Being green is the latest attempt for most companies to pretend to have some sort of social conscience. Only thing that surprised me is that Google is so far behind everyone else! Some oil companies were already paying the lip service 5 years ago.

Paris, because I'm informed that she blows, and we need to be investing in wind power...

Why tell us how to make our own data centers better? We're supposed to use Google. For corporate or school email. For business applications, data storage, health records, etc. The ultimate way of lowering power usage and cost (in their minds) is for all of us to rely on Google for everything. Never mind we might not want to do that. Or that the data may be private or privileged information. Or that we might not trust Google. Google is trying to move past being an enabling technology (arguably, at least, search) and trying to breed dependence. Under the banner of setting us free, of course. Ugh.

Why should Google, or any company for that matter, give away its trade secrets?

Honda, Toyota, and all other engine manufacturers have trade secrets about the efficiency enhancing aspects of their engine designs and hybrid designs etc. Do you expect them to just publish/share those trade secrets?

If you figure out Google's power use per user then it will likely be way less than anything you are doing at home/office. Using Google to store your data will likely be far more power effective than running a NAS or server of your own.

If you really want to save power as a computer user then:

1) Shut down your computer when not using it (I've heard bitching that temperature cycling breaks computers but I don't see it. I run 5 or so computers that get shut down most nights and I often power them up at below freezing and run them above 40C. I have never had one break from doing this in over many years in the biz).

2) Don't use flashy GPUs.

3) Use a laptop rather than a desktop.

4) Get the industry to move away from power hog x86 to ARM.

"The ultimate way of lowering power usage and cost (in their minds) is for all of us to rely on Google for everything. Never mind we might not want to do that. Or that the data may be private or privileged information."

But does google really give a shit about "Joe Bloggs" information? Google are obviously trying to reduce their carbon emissions and apparently that a good thing (saving the world and all... Maybe... Just maybe... Google couldn't give a shit about what data is stored on their servers... maybe all it cares about is the advertising which IT MAKES MONEY FROM... maybe it cares about making the word "google" universal... so when people DO get access to the interwebs they go to google... and see an ad... and click on it... and google make money...

I would trust google with my "sensitive data (oh noes!)" because quite frankly I doubt they would or could give a shit.

Coat? Yeh... mines the one with "Not paranoid" written on it

"Then again, Google might have poured serious genius into these things and have many ways to save millions of dollars and even more watts."

I think that should be at least gazillions of dollars and even more ivwatts for Control of Power. Present Current XXXX Future Potential Producing NEUKlearer Energy ....... Intellectual Property Drive aka Pure Imagination from Cleaned Gleaned Source.

* A Global Communications HQ thing ..... and a Specialised Application of ProgramMIng.

[A little something for Cowboys and Injuns to Ponder as EurAsia Stakes her Claims with Needs and Feeds.]

Heap Powerful Medicine, Man, ......Real Ju-ju.

Let me quote 'We know for a fact that folks at Microsoft and elsewhere would like to see all of the data center giants open up and share more information.'

Are you paid by Google's competitors or what?

Microsoft that you are defending or agitating for has hidden more secrets than Google even after they are flashed in public media stream and dragged to court, Microsoft still defends its position. To date, we do not know Windows Core, its architecture, and how it functions.

Please, spare Google this lethal trap by not falsely passing on the blame to Google in the name of saving penguins and mankind.

youtechno.blogspot.com

What a load of whingers some of you are. If you are not denouncing MS for making a profit then you are denouncing Google.

There is begger all wrong about making a profit. Not hat I like these corporations particularly, but had it not been for MS then most of you would not be making a good living becuase the masses would not be using computers on anywhere near the present scale. Ms produces a lot of cr@p, but they have also done a lot of good, and at least evil Bill is paying his penance now by devoting much of his life to re-investing his billions to the poor sods of this world. Even the communists of this world done give a damn about their own people.

As for Google, of course they want people to use their services. No one is compelled to, lots of other search engines, but they offer what people want and make good money doing it. If they can save millions on their bottom lines by being more energy efficient then good look to them.

If their competitors want to do the same then they have to go and talk to bl@@dy Intel or AMD and not Google! Are you completely soft in the head or what!

Now then, morning rant over, off my soap box, time to do some real work rather than read these great pages :o)

Paris, because she is not free either.

Thats bollocks. The FACT is that more coal fired power stations come on line every month than there are nuclear stations on the drawing board for the next 10 years. Its all very well advocating dodgy tech, its completely another to bury your head in the sand and totally miss what is happening around you.

Deal with what IS happening rather than your own personal wet, techy dreams.

I mean, really, its like you failed totally to understand the problem. Maybe you just can't see beyond your own borders or something so I will spell it out .....

C.H.I.N.A.

Sheeesh Ashlee! No business is going to blow their competative edge, just to get a fuzzy green glow.

If the true costs of wasted energy are passed back to the consumers, then only the energy efficient companies will survive.

I don't believe I'll be the only one, but I'm sick to death with green this and green that. Are we as a whole making a difference and making the Earth a greener, safer and cleaner place? Of course we're not. Its just the latest trend and the only thing that is green and important is money.

If we take the money away we will make a difference but unfortunately thats not going to happen. Baby steps I hear you say....one step at a time....bollocks.

For the folks that are MS haters use linux and help with its development. Google haters group together and start an open source search engine.

Think Purple!

Oh dear you so have it wrong...

insist on 'green' power generation, rather that banking on effeciency or abstinence

Yes much better to have all the lights on in the house running on green power, than turn them off!

Reduce, Reuse, recycle.

Simple answer Green power + Reduced useage is the way foward.

Othewise Green Power + More required = Even more power generation thefore more destruction

(yes you actually have to put windfarms, tidal barriers & solar arrays somewhere and nearly all result in enviromental issues)

that i read about a couple of months ago was going to build a new data center in Iowa(?) and the state just passed a new/special law making electric use private/state secret or some crap like that so nobody really knows how much they're sucking down??

Something fishy with your calculations here mate.

I accept the argument that vista is an inefficient power hungry monster.

However, when considering the environmental impact we have to consider a few more factors wrt vista :-

1) number of users : few

2) machine uptime : not long

3) corporate acceptance : none

So even though it sucks worse than an SUV (imho that is very bad), and consumes more power than a cruise ship per machine (say 20MW ;-P), we have an estimated global power usage of 5 (users) x 0.5 hours (uptime per day) x 20MW = 50MWH/day. Now XP, say 100M users, at 12 hours uptime (assume most switched off when not used ?), at say 200W per box, we get 100M x 12 x 200W = 240MWH/day, which is much more significant.

Seeing as I have such a magnificent grasp of statistics, it's an easy guess that I'm angling for a job in the UK government. All I have to do now is learn how to lose classified/personal data and the jobs mine !

I have always been amazed at how people will pay anything for a problem, yet nothing for a solution.

They couldn't give two hoots about the environment - it's all spin and money saving. If they use less energy they save money. If they tell the world that they're saving energy they can pretend they're all doing us a favour (PR for nothing).

It reminds me of the time I sat in one of Ronald McDonald's finest restaurants and read how they had all these wonderful environmentally friendly policies. As far as I could see, they were either forced to make the changes to meet legislative requirements or they saved a shit-load of money by doing whatever they said they were doing for the environment.

You know when a corporation is really doing something to help preserve the environment when they don't have to and it costs them more money to do than not. Unless those requirements are met they're just pretending to help the environment.

Just because something's environmentally friendly doesn't mean it's being done for the sake of the environment.