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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?
...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."
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.
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.
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.
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
"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?
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.
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.
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.
From the passed bill:
"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.
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
They all drove home smug in their SUVs.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Maybe they just realized that this was the legislative equivalent of blowing sunshine up someones tailpipe and wanted nothing to do with it.
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"
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
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....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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 respect your article referral, but the reference only speculates on future gasoline usage and omits empirical data. For at least the past several years (and likely longer) gasoline usage has increased in California or remained the same year over year -- taxable revenue has always increased.
Here are my references:
Fourth Quarter 1999, 3.71% increase in gasoline usage
Fourth Quarter 2004, 29% increase in service station sales including gasoline (PDF)