Websites

I've heard a rumor flying around that 10% of electricity usage is for the internet. Haven't found the research to back that up, but we do rely on computers and the internet for many things. And, fortunately there are many low energy solutions cropping up.

If you have a website, that means there is a computer somewhere using energy to present your site. How do you know if fossil fuels are used? There is a new service called CO2Stats that will determine how much fossil fuels are used by your website, and will even purchase renewable energy to offset those fuels.

In fact the service even goes a step further and figures out how much fossil fuel is used by browsers visiting your website!

It works by adding a badge to every page that cross-reference your server location (and the location of browsers) with a database of energy breakdowns for every region. It then uses averages to estimate the impact of the client and the server. There is a free option which you can see on the left of this web-site. There is also a paid version which gets you a smaller badge and also a page that shows the energy breakdown and renewable energy certificates.

A really innovative idea, patent pending.

Computers

The fit-PC is a new PC that uses only 5-watts of power. In one hour it consumes as much energy as a normal PC does in a day. This PC isn't designed for gaming or heavy processing, but is a good consideration for email or internet usage.

Solar

In addition to the computer itself, Advanced Energy Group has a product called the Solar PowerPAC II. It is a standalone solar system that you can use to power a computer. With a ballpark price range of four or five hundred dollars, this is for the consumer who wants to make a statement. (Or live on a tropical island somewhere...)

PC Power Supply

The power supply for your computer is what converts high voltage AC from a socket to low voltage DC for a computer. Converting electricity tends to waste energy, so most computers throw away energy as heat needlessly in the power supply. In fact, the fan when you hear when you turn a PC on is probably cooling heat being wasted in the power supply.

Look for an Energy Star power supply for you PC. The article linked below suggests using the Corsair HX520W, that's the only brand I've found so far. Planning to do some more research on this when I get a chance. (For example, what about laptop batteries.)

Also, check out the Solar PowerPAC II above.