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December 2008
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New Year's Resolution: Enabling Green Access Via New Rapid Transit Systems in 2009
December 30, 2008For businesses, institutions, and contact centers looking for truly greener fields to cut down on their environmental footprints there will be several new opportunities to do just that, by locating their offices near the stations of new rapid transit lines scheduled to open in 2009.
--Arriving first is the Phoenix metro area's Valley Metro light rail line. It will begin regular service on a 20 mile line route connecting Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa on Jan.1; it had pre-opened to crush crowds last weekend
--Portland, Oregon's Tri-Met will introduce service on WES, a diesel railcar-operated suburb-to-suburb line from Wilsonville to Beaverton, 15 miles, where it will connect with the MAX light rail for downtown Portland, airport, and other communities. WES will open Feb.2 and will run initially in rush hours only
--On March 30, Austin, Texas will see service begin on its first rail line, the Capital MetroRail from the city's downtown to Leander, some 32 miles to the northwest. Like WES it will be operated by diesel railcars in peak periods only
--Later in 2009, the Seattle area will, after 40 some years of political warfare, witness rapid transit trains rolling once again, on a route between SeaTac Airport and the city's downtown in the form of Sound Transit's LINK LRT. Also at about the same time, and to the north, Metro Vancouver, BC's Canada Line from the city center to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport will take its first trains. The Seattle region has commuter rail and short streetcar lines in Seattle and Tacoma.
Oregon, Washington State "E-Cycling" Begins Jan.1
December 29, 2008Beginning Jan.1, 2009 consumers, small businesses, and other similar-sized government entities in Oregon and Washington State will be able to recycle 'e-cycle' much of their e-waste such as computers, monitors, and TVs though not others such as cellphones, mice, and printers. The TV e-cycling is well-timed with the analog-to-digital TV switch in February, 2009.
There are now 17 states with similar programs; the National Center for Electronics Recycling tracks such laws. It estimates that just under 50 percent of the US population is now covered by such measures.
They should be making a dent in the mountains of electronic garbage created in the U.S; in 2007, Americans generated about 232 million units of computer and TV-related E-waste, of which only 18 percent was recycled.
Washington State estimates that it will collect and process over 20 million pounds of electronic waste in the first year of operations; the state has about 6.4 million residents. It has set up network will include over 200 individual collection sites, in every county in the state and in every city or town with a population greater than 10,000.
Yet unlike in other states that have set up similar programs, such as California, where consumers must pay to dispose, Oregon's and Washington State's are paid for by manufacturers and free to consumers.
Comparing (green) apples-to-apples
December 19, 2008It would be very helpful for technology buyers interested in buying green and in doing so saving money if there could be a series of objectively researched-and-well publicized energy/environmental footprint data and costs for these solutions. If such documentation exists please forward that to me.
Yes, it is true, that the suppliers are providing case histories showing such data. A case in point is Netezza, which makes data warehousing appliances. The firm demonstrated that its product at 3 terabytes (TB) enabled a customer, the UK's Orange, to cut power demand by 2/3rds, from 25kW/hour to 7kW/hour and sliced cooling requirements by 72 percent compared with and from the incumbent Informix/Sun/EMC 1.5 TB configuration.
Green Means Green
December 16, 2008
Companies are finally getting it that corporate green projects--once seen by many environmentalist skeptics as PR 'greenwash' to be rinsed off at the earliest so-called 'bottom line' excuse--are worth while even during tough economic times.
The reason is simple: taking steps like reducing energy consumption cuts costs.
Forrester's largest-ever survey of corporate green IT activities and interest has found that even in the face of the recession twice as many companies are accelerating their green IT initiatives compared to firms that are scaling back green projects. Of the companies surveyed in the report 'Market Overview: A Slowing Economy Won't Slow Down Corporate Green IT Initiatives' nearly half say they will accelerate or maintain their green IT projects. The main reason: saving money. 67-percent of respondents said reducing energy-related operating expenses was a motivation for pursuing a green IT agenda, up from 55-percent one year ago.
Forrester is also seeing a steady increase in buyers' awareness of tech vendors' efforts to promote their products as environmentally friendly.
