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First "Carbon-Free" CPU Fights Global Warming
An anonymous reader writes "VIA is doing its bit to fight Global Warming by introducing the 'world's first carbon-free' desktop PC processor. The RoHS-compliant C7-D consumes 20W at 1.8GHz, and is accompanied by a 'Clean Computing Initiative' that aims to offset the chip's environmental cost. According to a LinuxDevices report, VIA has pledged that atmospheric carbon released during generation of the power needed to run the chip throughout its expected life-cycle will be offset by regional conservation, reforestation, and energy programs initiated or contributed to by VIA."
I was wondering how long it would take for another CPU company to make the argument that their CPU is better for reasons other than speed.
I know that AMD has been making the power saving argument for awhile (I saw ads in downtown Chicago at busstops in early July).
Here's info from the article about AMD's CPUs in comparison...
"AMD, meanwhile, is currently shipping "energy efficient" desktop chip models that typically draw 65 Watts, instead of 85 Watts. Additionally, the company offers "energy efficient, small form factor" models rated at 35 Watts, although only the single-core Sempron model in this category appears to be shipping -- the long-awaited, 35 Watt, dual-core Athlon64 X2 3800+ model is expected to ship to PC-makers in time to go into holiday-season PCs"
By "carbon free," they mean they're going to be making donations to various environmental initiatives to offset the carbon it uses. The article also shows a little chart showing that their chip uses less carbon over its lifetime than Intel or AMD chips. I'm not sure if that means it's far more efficient, or that they expect it to burn out quicker ;).
So I guess you didn't bother to read the summary even? Specifically:
Via has pledged that atmospheric carbon released during generation of the power needed to run the chip throughout its expected lifecycle will be offset by regional conservation, reforestation, and energy programs initiated or contributed to by Via.
Talk about missing the point. The chip will have it's carbon usage compensated for by carbon offset purchases. Whatever the chip uses, VIA will pay for the same amount to be generated by wind power, offsetting the carbon that the chip uses.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
If I understand sustainability targets correctly, the total environmental payback period for chips is supposed to include compensating for the power/etc. used in manufacture, not just in operation. This is a great step, though; let's hope more industries take it and start looking at the next one.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Just throwing that out there.
i think they're forgetting the heavy metals cost of gold, the industrial waste cost of the wafer fab process, the energy it takes to run a whole semiconductor assembly operation, and the huge environmental 'fixed cost' of constructing the buildings that make these processors. i wonder if there are plans to distribute these environmental costs and offset them as well.
but it is a start, and more companies could adopt the same attitude.
I'm certainly concerned about this stuff. (I'm reading this after returning from walking around the floor turning off lights in empty conference rooms.) But this "carbon-neutral" business, where those who can afford it can consume as much as they desire as long as they pay for it with offsets based on some extremely nebulous calculation, and those who can't have to do without -- reminds me of papal indulgences more than anything else. You can be a good person by sacrificing, or you can be a good person by giving money to a sanctioned recipient.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'm still waiting for chips made out of diamond semiconductor. It'll be hard to label them "carbon free" when they're made from the stuff.
but what are they doing to counteract all the hot air they keep expelling?
No you won't. You'll find something else to complain about.
Man, to offset the carbon production of a Hummer SUV you need more than that... perhaps installing solar panels, or donating a lot of money to conservation efforts...
Damn, even then I wouldnt be sure... perhaps seven years of penance as a Franciscan brother might do the trick.
No sig for the moment.
It's the power supply not the CPU that makes the difference. My power supply separates the electrons made fomr non-renewable sources and returns those to the mains for the rest of the ignorant world to use, and then uses only the ones generated by renewable sources.
I also contribute to reforestation efforts in China - each $50 funds a slave laborer who can plant 100 trees a day as part of his "reeducation".
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Back in the '70's the big scare was Global Cooling. We were told that we would all freeze to death. Now the big scare is Global Warming. We're all going to overheat, melt the icecaps, and drown.
Weird, because when I was in school in the 80s, they were telling us about global warming (and the ozone hole). Of course global warming has been warned about since then, non-stop.
These are all part of nature's climate cycles of cooling and warming trends. To say that man's activity is warming the earth is unproven.
Yes there are natural cycles, although the amount of carbon in the atmosphere seems to coniencide with global warming treads (as CO2 amounts rise, so does the temp). We're now pumping carbon into the atmosphere, more than has ever been present in the atmosphere. It stands to reason that more carbon will help warm the earth. To deny that is foolish.
However, under the name of "Global Warming", there are large power-grabs between nations. Notice that China, the world's largest polluter, is excluded from the Kyoto agreement, yet the US is supposed to follow it.
I can't speak to China and the Kyoto agreement, but just because one big polluter doesn't follow doesn't mean the other big one shouldn't. A reduction is a reduction. FWIW, nations have to agree to sign the Kyoto agreement. I doubt they'd not ask China. The US refused to sign.
I'm a conservationist. There are many ways to conserve the environment and have full economic activity. That is in stark contrast to the environmentalists and Global Warming theorists who want us to reduce and/or stop our economic growth.
This is perhaps one of the stupidist comments I've ever heard. They aren't trying to stop / reduce economic growth, they want that growth to happen in an environmentally friendly way. You seem to forget that something which slows growth in one area may trigger larger growth in others. For example, if you need some kind of filter on your smoke stacks, someone needs to build those.
You want to conserve only when it doesn't inconvience you in some way. I assume you have similar attitudes as those that tried to justify dumping any chemical waste into rivers. We've cleaned those up, and the economy hasn't tanked. Get a grip.
It's sad how few people realize their "efficient" Via CPU is not so efficient?
:D
Clock-for-clock, the optimized WinChip core (yes, even the C7 uses the very same core) can only process one integer and one floating-point instruction in parallel. This makes it 2-3x slower per-clock than modern CPUs. So, while you're still waiting on your Via C7 to crunch those numbers (at 20w), a Core2 Duo or A64 X2 system can do it in 1/4-1/6 the time (at 35w), and clock down to low-power state (3-5w).
So, I hope you feel good about how much carbon Via saves building the chip, because not only does it uses more power than competing processors to do the same amount of work, it takes longer too
Via's day in the sun is over. They were faced with the poor performance of the Winchip core, and instead of redesigning it, they touted the low power (which is true) and efficiency (which is not true). Intel and AMD responded with innovations like real-time voltage and frequency adjustment, and all of a sudden Via is scrambling just to try and keep up.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The parallel processor : Also known as a graphic cards ,stream or vector processor.
You will need to use a language that fits the architecture.
They are way more efficient that general processors.
Myself I power my whole setup off a giant water wheel under my sink faucet. Sure I use 5000 gal of water a day but the energy savings to the environment is worth it.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
Unless I've miss read (or /. has miss reported) "VIA has pledged that atmospheric carbon released during generation of the power needed to run the chip throughout its expected life-cycle will be offset by regional conservation, reforestation, and energy programs initiated or contributed to by VIA." they mean "Carbon Neutral"
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
The fact that next to noone will use these chips.
As I was once told in a logic class. For logic to work, you have to show that each step in your reasoning is true. Starting from a fallacy, you can prove anything. Also, it's a major jump to go from "seems to coniencide" to "causes". Based on that, it "stands to reason" that the rest of this statement should be viewed as an opinion, not a logical deduction.
Reacting to a statement you see as outrageously false doesn't mean that you can reply and calling someone "stupid." His opinion is just as valid as yours, espescially since neither it firmly rooted in hard evidence.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Not that small.
No, because unlike atmospheric greenhouse gases, people aren't fungible. I would think most people, even ACs, would realize the difference without asking.
Last year everyone blamed the incredible number of hurricanes on global warming. "Something must be done!" they demanded. Climatologists said we were entering a period of increased hurricane activity that might last a decade or more. The clamor grew to DO SOMETHING about global warming.
Well somebody seems to have taken care of the problem. After all, the number of hurricanes is way down this year, isn't it?
It makes me wonder. Why does anecdotal evidence in support of global warming gloom and doom predictions played up so much, but when that evidence fails to emerge the following year nobody wants to talk about it? At the very least it makes the "killer hurricanes every year" prediction by global warming enthusiasts absolutely BS.
