Congress Passes Energy Efficient Server Initiative

Krishna Dagli writes to mention a News.com article about a just-passed Congressional initiative. On Wednesday the House passed legislation instructing Americans to make energy efficiency a priority when purchasing computer servers. From the article: "Washington politicians voted 417-4 on Wednesday to tell American purchasing managers that it's in their 'best interests' to pay attention to energy conservation. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a three-month study 'of the growth trends associated with data centers and the utilization of servers in the federal government and private sector.'" Well, at least if they're doing this they're not passing 'real' laws, right?

Who are the Evil Four?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, the flag-burning, Mom-beating, apple-pie-hating Congressmen who voted against this measure are:

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) [house.gov]
Walter B. Jones (R-NC) [house.gov]
Ron Paul (R-TX) [house.gov]
Charles W. Pickering (R-MS) [house.gov]

what about them?

[mnemonic_]

Maybe someone should tell you that car manufacturers haven't been able to keep up with hybrid demand in the US for years. Believe it or not, Americans have been feeling pain at the pump for a long time. You might as well start telling people that smoking causes cancer.

Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer...

[grimwell]

President Jimmy Carter did install Solar Heating Panels on the White House in attempt to lead by example. President Ronald Regan removed them when he took office.

White House history [whitehousehistory.org]

Re:Blame Bush?

[krell]

"Jews are people of the book according to Islam - they're to be treated with more respect than most other religions, actually."

During the height of the rule of Islamic law (middle ages), this meant that Jews in Muslim-occupied lands were forced to pay a special tax for being Jewish, forced to obey many laws of a religion they did not agree with, and they were also denied participation in government. It was a second-class citizen status very roughly equivalent to blacks in the Jim Crow south.

"Their problem is the Jewish occupation of Israel"

More specifically, they have a problem with anyone who lives in what they consider conquered Muslim land without being subject to Muslim law. This is coupled with old fashioned Islamic antisemitism and Arab imperialism/nationalism (the Arabs conquered this place and, by Allah, we won't be turned back!). It must be added, however, that it goes beyond this. Hamas, Hesbollah, and Iran consider Jews everywhere to be the enemy. Not just in Israel.

"The state of Israel is a symbolic crutch that isn't needed and will just cause problems for Judaism in the long term."

So, a nation "isn't needed". That sounds almost like a code word for justifying genocide against that nation.

"Far better to put Israel under a multinational mandate"

Under whose authority? The UN, which is well-known for a very long list of antisemitic mandates? The same UN that had an actual card-carrying Nazi (tm) lead it for a long time? Why not instead put the territories held by Hamas, Hesbollah, and Iran under such a punitive mandate? They are the ones causing the problem here.

Even home computers can consume over $150/year

[lancejjj]

At one time I kept my linux-based PC powered on 365 days a year. I had a little web server on there, email server, network backup service, etc. It was just a commodity Athlon-based computer running at 1.4 GHz or so.

But then I noticed that my home power bill was growing. I used a watt-meter - a "kill-o-watt" - and saw that the PC alone was consuming over 125 watts of power at idle - and even more when the CPU was pegged and the disks were cranking. And remember, this doesn't include the monitor - just the PC itself.

In all, the 365 day-a-year, 24 hour-per-day operation of this PC alone was costing me about $160 (at $0.15 per KWh). I have a little computer energy consumption comparison here. [blogspot.com]

My servers at work cost even more - with all their redundant fans, power supplies, quad CPUs and so on, ... well, it adds up quickly. Beyond that, high density computing can easily exceed 6 KW per RACK! And that makes a lot of heat, and so you have to cool the data center 365 days a year - and that's even MORE power consumption. A $1 million dollar electricity bill per year for a data center ain't out of line. And remember, commercial energy costs are less than residential.

Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer...

[F_Scentura]

"President Ronald Regan removed them when he took office."

To do roof repairs, but it's not as if Clinton/Gore placed them back up either. And they're still bleating about their environmentalist loyalties!

Not being a partisan here, I actually voted for Clinton.

Re:waste

[scheming daemons]

Every year of the Reagan presidency, the budget he proposed to congress had a greater deficit than the one congress eventually presented to him to sign.

The same has been true under this President.

But! During Clinton's term, the budget proposed by Clinton provided for greater surplus than the one eventually presented to him by congress. Twice, government shutdown, or threat of one, convinced the GOP congress to rework the budget to reduce deficit/produce surplus.

Clinton held the congress' feet to the fire on budgets and in the end generated surplus and was paying down the debt.

Clinton was the best CEO/CFO this country has had in the past 100 years. Whether that means he was a good President is another matter... but when it comes to "bidness", Clinton is the model. Bush, just as he did in running every business he headed into the ground before becoming President, just simply is not a financially prudent person and his administration reflects that.

Re:What about cars?!?

[RxScram]

Just out of curiosity, what country are you from? Here in the U.S., the Federal excise tax for gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon, with an additional 18 cents per gallon state tax (California.) So, total for my state is 36.4 cents per gallon... since I'm paying $3.27 cents a gallon, 36.4 cents is considerably less than 50%. (3.27-0.364 = $2.906 per gallon, pretax. 0.364 / 2.906 = 12.5% tax rate, approximately.)

Re:Who are the Evil Four?

[Edward Faulkner]

Ron Paul is awesome. He's the only person in congress who actually has principles and sticks with them, on every single vote. They call him "Mr. No" because he disapproves of almost everything congress does. His party has learned to just not bother trying to get him to stick to any kind of party line.

A voice in the wilderness, perhaps. But that's the best a principled person can do in that den of thieves and scoundrels.