Bladewatch.com

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/zerofootprint_b.php

Let’s think for a moment about something we never notice – our screen savers. Around the world, right now, complex geometric shapes and patterns are bouncing around screens in empty offices and quiet suburban basements. Even when you’re gone for lunch, your screen saver labors on….

Does this sound like an exaggeration? Let’s put it this way. It takes about 100 watts an hour to run a screen saver on a graphics card. (Obviously, that’s the same as keeping a 100W light bulb turned on.) Some systems will use a bit less, some a bit more. But let’s say 100 watts.

Now, there are over 600 million computers in the world, many of which never get turned off. For the sake of argument, let’s say their screen savers are running around the clock.

That’s 60,000 Megawatts an hour. Just to keep shapes bouncing around a screen.

Just to put that in perspective, the largest wind turbines out there are rated at 10 MW.

A large coal-fired plant generates about 300 MW.

Even China’s Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, which is so huge that filling its reservoir actually made the Earth wobble on its axis, is rated at 30,000 MW…

An excellent article about something I confess to not considering.

A very small change that could be applied in the corporate world, allowing companies to save on energy costs, reduce their carbon footprint, good for the environment, good for business costs.

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