[LINK] Carbon and Computers in Australia

[Tom Worthington]

The Australian Computer Society has released "Carbon and Computers in 
Australia: The Energy Consumption and Carbon Footprint of ICT Usage in 
Australia in 2010" by Graeme Philipson, of Connection Research: 
<http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=carbonandcomputers>.

This is a follow up to the first national ICT audit, conducted in 
Australia by Shadi Haddad (Ethan Group) and released by the ACS in 
August 2007: 
<http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=notice&temID=noticedetails&notID=774>.

The new report comes to a similar conclusion to the previous work (and 
subsequent work in other countries), with about 2.7% of national carbon 
emissions due to ICT.

The report makes five recommendations, starting with data centre energy 
efficiency, the report pointing out that this is more than a third of 
Australia’s ICT footprint and cooling consumes more power than the 
actual computer equipment. The second recommendation echoes that which 
accompanied the previous report: reducing printers, scanners, fax 
machines and multi-function devices. The report advocates turning off 
computers, rather than relying on standby power. The last recommendation 
is perhaps the most important: to use ICT to reduce emissions through 
better business processes, transport, electricity distribution and 
building systems

In response to the first report the ACS commissioned me to write a 
course for ICT professionals on carbon emissions: 
<http://acseducation.edu.au/course/view.php?id=238>.
This now also available as the book "Green Technology Strategies": 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/green/ebook.shtml>.

The course commenced in February 2009 and the latest class started last 
week. The students learn how to measure ICT energy use and assess how to 
reduce energy used by and with ICT in their own organisations. Students 
in the past have prepared real reports for their government agencies and 
international corporations as part of the course. This new report from 
the ACS will make a valuable contribution to the discipline.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890