A lot of attention has been paid to the carbon footprint of automobiles, airplanes, and buildings, but one of the activities that takes up most of our time has gotten little attention: computers.  In a recent article in the Economist, they covered a report published by the Climate Group on the climate impacts of computers. Surprisingly, computers have a cumulative impact similar to that of air travel, producing approximately 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution or about 2% of total over carbon emissions. The Climate Group estimates that by 2020, approximately 6% of CO2 emissions will come from computers and 1 out of 3 global citizens are expected to have a computer.

On the bright side, computers can offer a number carbon cutting tools like smart meters.  Savings… [view entry]

In a formal announcement scheduled for today, Holyoke MA will be named the location for  a proposed green data center, a project affiliated with UMass Amherst, MIT, BU, EMC Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.  According to a recent Mass High Tech article (MHT), the center is still in the initial phases of design and, if successful, will ultimately be a “world-class green research high-performance computing center,” helping to shape the research agenda in Massachusetts.

While it is not clear how “green” such a project would be, the center’s energy claims to be cost effective due to utilizing clean power sources (MHT).   The center would also be a resource for various universities involved in biotechnology and climate modeling and would marry private sector R&D with academia, a relatively unfamiliar pairing.  … [view entry]