A lot of the deepest environmental thinking is that we have to move away from the idea of purchasing consumer products and instead keep "ownership" with the maker, who is responsible for minimizing the environmental footprint of the product and for dealing with it when the user is ready to move to another one.
In other words, we should pay for the services we want (computing, hot water, power, cool air, comfortable office floors, etc.) rather than the devices used to provide those services (PCs, tankless heaters, electricity, air conditioners, office carpets); that way, we're not invested in less-efficient devices. As soon as the old ones wear out, we shift to new ones, and the service provider has to deal with the decisions about upgrading or handling and reusing the material wastes.
There's an outfit that seems to get the concept, selling a small(tiny)-footprint PC with all the bells and whistles, radically reduced power consumption (assuming you don't use a power-hog monitor), and extended producer responsibility for the device.
Given how fast people go through PCs, this is a great idea -- much more affordable, and upgradeable, and with far less environmental consequence.
I especially like the flash memory feature rather than the hard drive, the source of most computer problems.
If I had a student going into high school or college, this is definitely the PC I would be looking at closely.
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Comments
View as Flat
David Roberts Posted 4:06 am
17 Jul 2007
This incredibly powerful notion ...
... goes by the snooze-inducing name of "product service systems." Where are the framing gurus when you need them?
grist.org
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:16 am
17 Jul 2007
framing
I've also heard them called "products of service" which is a little bit less wonkish-sounding. But, yeah, the frame needs help.
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DogsCatsAndStrays Posted 4:50 am
17 Jul 2007
Good Idea
But I don't want to be an early adopter, I can see real problems with software in the first years. I will keep an eye on this concept.
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Rune Posted 5:33 am
17 Jul 2007
Been there, done that
While the crest of the dot-bomb wave was still rising, I was involved with Jamcracker. Most of the talent left when it looked like the company would fail. Frankly, I am surprised they are still around.
Jamcracker set out to replace in-house PC software ownership, and most common servers, at businesses large and small by offering a single portal through which users could log on and use a variety of web based software packages their company had subscribed to through Jamcracker. In that way, companies could shed responsibility for maintaining and upgrading software (where far more problems than hard drives present actually take place) and they could purchase relatively simple computers or dumb terminals through which to access the "best of breed" software. One of the main stumbling blocks, however, was that most people and businesses actually prefer to put up with all of the cost and trouble of running their own show rather than sacrifice the ability to customize their software in ways that just aren't cost effective to make available to the masses, as well as to choose to niche software, which puts them back in the full blown PC and software maintenance game.
I suspect the same problem exists for hardware choices. People will want to have some new goodies that mass providers don't want to support until they bugs are worked out and incompatibilities are addressed, which, in many cases is never because of the constant cycle of change in the tech industry.
It's a nice idea. And the fact that Jamcracker still exists--though not as the major player they were once expected to be--suggests there is a viable niche market for this sort of thing. But until other shifts are made in the general culture and infrastructure of life in the most developed countries--and especially in North America, where property rights and individualism are regarded as next to godliness by many--I think it is going to be a tough sell.
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odograph Posted 5:55 am
17 Jul 2007
FWIW
I've corresponded briefly with the Zonbu folks. I like what they are doing. I also think that the trends are in their direction.
Business models aside, I think we are on the verge of a technological shift. A number of companies tried "thin clients" when slower nets and smaller non-volatile storage capacities made it difficult.
Now we have faster nets and the size of a cheap flash card is passing the installation size of my linux-powered web surfing machine.
I hope Zonbu does well, but I think they are a bell-weather for a incipient trend no matter what.
All that said ... a Zonbu is a lot like a notebook computer without a screen. Notebooks do very well on power consumption (plug one into your Kill-A-Watt for a week), and are falling rapidly in price.
So sure ... not only is green computing possible in the consumer sector, you can go buy it.
(one last hat tip to the Mac Mini, plug one into your Kill-A-Watt for a week)
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odograph Posted 6:07 am
17 Jul 2007
another
This diskless notebook runs windows (spit) but is another bell-weather the trend. With a VIA processor I'm sure its power-draw is tiny.
