From Eco Geek: Computer Energy Efficiency Doubles Every 18 Months

Good news on the computer front:  Not only is their weight, capability and versatility improving at a rapid rate, they are also using half the power, saving us all significant money on energy, as new models get introduced.  How is that for a great ROI?

The link to the story: http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3590.

Part of the story: " A new study done by an engineering professor at Stanford University has found that the energy efficiency of computers doubles roughly every 18 months, and has done so since the very first general purpose computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) that was built in 1956.


With help from Intel and Microsoft, Professor Jonathan Koomey was able to gather information about computing devices from 1956 until now and with this new finding, Koomey is revising and improving Moore's law -- the observation that computer processing power doubles every 18 months.  Fortunately, the things that contribute to that power improvement (reducing component size, capacitance and communication time between them) also increase energy efficiency."

So, more good reasons, assuming the old units are properly recycled and reused, to update our computer equipment.  Our kudos to the computer industry for doing more with less.


Now, other industries need to catch up to this level of efficiency.  Bring about lots of happy customers, and a lot of happy environmentalist hoping to reduce their carbon footprint.