I think global warming deserves serious attention. I am in favor of the Kyoto accord. Having said that I fear that for every wingnut who values profit over human life there is an equally deranged nut on the other side of the political spectrum who spouts nonsense because, out of ignorance, they don't know any better.
yeah, well he's right - Bush has proven without a reasonable doubt that the evidence doesn't show whether there is or is not global warming at this time and until we can prove it undoubtably, we should not put any unnecessary restrictions on campaign funde... er, I mean big businesses.
For that matter, Al Gore is an idiot*, so don't believe everything he says - I'm pretty sure he's secretly in league with law breaking PETA militants. George Bush's far superior IQ** always prevails.
* compared to a genius monkey
** compared to a dead monkey
p.s. this was intended to be funny. If you didn't find it mildly amusing, I'm sorry, and please don't grenade my house.
Via must have looked at ISO14001 and found that they had no control over
chemical use, water pollution and what their subsidiaries in china were up to.
But since you can buy certificates to clean their otherwize uncontrolled electrical
supply they decided that if they could buy a green corporate image for by getting
certificates a small fractional percentage of their production.
This smells like Chiquita's banana stickers, nowhere close being accepted by
any real certification system, but bragged about in commercials everywhere.
Chiquita - Going Green or Greenwashing Corporate Crime?.
Everyone can make a difference by conserving power, but not by buying more stuff.
More accurately: this is avoiding the unfairness of us having polluted to high heaven and back while getting through the stage of economic growth that developing nations have not yet reached or completed. It avoids the charge of us pulling up the ladder behind us.
Because the initial limits were too generous (and some countries issued more permits than they had headroom to). Your (correct but misunderstood) argument is that it wasn't stringent enough.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Actually, I believe the burden of proof would be on you to prove there there are NO environmentalists that call for a reduction in economic activity. Just as the burden of proof would be on the grand poster for his equally unsubstantiated claim. I just wanted to point out the difficulty of disproving an unsubstantiated claim with yet another unsubstantiated claim.
Calling a thought out(if not logical) statement stupid means that you are calling their thought process stupid. If you assume that people are smart/stupid based upon their cognative ability, you did call the GP stupid, wether or not that was you intention.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
The H3 is awesome. It's the only vehicle in the world that, at a filling station, if left idling while pumping gas into it, it will never fill up.
Because if you think global warming is a serious danger, then making your CPU more "green-friendly" will make one whit of difference, right?
Actually the H3 is a move in the right direction...I hate soccer mom hummers; but at least they are getting smaller with each number. I might even be interested in a H8 or H9.
A quick check of several carbon neutral sites, where they propose to offset your carbon output for a fee dependent on how much driving you do etc..., left me feeling as if it were a scam of some sort. They offer no real assurance that your money is being placed into long term land/biomass projects. IE, the data is not publicaly verifiable. Its just their word. "pay us 88 dollars and you are Carbon Neutral!!" The sites/entities proclaming carbon offsets should be required to have verifable data to those that join.
I saw no evidence of that, and it is needed.
So some digging was in order. A quick call to the Chicago Carbon Exchange, and subsequent dialog with a nice enough bloke in charge of the offsets regarding the siging up of our ranch up in carbon offsets struck me as odd. The exchange currently favors pine plantations with poplars, vs native hardwoods. Native hardwoods live longer and are a a climax species for my area (East Tennessee).
The fellow said that our pine planataion could qualify for listing with the carbon exchange, but they really want actively managed plantations vs. unmanaged tracts of woodlands (even if they are recoverving from clear cutting).. I tend to disagree on the track of these offset schemes, because even the Carbon Exchange wants the timber to be harvested.
The whole process is just getting started I will admit, but it needs some serious thinking through on their part. The trees when mature are harvested. Which emits C02, and then proccessed, and then that carbon slowly degrades back into the atmosphere.
It really doesn't make sense. They should really be trying harder for longer term preservation with native species into climax ecosystems, with selective logging.
Now, about the late comment, I would have posted earlier but I have been running a business all day, and came home to plant yet another acre of white pines for a seperate christmas tree thing we are trying at the homestead...(yep /me = hippie, geek, rancher, musciaion type)
So please folks treat it as more than just feel good, pass the buck public image/advertising.
And demand verification from the offset folks, don't just take thier word on it.
Peace out, D