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?

Comments

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

[Beatbyte]

...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?

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

[truthsearch]

For large companies energy efficiency is already a consideration because of cost. You can't set up a datacenter without estimating the cost of the electric bill and backup generators. So that makes me even more curious as to why they're wasting time and money on this. Basic economic demands promote energy efficiency in servers.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

The govt already gives a 30% tax credit up to $2000 for home solar installs (not pool heating), and I believe it's upcapped for commercial. Recently FL started offering a rebate scheme for solar too, but the details are somewhat lacking at the moment. But at least it's a step in the right direction.

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. :-(

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

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.

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) ... that's the only way it's going to work. North America, Europe, and Pacific Asia are not going to climb down from their thrones voluntarily; nor are central Asia, South America, and eventually Africa going to surrender the idea of trying to climb up. That's the reality, and I'll say it again, that is as it should be. People want to lead comfortable lives, and the definition of "comfort" keeps getting revised upwards, and it's easy to sneer at this impulse, but honestly I think it's done more for the welfare of the human race than any ideology ever has.

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 ..." Just a thought.

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

[SewersOfRivendell]

Whatever else anyone might say about President Carter, he was both (a) absolutely right and (b) truthful at all times. Unfortunately, Americans didn't like it when he told them the truth in 1977:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_en ergy.html

Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. 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.

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...

[WeAreAllDoomed]

To do roof repairs, but it's not as if Clinton/Gore placed them back up either.

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

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?

What about cars?!?

[Shisha]

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."

Re:What about cars?!?

[lbrandy]

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 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.

Re:What about cars?!?

[lbrandy]

You clearly don't understand the economics of taxes. Taxes cause a dead-weight loss in a free market economy (read inefficiency). By taxing people who use "energy-inefficient" servers what you really do is raise the barriers to entry into the server market thus raising the prices everyone must pay for servers due to decreased competition. So you want to provide a tax-break for this to offset the higher cost... Where should we get that money? Increase the deficit?? Tax more??

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.

Desktops

[WindBourne]

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.

Blame Bush?

[krell]

"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?

It's not easy being green

[postbigbang]

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.