If Zonbu can find that PC in OEM form maybe they can unix-ize it.
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tico89 Posted 6:38 am
17 Jul 2007
Shame
$249. And I just bought a new notebook yesterday for $1900.
Do people really go through PCs that fast? Computers in my house last an average of 3 years (the average being brought down by buying an hp). Anyway, it seems a bit early to jump on this bandwagon, but you never know.
On another note, am I the only person irritated by that wretched phrase "save the planet"? As in "you save on electricity bills and you save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions". I mean, I suppose it's nice having people running around determined to save the planet, but it'll take a hell of a lot more than simply buying a new computer. And there's a lot more wrong with the planet than just CO2 emissions, if it comes to that.
If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?
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odograph Posted 7:22 am
17 Jul 2007
see also
Huge Successes in Green Computing
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wayneluke Posted 8:28 am
17 Jul 2007
Interesting Concept.
Only downfall that I see for it is that it is based on Linux. Sure Open Office is mostly compatible with Microsoft Office but not fully. My son is required to have Microsoft Office (including OneNote) for his classes. Nor can it run most games available these days. Then storage is an issue. 4GB isn't much these days so you will need to buy external storage, probably in a hard drive to store more than a couple days worth of work or photos from a recent trip. Even the iPods you can hook it up to store more information and you're required to keep a copy of each song on your PC.
Really interesting concept and I might actually get one to serve in additional locations in my home network but I can't really see it replacing the existing PCs in the household at this time.
I would rather support the Climate Savers initiative.
http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/
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odograph Posted 8:39 am
17 Jul 2007
more, more
Here's a flash-based Windows model from Sony.
and here's an article suggesting a flash-based Mac.
As I said, a[n] incipient trend. It makes for neater products that are greener as a bonus.
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geosynchronous Posted 3:34 am
18 Jul 2007
Where's the proof?
Zonbu says that their service is highly energy efficient, and they have a comparison of their device to a typical desktop PC here but their comparison only includes the device itself! This is hardly a fair comparison when Zonbu requires you to keep most/all of your data and programs on their servers. They also don't say whether the "standard PC" counts the monitor or not.
Your living room may be using less energy, but they have a room full of servers somewhere to keep up. I wouldn't believe their claims until they have evidence that your OVERALL energy use is significantly lessened. It may be true, but they may also be overstating their case significantly.
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JMG Posted 3:51 am
18 Jul 2007
excellent point
I didn't think that through.
Although, I would guess that there is still a gain in the reduced material footprint of the thing--I'm guessing (without benefit of data) that a bunch of little devices fed by a server is overall much more efficient than many full-size PCs doing the same tasks.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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odograph Posted 5:09 am
18 Jul 2007
I did notice "proof"
Check it out, Zonbu is one of only 4 current "gold" rated desktops at EPEAT.
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odograph Posted 5:26 am
18 Jul 2007
Oh, servers
I'm with JMG. One good raid with 5 disks can provide 2.5TB of storage. At the base plan 25 GB of storage. That is probably based on the reasonable expectation of much lower averages. Let's say that everybody's account is half full, 12 GB. You can store 200 users' data on 5 disks? Not bad.
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Rune Posted 6:11 am
18 Jul 2007
Servers are the trains of the Internet
When they are actually being used at or near capacity, shared data and applications servers can be very energy efficient, just like trains that are more or less full. The thing is, servers, to a much greater degree than trains, keep using energy regardless of the number of users being served because they never turn off, whereas as train schedules at least conform to times of peak demand. Whereas one can simply turn off a self-contained laptop that is not being used during the majority of hours of the day, servers never sleep. In fact, redundancy is built into server farms to make sure they never sleep.
Unlike personal computing equipment, there has not been an Energy Star program for servers, routers, and switches, but that is finally changing. Meanwhile, the faster nets that Odograph was referring to are big power suckers with a long way to go before they reverse their trend of rapid energy consumption growth:
That 1.2% (and rapidly rising) share of electricity may not sound like much, but it is significantly more than enough to swallow the entire national wind and solar output.
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odograph Posted 6:32 am
18 Jul 2007
technially...
And I think this is more technical detail than most people need to worry about (buy a notebook, or a Mac mini, or a EPEAT desktop, and fuggetaboutit) ...
But technically I think fat pipes is about backbone bandwidth. I have no real idea of the energy intensity of that bandwidth, but I'd expect it to improve over time.
On the other hand, the big servers doing hard work (Google, Amazon) do need to rotate lots of disks, execute lots of instructions.
I had a podcast link to google's early "build it fast" network, i'll try to find it...
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odograph Posted 3:09 am
21 Jul 2007
Another one...
"fit-PC is fit enough to run Windows XP or Linux flawlessly, thanks to its x86 architecture and integrated hard disk. Move your favorite applications to fit-PC while leaving behind the bulk and the noise of a traditional PC.
[...]
fit-PC draws only 5 Watts, consuming in a day less power than a traditional PC consumes in 1 hour. You can leave fit-PC to work 24/7 without making a dent in your electric bill."
... this field seems to be breaking open.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:29 am
21 Jul 2007
I'm with Odo
Great links Odo. They only want $285 for the fit-PC. What's the catch? Man, if I can find some positive reviews of that thing, I might run out and get one. It sounds like yet another example of how technology can be made more and more environmentally benign. Without moving parts like fans and mechanical hard drives, machines can become very long-lived and reliable. Which would also shake up the market because they will sell a lot fewer PCs as replacements but possibly more to people who could not afford one, or use one in rural third world places because of dust and moisture etc. This product sounds like a spin off of military hardware.
Like buying CFLs, this looks like one of those technological win win win scenarios. Not only more durable and environmentally benign, but you also save money.
I suspect that someone has already touched on this but, unless you can compare how much energy is being saved by the Internet, via telecommuting and on line shopping etc, you can't say that the energy sucking server centers are a net negative.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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odograph Posted 3:57 am
21 Jul 2007
telemundo
That last one actually has a small disk. If they use notebook (or iPod?) class drives they can stay low on power. On the other hand the last one goes a little low on CPU horsepower. They have to, to go "fanless" and keep power down.
I did hear a Sun executive claiming a net energy win for online shopping, but I'm not sure how many studies have been done. Certainly online comparison shopping will beat driving around town ;-)
I wish I could telecommute, but even though it is technically feasible, and we text-chat from desk to desk anyway ... they want me there. Maybe that's because most of the technical staff is in Russia and Manila these days and they want to see somebody.
(I'm tempted to try one of these low power PCs as well ... but I really should get a notebook again, and shift some usage to that.)
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Rune Posted 4:35 am
21 Jul 2007
More good stuff
It is risky to invest in the newest computer technology, which may be buggy, and it is expensive and environmentally taxing to keep buying and tossing out functioning equipment. Here is a great resource for figuring out what your existing computer equipment and usage patterns are costing in terms of energy use and making some automatic adjustments (Windows XP users only) and here is a great list of options for reducing your power consumption, short of buying a whole, new computer, once you know (or estimate) what the big hits are.
If you can get all your computing done to your satisfaction with a more efficient personal computer that will continue to meet your needs for many years, retiring your old power sucker is a clear move forward on that front. But if you will need to augment with other computers, or move some of your computing work onto other computers or server farms, it is not as cleat that net power and other environmentally impacting resource savings will result. (That said, going from a 300 watt system to a 5 watt system is a no brainer--if it will actually last and do what you need to do.)
Here is some perspective on home computing power consumption from LocalCooling, the outfit behind the utility linked above.
To put the 30 billion kilowatt-hours of waste into perspective, data center servers in the U.S. were estimated to have used 45 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2005, a figure projected to double in just a few years. So, Odograph, you are right, cutting waste out of personal PC's is some very ripe and low hanging fruit, but it is important to be aware of and encourage programs and voluntary efforts to tighten up server farm efficiency before it gets further out of hand.
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