Green Devices and Hardware

Mostly UNIT 1

Harnessing Green IT: Principles and

Practices
What is sustainability?
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 Introduction
• Electronic devices have become ubiquitous and
are an intrinsic part of our lives.
• Awareness of our usage patterns’ impact and
ways to minimize the impact comprises the first
step towards a more sustainable practice.
• Yet another dimension to the phenomenon of
unprecedented growth in the number of devices
is the accumulation of electronic waste (e-waste)
as these devices become obsolete.
 Life Cycle of a Device or Hardware
from cradle to grave
1. Design.
2. Manufacture and facilities.
3. Packaging and transportation.
4. Usage.
5. Reuse
6. or disposal
 Life Cycle of a Device or Hardware
•
 Contd…
• Effort should be made to quantify the impact
at every stage of the life cycle. This will help us
identify main sources of environmental
impact.
• Design alternatives to reduce the
environmental impact need to be considered.
• Design changes have to be implemented and
the prototype has to be assessed again for
environmental impact.
 Manufacturing
The manufacturing process is one of the main
sources of environmental impact in the life cycle
of a device. Manufacturing processes are
resource intensive and consume a lot of raw
materials, water and energy; they create many
different categories of waste, some which are
toxic.
 Contd..
For instance, according to a UN report,
production of a desktop personal computer (PC)
consumes 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of
chemicals (which includes hazardous chemicals)
and 1.5 tonnes of water (United Nations
Environment Programme, 2004).
 Contd…
• The EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental
Assessment Tool) ratings system serves as a
good guideline for understanding how green a
device is.
• EPEAT grades electronic devices and computer
systems into three grades (bronze, silver and
gold), helps customers identify how green a
device is and helps them to make informed
choices.
 Contd.
The rating system takes into account the following
aspects:
• Reduction or elimination of environmentally sensitive
materials;
• Material selection;
• Design for end of life;
• Device longevity or life extension;
• Energy conservation;
• End-of-life management;
• Corporate performance;
• Packaging.
 Packaging and Transportation

