My friend is looking for an apartment in SF. Here's the one I highly encourage her to look into further. Unfortunately it's not clear where in SF it is. Gotta love Craigslist.
I am sure link will expire soon, so enjoy it while it lasts.
Aaron
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In what could be the largest environmentally friendly corporate
project in history, Bank of America Corp. will unveil a $20-billion
initiative to help fertilize green business practices.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fi-greenbank6mar06,1,7781916.story
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Saw this on Hugg today. A new green directory for renewables.
Unfortunately no category for computers and electronics yet - just a catch-all for technology.
There are other sites like this out there. I'm into these kinds of sites, particularly if there are a lot of ratings and reviews. I have also seen several green wiki sites that are even more interesting. Unfortunately I can't find them right now.
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Earth Day I and Earth Day II are coming up sooner than you may think, and with the topic of global warming on everybody's plates these days, you should expect a lot more awareness around these events than in year's past. I encourage everyone to plan to do something that has some positive impact on the environment outside of your everyday routine. For instance, volunteer somewhere, bike to work, install solar panels, insulate your house, etc. More ideas to come.
I want to make sure everyone on the planet is starting to be aware of these two days.
Global Earth Day is March 21st
U.S. Earth Day is April 22nd.
Now to the point of my post:
Curious why there are two Earth Days when there is only one earth?
Time to start a One Earth, One Earth Day campaign?:)
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The Economist reports today:
THE people, places and things inside Second Life, a thriving online world with millions of residents, may be imaginary—but the power consumption of the computers that maintain the illusion is all too real. Nicholas Carr, a business writer and blogger, recently worked out that each of the 15,000 or so residents logged in at any one time consumes electricity as a result of their activities in the virtual world almost as fast as the average inhabitant of Brazil does in real life. Second Life's residents, Mr Carr concluded, “don't have bodies, but they do leave footprints.”
(Sun is also mentioned in this story.)
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Today there is a "trend story" on Silicon Valley's efforts of being green and responsible, highlighting Sun Microsystems in the story lead -- with Sun's thought leadership with our servers, Open Work program, our approval by Ceres as a "Ceres company", and the naming of Sun's vice president of eco responsibility, David Douglas. (see his informative blog as well).
By Chris Nuttall
Published: February 28 2007 10:22 | Last updated: February 28 2007 10:22
How green is Silicon Valley? Well, with some heavy February downpours following one of the driest Januarys on record, positively verdant is the answer right now.
The same could be said for the environmental record of the Valley’s high-tech companies.
Sun Microsystems this month became the first Californian technology company to be approved by Ceres, a national coalition of investors, environmental groups and other organisations, who work with companies to address sustainability issues and global climate change.
Sun has a vice-president of eco responsibility and announced “the industry’s first eco-responsible servers” in December 2005, drawing only as much power as a household light bulb, according to the citation. It also kept nearly 7,000 cars off the road last year by allowing employees to work from home whenever possible, and 95 per cent of its products are being recycled.
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At least one company claims they've found a way to convert greenhouse gas (GHG) into useful materials within a "bioreactor". How? Simple: Make genetically engineered E. coli bacteria which will then produce an enzyme (carbon anhydrase) that will convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into bicarbonate. Otherwise known as baking soda. Or limestone.
I stumbled upon the article in Technology Review titled "Capturing Carbon with Enzymes, A New Process Turns Greenhouse Gas Into Useful Materials" tonight while doing my standard before-shuteye hunt for blogworthy green nerd news. (Thanks for sharing this, JiltedCitizen on Hugg.)
<snip>
A new way to capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks produces a raw material that can be sequestered underground or turned into substances such as baking soda, chalk, or limestone. CO2 Solution, of Quebec City, Canada, has already tested its process on a small municipal incinerator and an Alcoa aluminum smelter. Its scientists are now working with power-plant equipment giant Babcock and Wilcox on ways to adapt the technology to a coal-fired generating station.
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Thanks Andrew for sharing these LED lights spotted on Thinkgeek, to continue the conversation on my "Lights Out for Old Bulbs" post.
<snip>
LED Light Bulbs also have these great features.
As if last year wasn't great enough with the Bike to JavaOne program, mad kudos to the JavaOne team this year for taking more direct action and cutting down on direct mail, instead, depending on word of mouth, website promotions (what Java developers aren't online all the time anyway?) to get the word out to the Java universe to come to the greatest developer conference ever.
Direct mail such as this "virtual" piece will never end up in anyone's mailbox this year. Do one better - don't even print it out.
Our Eco program manager has made some insightful calculations...
-Assuming (based on last year) direct mail is equivalent to 2.5 pages of 0%
recycled copy paper
-Total paper saved this year= 4.63 tons
-Greenhouse Gases reduced (CO2 equivalents) = 13 tons (26,297 lbs)
-Reduction in wood use = 13 tons
-# of trees saved (assuming 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or
8,333.3 sheets) = 111
-Reduction in wastewater (and associated water pollution) = 78,616
gallons
-Reduction in solid waste (stuff sent to landfills) = 5.1 tons
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OK, so you care about saving money and care about the environment, but you still need that one "proofpoint" to convince your boss to go green and turn to a great company like Sun for your eco-responsible computing needs, while saving big money in the process.
Here's what you need - drum roll please: PROOFPOINTS.
Here's one:
Look no further than this article in Computerweekly about how important it is even the largest global banking groups in the world, like HSBC.
According to CTO Ken Harvey (shown below) HSBC says 6-7% of cost of running datacenters (sorry, datacentres) is going to power now where in previous years it was about 1%.
(Ken Harvey, CTO, HSBC)
According to the article:
Any savings on power consumption will have an immediate financial gain for the bank. HSBC is rolling out Sun T2000 servers, which are said to deliver up to three times the throughput at 30% less power and cooling costs compared to alternative server hardware.
Thanks for spotting, BM Seer.
Oh, still hesitant? Why don't you try before you buy, risk free for 60 days?
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
One of my holiday gifts is a book I received from my brother-in-law, Ominivore's Dilemma.
Already on page 200, it is proving to be an eye-opening, if not somewhat disturbing, account of food. What I didn't know is that it also has a great deal to do with being eco-conscious when we choose what foods to buy at the grocery store.
Here is an interesting Did You Know that is relevant to this eco blog.
"...if the sixteen million acres now being used to grow corn to feed cows in the United States became well-managed pasture, that would remove fourteen billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of taking four million cars off the road. We seldom focus on farming's role in global warming, but as much as a third of all the greenhouse gases that human activity has added to the atmosphere can be attributed to the saw and the plow."
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OK, I'll admit it: it's still not easy to find eco gifts online, and furthermore there is not a one-stop shop for everything eco. It's really unbelievable.
You have to have incredible amount of patience, and a lot of creativity and positive energy. I have been looking for a post-consumer/eco-friendly/reclaimed-materials padfolio as a gift suggestion for myself for a while now and have had no luck whatsoever. I was even searching for 'recycled alumininum padfolio' to try to get more specific. A padfolio are notepads for professionals that sometimes have a leather holder sometimes with a zip around. I wanted something a little funky, and to show my eco consciousness in meetings.
So far I've found the best way to find these things is to go through alternative channels: to local art shops or craft fairs like Crafty Wonderland, which had a line out the door to get in yesterday. These artisans are just that, crafty, and many of them are very eco conscious.
I bring this up because it's time to shop for family members and I'm having a hard time following my own rule. I will not give up and will report back.
I did purchase several wallets and purses from Mugwump at the fair made from reclaimed materials such as old contact paper, vinyl, and other scraps. I didn't get the one below (made from old maps) but probably should have. I got one that has a vinyl woodgrain.
So for the eco shopper, there are challenges ahead, at least going through mainstream channels.
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It's never been easier to cool down your data center.
Did you know that starting today that Sun's Try and Buy program at Sun just got cooler? Now Sun is including a Power Meter with your order of a Sun Fire T1000 or Sun Fire T2000 eco-responsible computers (yes, the ones with breakthrough energy-savings and that are eligible for the PG&E Rebate if you are in their region. This allows you to quickly test your installed servers with your new order to see just how energy efficient it is. And from that you can easily figure out how much money you're going to be saving your company. This is the first time IMHO that any vendor is doing something like this. And from that you could win a server, just buy submittting your results.
Simply put, how cool is that? I attached some pictures. All the details can be found here.
OK, a Few Detail (and more photos) below:
As part of Sun's Power Meter program, each Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 system shipped as part of the Try and Buy program will be supplied with a free P4400 Kill A Watt power meter from P3 International, supplied by Teledynamics LLP. (We don't endorse one power meter over another, but believe the more inexpensive ones do a good job of giving you an idea). This lets customers measure and compare power consumption in their actual datacenter environment. This one is regularly priced at thirty bucks. Also - some fine print - since power meters are region-specific this is best for North America use only.
Sun
will also supply Try and Buy customers a guide to demonstrate how to
use low cost power meters with the Sun Fire CoolThreads servers. The quick-start guide to get you started to measure your power measurements is here, though once you get serious you'll want to go here.
Sun also provides a formula to calculate the Performance per Watt metric.
Divide the performance the server delivers (i.e. simultaneous users, transactions per minute, etc.) and divide by the power consumption reported over the duration of the benchmark test.
Additionally, by plugging results into Sun's SWaP calculator you can reveal the true level of performance, power and space efficiency of the servers.
Equipment:
P4400 Power Meter
1:3 outlet converter
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This theme brought to you by the Sun Green Team.
Go Green!
That was great!