microsoft Word document, performance will back down, whereas if you are editing video in a powerful program like Adobe Premier Pro, Vista will use all the processing power available.

Bear in mind that screen savers are not energy savers. In fact, power-down features may not work if you have a screen saver activated. Happily, LCD color monitors do not need screen savers. In terms of shutting down, while PCs use a small amount of energy when they start up, it’s considerably less than the energy used when they are on for long periods of time. Consider turning off the monitor if you aren’t going to use your PC for more than 20 minutes, and both the CPU and monitor if you’re not going to use your PC for more than two hours.

If you’re concerned about the “wear and tear” of turning PCs on and off, don’t be. Most PCs reach the end of their “useful” life due to advances in technology long before the effects of being switched on and off multiple times can have a negative impact on their service life.

It’s Still Carbon Dioxide

by Sunshine Lemme

I’ve been investigating producer gas as an alternate fuel. Basically, producer gas is the incomplete combustion of carbon or hydrocarbon based fuel. By introducing steam into a hot carbon matrix, the result in carbon monoxide and hydrogen (C + H2O -> CO + H2). These gasses can then be burned in an internal combustion engine or as a gas. This is the poisonous gas that people used when they put their heads in the oven as a means of suicide before natural gas became abundant. That is, coal gas and producer gas are one in the same, and the CO content of producer gas is toxic. If you are going to make producer gas, be sure you understand this and don’t let any of the gas escape into a living space. The nice thing about CO toxicity is that it readily reacts with the oxygen in the air to produce non-toxic carbon dioxide. The bad news is that carbon dioxide is poisoning the entire planet.

The argument for using producer gas made from biological sources is that nature made the cellulose from CO2 in the atmosphere, and will recycle it. Though this is true, all carbon dioxide is the same in the atmosphere, whether it is made from coal, respiration, alcohol, biodiesel, or producer gas. Even coal was biologically derived before its geological processing, but I certainly don’t advocate burning it on that basis. So here is the real problem of using any carbon-based fuel; how can we keep the results from becoming atmospheric pollutants?

Sequestration seems to be the only way we can do that. We have to store the CO2 somewhere, somewhere it will not be able to return to the atmosphere. There are a lot of candidates, each with its own problems. Deep ocean freezing works until there is enough heat to melt it. Underground storage, with or without hydrocarbon extraction, doesn’t seem to be as reliably permanent as it should be. Chemical reaction works well and is binds it for a considerably long time, until there is another chemical reaction, but is expensive and uses scarce mineral resources. Biochemical reaction, that is, using photosynthesis to change it back into hydrocarbons, will also work, but it is slow and inefficient. The hope for biochemical reaction lies in genetic research. If bacteria can transform carbon dioxide and water into sugar at a fast enough rate, or some other technology can sequester carbon, then biofuels and producer gas will become truly nonpolluting technology. Until we reach that point, biofuels will only reduce our dependence on oil, and not do anything to reverse global warming.

CONTACTS:
Earth Policy Institute, www.earth-policy.org;
Energy Federation, Inc., www.efi.org;
Earth 911, www.earth911.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to:

EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 ~or~

submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/ or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php

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Earth Talk: Questions & Answers About Our Environment from the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Earth Talk: Questions & Answers About Our Environment
from the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine