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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?
How, exactly, does this matter? I mean, it's a suggestion... and it's all about power these days
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
...but why is this something our Congress is focusing on? How much time and money was just spent ignoring all the other needs so an oddball like this could get through?
Why don't they start pushing to have government offices 50% reliant upon solar (or other green power) by 10 years from now?
Get paid to code OSS
Maybe someone should try telling Americans the same thing about cars. To paraphrase the legislation "give high priority to energy efficiency as a factor in determining best value and performance for purchases of cars."
Just in time for Woodcrest!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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.
Oh arse
It's a good idea to recomend this, it does save money and the ability of a country to prosper has become bound up with it's ability to keep enough energy to do what it needs. I wonder if as well as energy efficiency we will see them pushing for non-fossil fuel methods of energy production on a large scale as well. I the UK a (slightly rigged) energy report suggested that alternative power and energy efficiency could provide great benifits, as well as Blair's pet project, lots og nuclear power.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I find it interesting that AMD held the energy efficiency crown for the past 3 years and then this legislation gets passed the day Core 2 Duo reviews start pouring in. As many of you are well aware, Intel's new architecture has a strong focus on energy efficiency and beats out AMD in this area.
A saavy hosting company can virtualize multiple machines into one physical box. The companies who can do this well enough so that their customers cannot tell the difference will operate more efficiently. Power isn't going to get cheaper, until we figure out how to stop burning what's left of our fossil fuels.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I'd like to pass a resolution telling Congress to stop wasting our money. Oh right, but our national debts aren't piling up nearly as fast as they were last year, so everything is going to be just fine? I mean every household only owes about $400,000 in government debt which I'm sure is sustainable.
Great. I think it is about time to start printing more money.
If we didn't have stuff like this to do, Congress might have to talk about the fact that the Middle East is about to descend into chaos due to complete mismangement over the past five years, and this time with a hundred thousand US troups right there in the middle of it.
If the American people caught wind of that, there's no telling what they'd do!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"...purchasing managers that it's in their 'best interests' to pay attention to energy conservation."
Congress asking managers to use "common sense" (the next buzz word I bet)??? Hopefully this doesn't catch on because I'm sure the 4 horsemen surely can't be far behind!
Congress is a little late to the game on this one. It seems that energy efficiency is already becoming a major concern in IT; the subject comes up all the time and a lot of R&D money is going to meeting the demand for more energy-efficient servers.
Reminds me of my roommate's habit of telling me it's my turn to do the dishes just as I'm getting to the pots and pans.
a congressional initiative was raised to increase the size of parking spaces in the congressional parking garage to make it easier for congressional employees to fit their Escalades in ...
I mean, if you have a server room, there's already a strong incentive for energy efficency already: The more wasteful it is, the more it heats the room, and the more you have to pay for the air conditioners and power.
That when choosing a data center you should choose one with a fuel-cell, solar or wind powered backup generator?
So they want to pass this for servers....but they wont force automakers to do this?
If you want to improve energy efficiency and reduce the price of oil overnight with little cost, increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. They haven't changed in years, and the average US vehicle fuel economy is the lowest point in more than a decade.
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.
The federal government is one of the worst polluters in the country. The Congress is partially responsible for this because they're too busy getting their rocks off with lobbyists to do their jobs. We need a new law that says that grand-standing in public by a Congresscritter is automatic grounds for a FBI investigation into all of their personal and campaign finances, gifts received, contacts and trips. Who wants to bet that there isn't almost a 1:1 correlation between the grand-standers and those who are too busy getting graft to do their job?
Will that get them to drop their stupid attack on on-line gambling?
Thank God the Senate looks like they have no interest in following up on the House's action on on-line gambling.
at least not yet....
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
You know how much it costs to keep a computer running 24/7? If you look into it, you'll see it's usually at least a couple hundred dollars a year (if not more depending on energy cost, peripherals, and stuff like that.) Yeah, you have a huge server case, and penis envy might make you want to pop in a huge 600W power supply with a huge power-hungry CPU, and lots of high end and extra stuff that you don't actually need. I recall harddrives, as the main part of most home servers, do not take too much power (a couple dozen Watts i think). I used to leave my desktop on all the time and let it act as my file server, but am now using an older computer with a 250W power supply and a minimialist configuration, and let my desktop suspend to ram most of the time. Yeah, some may need that 600W for a home server if it's acting as a mythtv server/web server/media reencoding server, but most probably do not.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Most servers are heavily used. Most hardware-based energy efficincy work by lowering the cycles. The software approach to handling energy on servers is to shutdown a server and move the load over to others. Servers are better handled in the software realm, then hardware.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If a company decides to "waste" energy, isn't it still in their best interest to set their own level of energy use? Only the company knows what their input costs have to be to be profitable -- if the item they sell/make allows the wasting of energy, the company knows best. There are too many different options when purchasing equipment to fully understand why an energy-waster might still be economically better for a given company at a given time in a given situation.
Yet we have to roll back just a little bit to understand WHY Congress would make this unconstitutional decision -- consider who benefits. The energy producers and distributors are incredibly over-regulated in terms of wholesale and retail costs and requirements. In a relatively free market, energy costs go up if demand exceeds supply. This is a natural and VERY good thing -- it requires that people throttle back their usage to return demand below supply and lower prices. This free market feature doesn't happen well in a regulated market, especially one that has an artificially high barrier to entry because of local, state and federal regulation. Don't lie to the people here and say it is expensive to get into the energy market -- it isn't. I know of local farmers that are providing their neighbors with alternative energies off of wind and solar installations on their farms, but the governments have fined them repeatedly for violating the forced monopoly of Commonwealth Edison.
Until energy is deregulated significantly on the wholesale, retail and production side, nothing will matter. Energy is already artificially expensive because retail and wholesale competition is not available in the great majority of markets. When every end of the energy industry sees significant regulation reduction, we'll be able to truly judge what is best for our specific needs (corporate or personal). Until then, Congress will just continue to throw more unconstitutional laws on top of unconstitutional laws.
...a headline you will never see.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
This is very good thinking.
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.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Walter B. Jones (R-NC)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Charles W. Pickering (R-MS)
1) How long and how many man hours did it take congress to come to the conclusion that it's a good idea to buy energy efficient servers?
2) Why are there four dissenting votes? More to the point, what's tacked onto this that would make a congressmen go on record as appearing to vote against energy efficiency.
There's more to this story here...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
And to think, all this time I thought over-sized, over-powered automobiles were the main source of pollution, and the fact that there is absolutely no push to make alternative energy more available, efficient and cheaper was the main reason energy is being depleted, and power is going out on an interstate basis. Thanks congress, for putting taxpayers money on the important stuff: Recommending people buy efficient parts for their computers.
I have to admit that I find the timing of this kind of odd. I live in DC, and in the past two months or so there has been a large marketing campaign by AMD touting the energy efficiency of their servers. In nearly every Metro station and in many bus kiosks around town, there are ads talking about how you could've cooled all of Georgetown with the energy saved by using AMD servers, or how the energy saved could've chilled X number of iced cappucinoes or whatever. Not that I expect Congresscritters to see these things while riding public transportation, but still...Interesting timing...
This guy's the limit!
This bill has no teeth at all. Smells like an election year stunt pandering to those with strong feelings on environmental issues AND energy independency. Clever political stunt, that's all.
Blar.
"Congress might have to talk about the fact that the Middle East is about to descend into chaos due to complete mismangement over the past five years"
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?
Where were you when the voynix came?
They're doing everything they can not to pass real laws, and barely failing at that.
Like reauthorizing the which almost failed, or passed amended to death. While Georgia, one of the states specifically covered by the Act, almost forced many of its Black voters out of their voting rights again.
The people create a government to protect our rights. The government we've created that now sits in Washington protects only the appearance of protection. This November, you can fire your House Representative, and probably one of your Senators. Get to work!
--
make install -not war
Remember what Congressional legislation did to toilets. Used to be toilets worked, but then Congress mandated "improvements" such that they did not flush anymore.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"it's in their 'best interests' to pay attention to energy conservation"
Also, I'd avoid buying any aluminum tubes for hobby projects for awhile. THEY'VE GOT THEIR EYE ON YOU, AMERICAN PURCHASING MANAGERS.
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.
Alls this is for is so some ass can say "I supported the environment by helping reduce Computer Technology power consumption" during an election campaign.
Of course the speechwritters will make it sound like they are the Messiah of all things good for the Environment.
Wait for the message from your nice centrally planning representative.
They're bound to be experts in anything that involves cellphones, or servers, because they're, well, universal geniuses (or they wouldn't have gone into politics, right?)!
As oil production peaks while demand continues to soar ever upward, all other industries that depend on cheap oil will suffer. If you're grid is powered primarily by coal, you will find that coal becomes much more expensive when coal mining equipment that depends on petroleum is more expensive to operate.
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.
"Well, at least if they're doing this they're not passing 'real' laws, right?"
You liberals will never be happy... until you're in power yourselves of course. hahaha
Energy conservation is a good thing, even if we're all pissed at the state of energy markets today. They've misplaced the emphasis, unfortunately.
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.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
A large percentage of the servers in operation now are Pentium 4 architecture which was a disaster energy efficiency wise. Now that Intel is rolling out a line with much low power consumption (even lower than AMD now) suddenly there is a push for energy efficiency?
Thank you congress for participating in Intel's latest marketing program.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Who were the 4 that voted against it, and were they the only ones smart enough to realize this whole thing is a grand waste of time?
But getting congress to go along is very difficult. Even in light of all the corruption (Bush, Libbey, Cheney, Amberson , Frist, Delay, Jefferson, etc, etc,), it could not get passed. Sad.
I think that this will have to be a grassroot effort.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
1) How long and how many man hours did it take congress to come to the conclusion that it's a good idea to buy energy efficient servers?
2) Why are there four dissenting votes? More to the point, what's tacked onto this that would make a congressmen go on record as appearing to vote against energy efficiency.
1) Congress didn't spend that much time. All they had to do was rubber-stamp the findings of a lucrative no-bid study contracted to Halliburton.
2) Those four are obviously the ones in the pocket of Big Energy.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
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.
... 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.
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.
My servers at work cost even more - with all their redundant fans, power supplies, quad CPUs and so on,
"(sorry if this comes across as unduly harsh, but sometimes a gangrenous limb needs to be amputated to save the body)"
And what happens next after we appease the demands of bloodthirsty brutes who demand that an entire nation be destroyed as a "diseased limb"? How many more nations do we destroy on their demands after this?
Where were you when the voynix came?
Why not have spent the money passing this bill on educating the populace about turning off unused equipment. How many offices have the monitors turned on 24/7 along with the photocopiers and fax machines. Electrical equipment in standby mode uses almost the same amount of power as when on but the perception is that they are "off". I've have an Intelligent Mains Extension Lead six sockets, one is black into which you plug your PC power cable. All my peripherals are plugged into the remaining sockets. When the PC powers up the extension lead detects the power consumption and allows power to the additional sockets used for the peripherals in time for them to be available when the PC boots. When you power down the PC, power is cut off to the other sockets automatically switching off the peripherals.
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.
an ill wind that blows no good
And it gets 7 miles to the gallon. It was invented for a bygone era. And he can afford to drive it less than two tanks of gas per year.
Sure, I can get a 386 and even an 8088 to work with weird ports of Linux or other OSes. But why? They're slower than molasses and use up more energy than four reasonable incadescent light bulbs.
I like being able to use old hardware-- hassleing the hell out of it with work. But there's a point where the functionality vs service costs make it impractical, and more of a curiousity than something useful.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Simple: Intel just lifted the NDA off Conroe, which is much more efficient than P4, and somewhat more efficient than AMD's K8 architecture. They then paid Congress to pass an initiative to highlight this. It was probably cheaper then printing advertisements in all major newspapers.
So when is Congress going to have product placements on CSPAN?
m
I was under the impression that management was what CAUSED the problem in the first place. If everyone left the Arabs alone instead of always poking there noses in there business it might never have been a problem. No I'm not talking about just today or even 10 years ago. Those people have had outsiders constantly badgering them in one way or another from the crusades to oil now days.* No wonder they are pissed off! The US took over where others left off so now they are the bad guys. It is probably too late to change anything or the direction things are heading now; but it would be good to at least look at some reasons why they hate so much.
Thermal depolymerization - Lazy recycling.
They all drove home smug in their SUVs.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
- Tash
Vrooomm...
"This is in comparison to polytheists who were forced to either convert (if they were ever even given the option) or lose their heads. Also, compare this to the Christian treatment of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition."
This is a little better, actually, than what was faced by the considerably large Jewish population in what is now Saudi Arabia. They were pretty much ordered exterminated by Muhammad. Islam has the distinction of being just about the only major religion founded by a genocidal warlord, and many of its dictates reflect this. Imagine what it would have been like if Attilla the Hun or Ghingis Khan had decided to take a little time out to create a religion based on themselves. Most likely, similar results.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I think it is time to dust off and revive my trusty ZPU powered Altair, finally complete the power supply transplant which it needs, and have it start hosting my website. If the website cannot fit in 64kib RAM with the HTTP daemon and SLIP stack... then perhaps I'll be forced to finish the SDIO mod so I can use some microSD as the epitome of anachronism.
:'-(
Then again, the WRT54G it would be SLIP connected to is much more capable of serving pages. It's just not fair
Thanks Congress! We all know how experienced and savvy those Congresspeople are about technology. I mean, some of them even have blogs! I mean... wow! I had never even considered reducing my power load in my datacenter by having more efficent servers. And it helps the environment too?? Sign me up!
The only complaint I have is that they didn't pass a detailed law that tells me just how to do my job. I mean, I could make a mistake or something. If Congress doesn't tell me how to do my job, who will?
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be that sarcastic, but it just comes out sometimes.
Let's be clear here, Congress doesn't know what they haven't been told by someone else. That's why I generally snicker at their "advice".
That's why special interests and staff people exist. The real power that special interest has is not money, its the fact that they provide the elected people with the ability to look like they are doing their job. They do the research for them, they write the bills, they alert the Congress people to what their constitutents might care about, or how to make the constituents care about it.
Of course, campaign contributions come into play, but it's often ignored that the real issue is that today Government is too big and too complex for the legislature to get a handle on. Individual legislators are politicians who may well truely care about certain issues, but most of our elected officals are lawyers, not scientists, and certainly not datacenter managers. Someone fed them this resolution and they proposed and passed it.
So, now when I see a resolution like this, I roll my eyes. Why does a government, already woefully overwhelmed and only selectively informed, try to keep pushing itself farther into places it doesn't have any experise? You want to end special interests? You need to get Congress people to realize that more government isn't the solution to every problem.
Yeah and we CANT HAVE THAT! can we.. Asking americans to be the slightest bit altruistic, why thats MADNESS!!
I'm an american and i should be able to piss all over the rest of the world. Its my god given right don't you know.
This is why people hate america. No honour, no accountability and certainly no "personal responsibilty".
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
What the hell is a "Congressional Initiative" anyway?
/. - regardless of it's applicability to the technical realm.
/. posting a suggestion by Paris Hilton that geeks wear glasses. Gimme a break.
Isn't Congress supposed to pass "Laws"?
Seems to me they waste an obscene amount of time and money debating crap nobody is required to pay any mind to. While this in itself doesn't surprise me much - <sarcasm> my being such an open supporter of political waste </sarcasm>, I find myself surprised for the first time that something as stupid as a "suggestion" by a political body (one with all the technical savvy of a bag of hammers no less) showing up on
It's like
I know, this will wind up rated as a troll - and I can deal with that, but the parent isn't any better IMO. This is a political waste, not a scientific or tecnhical event of any import.
Well, at least if they're doing this they're not passing 'real' laws, right?
I once asked my father when visiting his workplace as a kid why they had so many magazines and newspapers. His answer was that those who do damage and cannot perform can read while those that do good and can can work in peace not having to worry about the others.
Well, at least if they're doing this they're not passing 'real' laws, right?
That may actually be a good thing.
I think it comes down to the point that Democrats know they are going to have a shot at taking over in a couple of months, so they have no incentive to work with the Republicans. The Republicans, on the other hand, are putting forth a lot of bills they know have no chance of passing in order to appease their constituency and maybe stop the bleeding a little bit.
The people voting affirmatively on these fluff bills are doing so because they know they won't pass, but they can say "I voted against gay marriage!" (or some other make believe problem du jour.) Word in many political circles was that as many as 20 republican senators were willing to vote against the flag burning thing if it actually had a shot at passing.
(off topic I know, forgive the breech of protocol)
There is always the "Blue Dog" Democrats.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
If you run a more efficient O/S ... then you can get the same throughput with smaller hardware ... requiring a smaller power supply ... using less power ... Anybody out there know a more efficient O/S ?
So, you used some corn oil & other crap that is subsidized by taxpayers; not much gain there.
Just like with the push for corn based ethanol: people like talking about it because it makes them feel green, but when you look at the numbers, it just ain't worth it.
It's a prelude and a guidance primarily for government data centers. There, they can mandate it to happen (eventually anyway), as servers get replaced or as new ones go online. They are hoping that the idea carries over to the private sector. This is similar how a lot of government fleet vehicles are now going to flex fuel engines. Government is somewhat different from the private sector, they don't have to show a profit, so there's even less incentive to be energy efficient. This puts them all on notice to at least start to think about it seriously.
But ya, it's "feel good" legislation, that's true as well.
I'd like to see Congress mandate best practices in power supply design. Part of the problem in the marketplace is the struggle between "doing it right" and "doing it cheap". Many companies go for "doing it cheap", even if the dollar they save results in a product with a limited lifetime and poor efficiency, costing the customer substantially more than the initial savings seen by the manufacturer. Congress could mandate power factor correction and minimum efficiency levels. There are already many other products that have to meet efficiency standards.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Time and OUR money spent on what amounts to a "suggestion" regarding energy efficient servers, coming from a body that (apparently) has none of their own. A suggestion, BTW, that any competent person in IT already knows about, but most CFOs/CEOs don't (or don't particularly care about). Add to this the recent dissertation on the internet given by Mr. Stevens of the other body, and I'm guessing that not a whole lot of people would feel inspired to take ANYTHING coming out of these folks' mouths seriously regarding technology OR energy. I know I don't.
A Series Of Tubes - The Remix
If chips use less power, then it's likely we'll see more chips being used. If anything, just as much, if not more, electricity will be used. Same with gas--greater fuel efficiency does not necessarily mean lower demand. It could also mean more driving, since it would be more cost effective.
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.
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
I have to chime in on this one. It seems that most of the comments I have read so far are critical of the politicians passing "pointless" legislation. This seems to qualify, but in reality, it is less than pointless. First of all, our elected leaders are saying that they can't do everything to avert an energy crisis in this country, so they are asking us to give them a hand. No one would ever stand for politicians mandating power efficient servers, so they do what they can, which is to recommend.
Further, this initiative is not just a suggestion in the sector where I work, as a government contractor. This becomes a strict guideline for us, at least if we want to continue to recieve funding for research. We need this kind of guideline to justify the added cost of high efficiency equipment. In this line of work, cost justification is necessary (anecdotal evidence to the contrary).
Plus, this kind of inititive gives industries such as power supply manufacturers added impetus to develop more effecient products. There aren't a lot of high efficiency power supplies out there, so the competition is poor and the prices are high.
IANAL... But I play one on
Now if only Tony Soprano told you "it is in your best interest" to do something you might actually listen.
"Those organizations only exist, or, at least, only were elected into political power because of the mismanagement of Bush."
Hamas, Hesbollah and the Iranian dictatorship existed prior to George W. Bush. Perhaps you can blame the older Bush or Reagan if you want. But the fact remains that they existed and two of them were in power prior to Bush. Hamas was recently elected, but if you look at it, this group has been engaging in attacks prior to and after their election. Prior to the recent election, Hamas was part of the Palestinian government, anyway, and was an active part prior to Bush.
"They didn't just magically spring into existence and power."
Especially not at the command of G. W. Bush.
"They are the result, not the problem."
They are the root of the problem.
"The problem is our unconditional support of Israel"
That is not a problem at all. It is not a "problem" to support the existence of a nation to the consternation of those who want to exterminate its people. The real problem lies with those who want to wipe out that nation.
"while they continually try to get rid of Palestine"
Nobody wants to get rid of Palestine. The Israelis would rather not be forced to invade and occupy by the constant unprovoked aggression that comes from the Palestinian territories.
"instead of trying to work with both sides"
One side wants to live in security. The other side wants to invade and exterminate the first side. Both are equal to you?
"our rhetoric about 'Axis of Evil'"
Those countries chose to put themself on the list.
"If you can tell the actual difference between what we're saying should happen to Iran, and what Iran says should happen to Israel, please tell me."
Only someone who knows nothing about foreign affairs thinks there is NO difference between what we want to happen in Iran (that they stop their nuclear weapons program) and what Iran wants for Israel (utter annihilation of an entire nation)
"which the Middle East figured out Bush was lying about before we did"
Bush, whatever his faults, told the truth about Iraq. I think the "lie" here is on your side. How many WMD have to be found before we can put to bed the old lie "Bush knew there were no WMD"? It seems that 500 shells is not enough, is it?
"and, what's more, doesn't believe we could be that stupid, because, after all, we didn't do anything about the lies and even reelected him."
It is not surprising since it turns out that the real lies came from Bush's opponents. I guess we did something about the lies: we kept the liars out of office.
"A good hard look at our policies in the Middle East and a realignment of our priorities could have happened"
Do you mean making new friends, and accepting compromise on the "Exterminate the Israelis" goal? No, if you look at our policies, they are probably the best option. That is, if you think genocide is a bad idea.
"Or, and this was the other options, we could just fixed Afghanistan and gotten out of the whole area. Not the best idea, but ignoring the Middle East has worked in the past."
This would have worked real well in WW2, just the same way.
"The neocons are trying..."
This explains a lot. You are enamored of a whacky conspiracy theory involving a group that is not even in power. Any time someone begins to babble about "neocons", you know they've lost it. As if your thinly-veiled antisemitism wasn't enough.
Where were you when the voynix came?
My father was a scientist/engineer at a top military R&D facility for his entire career. In the early 80's, he was put in charge of procuring thousands of desktop computers for the base. He used to tell me about the dumb looks he got when asking the vendors' sales-flacks if their machines had a sleep or low-power mode. They hadn't even though about the possibility.
My dad died last year and in going through his paperwork I found one of his memos on the subject. He recommended that the contracts specify that 5-year energy cost be included in the overall cost of any proposal. He acknowledged in the memo that it was unlikely to affect the outcome of current round of bidding but it would serve as notice to the vendors that energy efficiency would influence future contract awards.
Nice to see efficiency being given some thought at the top.
Of course I'm jaded enough to have very little hope that they will craft something sensible...
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Does he vote No to everything, including tax cuts?
Where were you when the voynix came?
blast it, no way to flag you "friend" or mod you through the roof.
Where were you when the voynix came?
For ecologee.net means that H.R.5646 will push the awareness towards a "greener" Internet. No more, nevertheless we are happy about this move!
l or http://www.ecologee.net/ itself aim for an intelligent use of micro processors, networks and usage of alternative energies.
C bersichtDer%D6ko-ISPs
ecologee.net want's to create an Internet enteriley relying on renewables. The more power can be saved the soon this will be likely.
One vision is, that clients, data centers, backbones, phone calls will be routed exclusively over a literally "green" grid, not a VPN.
The Energy Efficient Internet Project --> http://www.csee.usf.edu/~christen/energy/main.htm
I am an partner of an ISP in Germany and I am about toconvince them to switch their power consume to one of our ecologic energy providers. Now, we work on an internal initiative to convince other ISP's beeing hosts in a data center in Berlin to move the whole data center to new contracts regarding energy.
If you were a very small center, you could consider switching versa photovoltaic, loads of contries in Europe will even share the cost of private investment in renewables too. You gain a lot.
These data centers already use renewables and if you know one more, feel free to add it, as it's a wiki. --> http://www.ecologee.net/pmwiki.php/Endanwender/%D
regards, scoid
... I built my lates gaming rig. My 3 primary concerns were:
1. Able to play Oblivion
2. Total price was less than $1000
3. Low power consumption
I've got an AMD chip. An efficient PSU, and a Graphics card that is low power. I've even underclocked my processor so that I can lower the voltage, thus lowering the power consumption. (In another month or two, I'll reverse this, to see what the actual (if any) effect on the electric bill is).
But until alternative forms of electricity become more common place, I think that energy efficiency is something for big business and the common man to think about.
Fool. Most US electricity is generated using natural gas and coal. The price of natural gas has dropped nicely in the past year. It has been showing lately in my electric bill. Coal has always been cheap. After businesses realise that oil prices have been talked up by active deceitful threat compaign by Ahmedinejad and Chavez, oil price will drop drastically too.
an ill wind that blows no good
I would be not at all surprised if this legislation were promoted by a server-manufacturing company to give itself an artificial marketing advantage in this hyper-competitive market.
Also, it doesn't seem possible to make one brand of server more energy efficient than another of equivalent spec. The components used all have the same power consumption, within a small deviation. Desktop PC's and monitors can use lower power only by strategically shutting down unused components, but a server must be always available. The only thing I can think of is *maybe* throttling CPU speed, as done in laptops, but how much savings would there be compared to the extra cost of complexity?
What we really need is a tax shift. Increase taxes on the consumption of natural resources while decreasing the taxes on labor. Given the example most of us face in technology, this means more people could be hired to write more effecient code rather than just throwing more hardware and power at the problem. The way it is today, it's horribly difficult to hire a new head; instead, managers generally opt to buy more hardware. (See http://www.sightline.org/research/taxes for more on this idea.)
Looks like I'll be moving all my computers to a hybrid energy source now! I wonder if when "Turbo" button is pressed on my pc case I have to use at least 93-ocatane gas?
We need a change in government. I say fire them all, and start all over!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
what actually happens is a big, nasty war where all the poor people shoot/drop bombs on each other until there's enough resources to go around.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Represenative who introduced this is from Michigan. Google just announced plans this week to build a new center (data center? unknown) in Ann Arbor. Coincidence? I think not.
"That's false. Clinton's budgets produced 6 years of surplus, not just one. Look it up."
I did. Actually, all 8 Clinton years produced defecit. The debt increased. A lot. Here is just one of the references showing an ever-soaring debt line:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif
"And no... the total national debt was lower when he left office than when he came in. Once again, look it up."
Is your calculator upside down. Let's check it out: In 1992, the national debt was about 3.5 trillion. In 2000, it was about 5.5 trillion. Last time I checked, that was an increase.
"Yes... he raised taxes in 1993. Rush Limbaugh and others predicted that this would plummet the US into a depression."
Rush was wrong, but Clinton's policies did bring along a recession at the end of his administration.
"Rush even bet the DNC $1 million that all five major economic indicators would be worse one year after the 1993 omnibus bill."
I think you are more concerned with Limbaugh's lame prognostication than you are with cold hard national debt figures.
"He raised the tax rates on those making more than $200,000."
So? Does this make it good for the government to be greedy?
"Patently and provably false."
"He came into office with the government 6 trillion in debt, he left with the government less than 5 trillion in debt. You have it exactly backwards."
What the hell? Are you MIRROR IMAGING the national debt trend charts????
"The GAO, which is independent of the White House, recorded a surplus for the final six Clinton budgets... Fiscal Years 1996 through 2001."
They did not. For every single year, they spent more than they took in.
"George Bush's government has spent like a drunken sailor and plunged this country nearly two extra trillion in debt since he took office."
That puts him on track with what Bill Clinton did in all his years in office. Only Bush is doing it faster. What does that make Clinton? A moderately inebriated sailor???
"Clinton was the best thing (fiscally) to happen to this government in your lifetime"
Carter and Ford increased the debt a lot less than Clinton did.
No. I am just aware of the facts that when you add trillions to the debt, it means that the debt is trillions higher.
"and you were too blinded by your hatred of all things not GOP to realize it."
I have no partisan bias. I readily realize that Bush spending policy is worse than Clinton's (even if Bush's tax policy is more fair and sane and has resulted in record high IRS revenues). What blind hatred is causing you to re-label yearly Clinton budget defefits as surpluses? Here's some more real-world data. Try not to mirror-image the GIF this time: http://www.adrich.com/Opn2004/Oct04.2.gif
Where were you when the voynix came?
Who just released low-power processors for servers?
Really, democracy is simple once you understand the flow of moneyvation.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Obviously, this is so fuzzy as to what precisely it requires as to be effectively meaningless beyond serving as a rough notice of intent that at some point a law could be enacted with real teeth.
If you set a future risk-weighted price on a barrel of oil in the $100 range, and then determined you effective electricity generation cost consuming this oil as fuel (and factored in plant, design and operating life-cycle, transmission costs, and regulatory costs) to produce a risk-weighted fully-burdened marginal electricity cost, and required corporations (or more likely, government agencies) to use this as their est. electricity cost (rather than present market rates) then you might be getting somewhere.
If the TCO spreadsheet used in the purchase discussions contains any other nominal value for the cost of electricity, and at some point the government found out, it could amount to a liability to the corporation involved.
Of course, the corporations will all contrive to chisel the effective value of this number downward to more closely represent their true energy costs. You wouldn't expect less. That's what makes capitalism so great. And then the corporations would complain in public that it was costing them real money to employ the talent required to slyly chisel this input value on their decision process down to the value they desire (their true cost). And the compliant media would cover all of this corporate grousing in the mainstream press. Because the media has this notion that you always find quotes to represent both sides of the dispute, occassionally some green would be quoted saying "maybe we should solve this problem by actually charging corporations the true marginal rate of electricity production".
At that point the corps. might decide it was cheaper in the long run to drag their feet quietly rather than risk an open debate about the shadowy and unnecessary subsidies they have traditionally enjoyed.
Of course, these quiet shifts in psychology--in the underlying balance point of the debate--never show up in a more pointed analysis, so it is always easy to prove for the debaters up front that this kind of effect does not exist. Which is why so much energy is invested by the stakeholders in doing so.
Unfortunately, we've never figured out how to tax vociferous denial twenty years after the fact when the dust settles, so it remains a risk free strategy for those who measure their self-worth in getting what they want.
Transmeta, no?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
I referred to the gibbering madman of Iraq when I meant gibbering madmen of Iran. There are still gibbering madmen in Iraq, to be sure, but thanks to positive action, they are far fewer in number, aren't in power, and aren't openly preparing to start nuclear war like the ones in Iran are.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I agree! Ron Paul is one of the few (if not the only) person in Congress with any integrity left! This is largely because he is a libertarian.
Libertas in infinitum
According to Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, no where is Congress authorized to make decrees or even suggestions about energy policy much less legislate or regulate it.
i on.articlei.html#section8
See for yourself:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitut
Libertas in infinitum
See the 10th Amendment:
i on.billofrights.html#amendmentx
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitut
In other words, if the Constitution doesn't specificially say that Congress can do it, then it is only able to be done by the states or the people.
Libertas in infinitum
"Iran is not a dictatorship" I used to think otherwise, until someone pointed out to me the fact that the laws in Iran are set up to weed out anyone but a Muslim extremist from running for President, and anyone who wins is subject to the authority of the Ayatollahs who maintain the true legal power (similar to the power of the monarch in a country with an arctive monarchy). Now I know that denying Iran is a dictatorship is a hugely stupid whopper. It's in the message title now for the amusement of all. "Hamas gained power solely because Israel kept wiping out the existing government." This is the opposite of true. The Palestinian government at the time of the election had more of a presence than at any time previous in history (in matters of recognition, institutional establishment, and other matters). The main reason observers have given for the Hamas victory is as a reaction to the corruption of the Palestinian government officials being voted out. The voters noted certain things like hundreds of millions in contributions from other countries being drained out to personal Swiss bank accounts. "Hesbollah went from eight seats to triple that amount in the election of 2005." So? This is very little change. Before the election? Hesbollah was a powerful force controlling a large part of Lebanon with the approval of the Lebanese government... and no seats in a Parliament that was meaningless anyway in a non-democracy. After? They still control a large part of the country, and have a rather small set of seats. "I will trivially admit that Hesbollah is trying to stir up trouble in Palestine" Wha....? I am not aware of Hesbollah doing anything in Palestine! That's mighty big of you to admit something that is probably not happening. "Israel could solve that problem in a week by staying the hell out of Palestine." Time and again, in the past, such efforts by Israel have been considered (and used) by their enemies as just one step in victory: one step closer to the goal of wiping out Jews. Retreat from Gaza was only seen by Hamas as a chance to build up for more first-strikes into Israel. Similar with Israel leaving south Lebanon. "Iran has not threatened to invade Israel." They have not only threatened to, they have done it. "and we have exactly as much right to use force against countries that threaten us as Iran has to use against countries that threaten it." Except the threats from Iran are unjustified, unprovoked, backed up with aggression and atrocities from Iranian military forces... and, guess what? No country has ever threatened Iran really since Saddam's era. The more you try to justify Iran's war against Israel, the more of a fog of antisemitism you produce. Iran simply has no right to object when the countries it attacks (now) and threatens to obliterate (past, present, future) retaliate for the unreleting aggression. "And if Israel wants to live in peace, why don't they build a fence and do so, instead of continually provoking Palestine?" This exactly what they did in the Gaza matter. Hamas reacted by launching missiles, digging tunnels, and kidnapping people. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present what is left of the GOP" It's funny that you try to create a false partisan division here. Do you want the ample and true documentation from Clinton and other Democratic leaders about the reality of Saddam's WMD and the necessity to deal with the danger? Many Democrats also still stick to principles and facts on the issues (esp. Joe Lieberman). These are the Democrats who think it is a bad idea to give in to terrorists in the hopes that it will damage Bush politically. "Where 500 non-working shells left over from before the first Gulf War" How misleading. The shells cannot be launched, but the WMD warhead in each one remains active. There was nothing in the cease-fire agreements that allowed ANY existing WMD or WMD programs. Also, these 500 get added onto other additional prohibited WMD that were discovered AFTER Saddam and his (paid?) liars from Howard Dean to Michael Moore said there were none. Time to face t
Where were you when the voynix came?