How to reduce your PC's carbon footprint

Conservation is almost always a key element to meeting our needs in a sustainable way. Before we look at alternative power or fuels it is best to look at reducing our demands. Once we are consuming less, sustainable sources of power are a lot more realistic.

Your average desktop computer uses between 150 and 300 watts while it is running. Your first step in conserving energy is to turn off your computer when you are not using it or at least make sure that its power management settings are configured to have it sleep or hibernate when it is not in use. It used to be that people worried about wearing out disk drives from turning computers on and off, but that is not really an issue any longer, given modern drive technology and the typical lifespan of a computer these days. This is the most important thing you can do to save power – make sure your computer is sleeping or off when you are not using it.

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Electricity Monitor and Control System

Another option is to switch to an Energy Star computer, either desktop of laptop. To get an Energy Star rating, computers have to automatically shut down when not in use and are generally designed to have low power draws. The trick is you have to make sure that you don’t turn off any of the power saving features, like the power management system.

Sometimes it might seem hard to be a computer geek who cares about the environment. On the one hand, you understand the need to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. On the other hand you want power-hungry computers and gadgets running in every room in the house (you know, so you can shop or watch YouTube while you're in the shower).

If you're looking to reduce your carbon footprint along with your electric bill, minimizing your computer's power consumption can make a difference. We're going to take a look at a few ways to make your PC a bit more energy efficient.

You don't need to leave your PC on all night to download a file, finish a task, or perform an automated backup. You can use the Schedule Tasks feature in Windows Vista or XP to wake your computer from sleep mode if you want to perform a regular task like a backup in the middle of the night.

If the only reason you leave your PC on at night because you need to finish downloading a file, check out the Auto Shutdown add-on for Firefox. It will automatically power your PC down after all files are finished downloading.

If you're not using Firefox but still want to schedule a shutdown, check out Shutdown After and Winoff. Whether you're downloading a BitTorrent file or rendering a video file, you probably know roughly how long it will take to finish that task. Just schedule your PC to shutdown, hibernate, or sleep shortly after the task should be finished.

Upgrade to Windows Vista. Yeah, we know, there are a lot of reasons not to "upgrade." But Windows Vista gives you far more control over your power settings than Windows XP. In fact, you may be able to save up to $75 a year on your electric bill simply by running Vista in "balanced mode," which means your CPU will be throttled down when you're performing less CPU-intensive tasks.

If you've already got Windows Vista, you can use Vista Battery Saver to save even more energy when your PC is unplugged. This tiny application lets you set profiles for when your PC is plugged in and when it's unplugged. But more importantly, it lets you turn off the Aero interface, the Sidebar, and automatically dim the backlight when your PC is unplugged. This makes your battery last a bit longer, which in turn means you spend less time charging your battery and sucking energy from the grid.

CO2Saver is an application that runs in the background of Windows XP and Vista machines and adjusts your power settings automatically. If you haven't used your PC for a while, CO2 Saver will jump in and lower your performance settings.

You can also save some energy simply by turning off your screen saver. Once upon a time screen savers helped protect monitors from damage. Now they just suck electricity. Setting your screen saver to "blank" will cause a blank screen to pop up when you haven't touched your keyboard or mouse for a while.

Of course, if you just can't find a way to cut back on your PC's energy use, there are other ways to help the environment. For example, you could consider buying your electricity from an alternative energy program. Odds are you'll find information on your local power company's website.

What else can you do that saves 1000kg of CO2?
    Drive about 20% fewer miles (around 2200 miles)
    Increasing your MPG by 25%
    Eat 200 fewer cheeseburgers
    Take 1 less 2500 mile round trip airplane flight

These aren’t examples of total lifestyle changes but they aren’t insignificant either. And I would certainly rather use my share of CO2e to take a vacation rather than leaving my computer running 24/7.

Electricity Usage Monitors

One great way to find out how much electricity each of your household appliances and electronic devices uses is with a wireless electricity power/energy monitor, which shows you in real time exactly how much money your total home or office electricity usage is costing you. These monitors can help you reduce your electricity consumption by as much as 20% simply by showing you what you are using. Sailwider-SmartPower is a developer and manufacturer of electricity power monitoring and control system.

Most electricity energy monitors in the market are uni-directional (1-way) only, that means you can only get energy consumption information from the monitor. The bi-directional (2-way) electricity power monitoring and control system from Sailwider-SmartPower makes the user not only able to monitor the electricity usage, but also can easily remote control the connected electrical appliances wirelessly, providing great convenience to electricity efficiency management.