Trading in Green IT

Green IT techniques can significantly reduce an organization's and ultimately a country's carbon footprint. A survey has indicated that PCs operate on as little as 110 W for thin clients to as much as 450 W for heavy-duty machines. Typical 1-U or 2-U servers with two or four CPUs will operate at between 250 and 450 W depending on configuration and load. Reducing the energy consumption of a 10,000-machine deployment of 150-W systems in California would save a lot of money due to high energy costs, but the carbon emissions impact would be equivalent to removing only 10 automobiles annually from the road. Besides the savings from reduced energy use, moderate deployments of 1,000 machines or more would reduce carbon emissions by hundreds of tons. Businesses that reduce IT power usage could reap secondary benefits from trading credits with a cap-and-trade system in place. With proper monitoring and tracking technology, businesses could generate thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sales of carbon credits on the open market.