" 'Elect''Green' "

         I knew that the mail we send daily, the pictures we upload in FB, the storage we keep electronically contributes CO2 to atmosphere. So from my college days I used to clear my Spam, Trash, unwanted mails then and there. Even in office I continue the same.

          There was an article in THE HINDU - Science and Technology Column - “E-Mails not all that green”, please read the article.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article2612323.ece

For those of who are busy and cannot read the entire article, read the below:

1. Sending an E-mail attachment of 4.7MB creates as much as greenhouse gas boiling a tea-kettle 17.5 times.
2. Mail of size 1 MB would be the equivalent to the emission of 19 grams of CO2, if it is ‘CC’ ed to 10 people, its impact is 73 grams of CO2.
3. The Storage across the globe is 1.2 Zettabyte.(To get an imagination of the size, This requirement of 1.2 ZB is equal to mass equivalent of 20% of the island of Manhattan, New York City)
4. Its estimated that the size would grow to 35ZB by 2020 ( 1 ZB = 10²¹ )
5. 30 % of the power we input is used to power the chips and 30 % of the power entering MP is converted to heat.
6. 128 BILLION Kilowatt Hour per year is the electricity it takes to keep our internet Server’s running.
7. We don’t switch off the computer when we leave office, we just put it in sleep mode; this also gives ample amount of CO2.

We cannot stop using Internet or stop sending mails, these things have become a part of every corporate human body!

So what we can do?

1. Free up the memory space in the computer. Clean up the e-mail box periodically. Not doing so means greater demand for storage, greater energy consumption.
2. Limit the no of CC’s, Forwards and unwanted mail’s you send.
3. Cut down the size of attachments.
4. Enter the URL Directly, rather than using GOOGLE AND YAHOO. (give some rest to search engines)
5. Don’t Leave your Computer and Accessories ON overnight, not even on sleep mode( it eats up 1-10 watts)
6. Laptops use 15-60 watts, whereas Desktop use 250W. Cut down the power by doing more ‘off-line’ work than ‘on-line’.
7. Finally, FBing and Tweeting burns Carbon and make CO2. So Tweet and FB less and talk to people more ( at least man-to-man relationship will be good)