Packaging and transportation also contribute to

the carbon footprint in a device’s life cycle. The
two main contributors in this segment are the
materials used for packaging and the carbon
footprint of the vehicles used in transportation.
 Recommendations
1. Packaging materials should be recyclable.
2. The amount of packaging materials should be kept at a
minimum.
3. Various materials used in packaging should be easily
separable to ease the recycling process.
4. Adhesive use should be reduced by using folds and tabs
instead.
5. All the additives, coatings and inks that get added to
the package should be eco-friendly.
6. Printed documentation can be avoided wherever
possible. Instead, documentation could be provided
through the device’s Web page.
 Use
• Quite a significant amount of energy is consumed
by devices when they are being used (powered).
• This increases a device’s carbon footprint, thus
resulting in a profound impact on the
environment.
• The Energy Star rating system helps customers
chose the most energy efficient devices and,
thereby, reduce their energy consumption and
cost.
 Contd…
• The commonly held belief that, to ensure longer life of a
battery, the battery needs to be drained completely before
recharging is not ne
• Devices like ‘Kill a Watt’ necessarily true for all battery
types.
• When ‘Kill a Watt’ is plugged between the device and the
power socket, it measures the amount of energy that the
device consumes. This can be used to measure the amount
of energy consumed over time and with different
configurations of the device, and thus helps one find an
optimum configuration that consumes the least energy. It
also helps one figure out whether older devices are still
energy efficient.
 Contd…
1. Reduce the brightness of the monitor to an
appropriate level. A brighter screen consumes more
energy.
2. When some background task is running on the
computer and there is no need to us the monitor
during this time, switch off the monitor instead of
using screen savers as screen savers also consume
some energy.
3. Most computer operating systems provide power-
saving profiles which, when enabled, reduce the
amount of energy consumed by the computer. For
example, when the laptop is starting
 Notebook
• The energy consumption of a laptop depends on the usage
pattern. To reduce energy consumption, it is necessary to
have a usage pattern that results in optimal energy
consumption.
• Notebook computers are generally powered by a
rechargeable battery, which when in good condition
powers the device for about 3–5 hours.
• The lifetime of a battery is generally short: They last for
only about 300–600 charge cycles. This results in the need
to replace the battery a few times during the life of a
laptop, thereby contributing to e-waste.
• A few companies are also coming out with notebook
computers which run on solar power.
 Contd…
• Notebook computers are also characterized by
their liquid crystal display (LCD) or LED
monitors, which are integrated into the
device. The monitors and CPU consume the
largest share of power that is utilized by the
laptop (20-30% of total laptop energy)
 Contd…
• Quite a lot of the energy wasted in a laptop happens when
the laptop is being charged. The chargers convert the AC to
DC and steps down the voltage.
• This happens as long as the charger is connected to the power
socket, irrespective of whether the laptop is connected to the
charger or not, thus resulting in wasted energy.
• Hence it is important to switch off the power supply and
unplug the charger from the power socket when it is not in
use. This will reduce power wastage.
• Green chargers (such as the iGo Green Charger) available
which can detect whether a charger is connected to a
notebook computer or any other device, and reduce the
power consumption when a charger is not connected to a
device.
 Strategies that help in reducing their power
consumption include the following:
1. Reduce the brightness of the monitor to an appropriate
level. A brighter screen consumes more energy.
2. When some background task is running on the
computer and there is no need to use the monitor during
this time, switch off the monitor instead of using screen
savers as screen savers also consume some energy.
3. Most computer operating systems provide power-
saving profiles which, when enabled, reduce the amount
of energy consumed by the computer. For example, when
the laptop is starting up or shutting down, these
applications reduce screen brightness to a minimum.
 Contd…
Laptop processors consume a lot of power
particularly when carrying out computationally
intensive tasks such as encryption, analytics,
computer games and image and video
processing.
Many aspects of applications that run on a system
impact power consumption.
 The following guidelines will help in optimizing
energy consumption:
• The background processes and other applications
which are not being used are kept running to keep the
processor active, thus resulting in energy wastage. So
when an application is not in use, close the application
and also stop the background processes that are not
being used.
• Multitasking is a trade-off between CPU time spent
executing tasks and inefficiencies brought in by context
switching. When a task starts running slower than it
would normally run, one of the likely causes is due to
inefficiencies due to context switching. It is advisable to
reduce the number of tasks when such slowing down is
noticed.
 Contd…
• The more processes that are set to start at start-up, the
longer amount of time the laptop needs to boot up,
thus resulting in more unproductive time for the
processor and the monitor. So keep the number of
processes at start-up to a minimum. The required
applications can be started when needed.
• When playing games or other multimedia applications,
the greater the level of detail, the greater the
processing power consumed. So it is better to keep the
level of detail to the required level; most games
support this feature.
 Contd…
• The higher the speed at which a processor
runs, the more energy is consumed, so
advanced users could run the processor at a
lower frequency (i.e. ‘under-clocking’ it) to
save power.
• Try over clocking…?
• Try Multicore
 Contd…
• The other major component of the laptop that
consumes a lot of power is the hard disk. (the
spinning of the hard disk) .
• The spin of the disk is greater when the files
are fragmented and scattered all over the hard
disk.( Defrag)
• Solid-state drives (SSDs) are known to
consume less energy than comparable hard
disk drives (HDDs).
• Peripheral devices connected to a computer also
consume energy, even though they might not be
in active use. They consume power…so unplug ?
• Most notebook computers can operate in at least
two idle power modes – standby and hibernation
• Soft control…notebook computers can be set to
go to standby mode after 20 minutes of inactivity
or when the laptop lid is closed.
Desktops, servers, mobile devices, special devices?
 Reuse, Recycle and Dispose
why?
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Lifetime of electronic gadgets if about 2 years ….why?
:Introduction of new gadgets with enhanced features
This accumulated e-waste :
• Most of these devices end up in landfills or get exported to
developing
• countries for recycling.
• Result:
• Due to lack of sufficient knowledge about the toxicity of the
chemicals involved and lack of regulations enforcement relating to
e-waste recycling, unhealthy recycle methodologies are used,
leading tohealth hazards and pollution.
 Contd…
Reduce waste is to increase the lifespan of the
devices.
• Increasing the lifespan of devices saves life cycle
energy and resources and reduces the amount of
• hazardous materials ending up in landfills.
Reusing a computer is environmentally friendlier
than recycling. It has been shown that reusing a
computer is 20 times more effective at saving
lifecycle energy than recycling
 Guidelines for recycle
• Make sure that the receiving organization does
need the device being sent and can reuse it. A
better alternative would be to send the device to
a local refurbisher who will make sure the device
is in a working state and can send it to an
appropriate organization that is in need of it.
• Copy the information that has been stored in the
device to a backup device or another device.
• Wipe off personal or sensitive information in the
device using tools specific for this purpose like
Symantec’s WipeInfo.
 To increase lifespan of a electronic
device
• The device should be modular.
• Each part of the device should be easy to
replace.
• The device should be easy to disassemble and
reassemble. Techniques like screw-less casing
make it easy.
 Contd…
• Make sure that the receiving organization does
need the device being sent and can reuse it.
• A better alternative would be to send the device
to a local refurbisher who will make sure the
device is in a working state and can send it to an
appropriate organization that is in need of it.
• Copy the information that has been stored in the
device to a backup device or another device.
• Wipe off personal or sensitive information in the
device using tools specific for this purpose like
Symantec’s WipeInfo.
 Recycle
• Wherever reuse is not a viable option, the next
best option is to recycle. In the process of
recycling, most of the original device’s materials
are reused as raw materials for a new device,
thus resulting in less waste.
• An electronic device consists of various materials
which take quite a lot of energy to extract from
ores. During recycling these materials can be
recovered and some of the recovered materials
can be used in making new devices
 Disposal
Whereas refurbishing and recycling are effective techniques for the end-of-life
management
of electronic devices, often they are not practical. The only option left at this stage
would be disposal.

• There are a few known techniques of waste disposal that are commonly used in e-
waste disposal as well.
• These are incineration, chemical decomposition and landfill.
• There is no single silver bullet that works in all cases for all materials or all kinds of
e-waste. Incineration may result in the release of toxic gases and can pose a
hazard.

• On the positive side, the heat generated may be used in generating electricity.
• Due to the nonbiodegradability of materials used in electronic devices, landfill may
not be a viable option either.
• Chemical decomposition may be an option in some cases and will have to be
executed in a managed manner. In short, safe disposal is a major problem and the
solution depends on the specific material used in manufacturing the device.