Congress Passes Energy Efficient Server Initiative 334
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?
I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they start pushing to have government offices 50% reliant upon solar (or other green power) by 10 years from now?
What about cars?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
I also think that we do have a duty to think about the environmental impact of our actions, but I agree that passing a law to make someone consider this sort of thing is rather sad.
good (Score:3, Insightful)
Suspicious timing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about doing something real? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mandate a 1 MPG increase by then end of 2007. The cost to the car industry is minimal. A 1 MPG increase doesn't sound like a lot, but a fleet-wide increase of 1 MPG is an enormous amount of oil. Start increasing the CAFE standard by 1 MPG every few years.
Desktops (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, they should be working on desktop efficiencies. Monitors, harddisks, etc can be made a great deal more efficient. In particular, smaller drives (2.5"), in a office, small drives on desktop, with data on a central server, lcd monitors only, minimize the numbers of printers of make them sleep, etc, etc. There are far more desktops than servers.
From Servers to Suvs (Score:3, Insightful)
The amount of energy that is conserved by these new servers is clearly a benefit to everyone.
Now Congress can further this trend by raising auto fuel efficiency standards & provide a myriad of new ways for people and businesses to conserve energy.
Re:What about cars?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know yours is a bit tongue in cheek, however I still must comment on this concept. This is so offensive to me. Don't ASK people to do things that are non-optimal. Don't ask people to make themselves and their business less cost effective. You don't set up a free market, and then ask people to work outside of the equilibrium points "because". Money is just the metric by which we choose to optimize the system. Taxes and tax breaks on things like this exist for a reason... to help account for hidden costs to make the optimal point... actually.. you know.. optimal.
Congress has the power to move the cost equilibrium (taxes). They don't. They choose to ask you operate to your own disadvantage for the good of us all. Why? Because they are bought and paid for. There are lobbies that prevent them from doing it. So they resort to this seriously ridiculous concept. If you want us to use more energy effecient $THINGS then use TAXES and TAX BREAKS to move the market. Move the god damm equilibrium point so it's cost effective for us to do so. Asking me to operate outside of the cost equilibriums of a free market is basically asking me to risk my own fincial health because you don't have the willpower to risk things yourself. I'm sorry but my retirement/business/kids-college is more important than your re-election. Therefore your "instructions" on how I should spend my money are of no meaning to me. Stand up and make buying energy effecient things cost-effective, and then we'll talk.
Blame Bush? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a limit to how much you can blame Bush for the fact that Hamas, Hesbollah, and Iran will only be satisfied if the Jews are outright exterminated. There's not much room for negotiation and compromise with these players, and they are large players that can't be ignored. How do you compromise with someone who wants all Jews eliminated? Do you meet them half-way and agree to let them wipe only half out?
Re:Suspicious timing (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not saying this is why the Legislation is being passed, I am just pointing out that we could easily play both sides.
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is our attitude. Here in FL, most solar installs are not to heat domestic water, but to heat the pools. We need to be a little less decadent. When I talk to people about these issues, they really don't give a hoot about polution and energy consumption, despite the people being well edumucated and having a good income. Even our power bill being around half of theirs for the same size family and house doesn't make them think that maybe they could actually do something about their consumption.
Few people actually care, and that's the problem.
Peak Oil (Score:3, Insightful)
It is in our best interests NOW, TODAY to start paying attention to who is wasting electricity.
Few who have ever worked in data centers can say with a straight face that this is a sustainable business model in light of the looming energy crisis we're about to face.
It's not easy being green (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider:
1) All of the brick power supplies we're using that suck energy 24/7 when in use, or not
2) CRT energy efficiency vs information they give us compared to LCDs
3) Plasma displays. You can heat your living rooms with them
4) The state of ACPI and other energy savings initiatives, like EnergyStar jokes
5) How batteries are polluting aquifers because they're thrown away into landfills, then melt over time into ugly pools of toxic metal concentrations
6) How computing machinery disposal anarchy pollutes as much or more than #5
7) Why I have to buy a new set of computers and cell phones and PDAs so often..... and recycle the old ones (sorry, even Linux can't save a 486SX-25 machine)
This was for the perception that Congress is concerned. Instead, they're demonstrating technology cluelessness once again.
Because it's an election year (Score:3, Insightful)
Because a bunch of people vote for political candidates who talk about "national energy strategy" and they bitch (again, at politicians) about gas prices. Regardless of whether or not people say they really want a centrally-planned economy, they truly act like they want the federal government to be in charge of energy production, energy use, and energy prices.
People, if you do want this stuff, then you just have to accept that Congress will pass laws about how much energy computers use, we will have our military forces in the Persian Gulf area, etc. If you don't like it, then tell your government to butt out, and that means voting against any candidate that says they will make energy issues part of their political agenda. Put your ballot where your mouth is.
Re:Just two questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Section 1:
Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, through the Energy Star program, shall transmit to the Congress the results of a study analyzing the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer data centers by the Federal Government and private enterprise."
In other words, the House wants a study done by the EPA to determine the "rapid growth" and energy consumption of data centers. There were no riders, nothing tacked on to the final, passed, version.
What's the point? Is it going to stop data center expansion? Is the federal government going to subsidize cooler, more efficient processors or servers? What about desktop machines, or is that a different bill? I can just imagine people in Congress saying, "Lord of the Rings was a good movie, but thank god WETA is in New Zealand, I feel cooler already."*note sarcasm*
For a country that is so anti-environment(I laughed when I saw the current issue of Newsweek's cover "The Greening of America"), we are wasting opportunities to get on the right track. Our government needs to stand up for the environment, not pass stupid bills authorizing the study of server room temperatures. The four who voted against this bill were right, this "study" is a waste of money.
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Expose the lobbying campaign (Score:3, Insightful)
Be certain that someone like Sun is lobbying for this. They have a power consumption advantage over some of their competitors, but the marketplace doesn't care. Convenient then to have the government mandate them caring.
And then (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who are the Evil Four? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean really now. A law that suggests that people buy more energy efficient servers?
Maybe this is congress telling AMD "See, we can pass legislature you will like in your fight agaisnt Intel, if you had paid us enough we would have actually put some teeth in the law"
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing: I do give a hoot. A lot of people do. I really want cleaner air and water, a stable climate, and oh yeah, the world economy not to collapse on account of running out of the resources that keep it going. And in fact, I'm willing to make some changes to contribute, no matter how slightly, to these goals.
But I also really like to swim.
"Decadent?" Screw that. The whole purpose of civilization is to make people comfortable; else we'd all still be living in caves and scratching for roots and berries. And you can rail against it all you like, but in the absence of an apocalypse, you will never make people give up the creature comforts they feel they've earned. Oh, they may make some changes -- say, walking a little farther instead of driving now and then, or paying a couple cents extra per kilowatt-hour on their electric bill for power generated from renewable sources -- but asking them to give up their cars and swimming pools and big houses entirely? Forget it. It is just not going to happen, nor should it.
The only way out is through. Better power generation sources, better use of the ones we already have, bits and pieces of conservation here and there (which can add up to a whole lot)
Maybe instead of criticizing your neighbors as decadent, you could say, "That's a cool heating system you've got for your pool. Ever thought about using it for your house water, too? Here's a Web site
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_e
Reagan got elected partly by telling Americans he loved them and didn't want them to make any changes like pesky ol' conservation. He 'solved' the energy crisis by mortaging the future -- a typical conservative tactic, unfortunately. Hope the Democrats pull it together and present real opposition before the elections, 'cause we need it.
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:3, Insightful)
roof repairs? did it take eight years to repair that roof?
here is a speech that carter gave in 1977. some of the predictions were a bit accelerated in terms of dates, but there is a lot here that's quite precient:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_cr isis.html [pbs.org]
some quotes:
"With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly."
"The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation."
"I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum."
"Now we have a choice. But if we wait, we will live in fear of embargoes. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs."
carter then goes on to provide a plan with ten principles that include conservation, protection of the environment, and development of new sourcese of energy that will be necessary to provide for us in the "next" century.
the next century is here. wouldn't it be nice if the US actually did that starting 25 years ago?
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:2, Insightful)
Completely unlike say Medicare and Social Security, which together represent an unfunded liability to the tune of $200,000 per American. But hey, who's counting
Re:What about cars?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's just not correct. Taxes can be used to cover the "hidden costs" associated with certain behavior. That's exactly the point. The enviornmental damage is done taken into account by a pure-free-market. Long term damage of that nature needs to be put in monetary terms (like taxes), to be modeled for and taken account in the system.
It's pretty easy to tax gas and use the money to give tax breaks to people who buy energy effecient servers. This puts the long-term enviornment damage that is not accounted for in the normal free market where it belongs, and makes the system optimize around a more "correct" cost metric.
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm all for being an earth concious consumer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the bans on drilling off the east and west coasts of the US, and around the Florida area.
We've had it offshore of LA for decades...time for the other states to allow drilling off their shores, and hold up their fare share of the energy obligations to the whole country.
Hell, most of the reason we got flooded so badly (aside from the incompetent Corps of Engineers poor levy building), was the loss of all our marshlands due to channels cut into them for ships and pipelines that caused our natural hurricane barriers to erode away.....
The Gulf coastal states have done their part and sacrificed for the energy needs of the US..time for more states to pull their share..allow drilling and refineries to be built on YOUR land and coasts....
I disagree (Score:2, Insightful)
Either way, Congress can't do anything other than screw things up. The market has figured out that power-gulping chips are hurting its bottom line, so chip makers are making more efficient chips. Congress had nothing to do with that. The next step in chip design should likewise be dictated by what consumers want and are willing to pay for, not by politicians. Anything they do to "help it along" will muck it up.
So no, it doesn't matter...at least, not in the way you imply.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Here are my references:
Fourth Quarter 1999, 3.71% increase in gasoline usage [ca.gov]
Fourth Quarter 2004, 29% increase in service station sales including gasoline (PDF) [ca.gov]