[Discuss] [Mostly OT:] Visualizing Canada's Carbon

[pw]

Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> 
> With regard to the energy-conservation solution above, probably the most
> cost-effective thing each person can do is to encourage the "use-it-up,
> wear-it-out" mentality in themselves and others.  And that brings us neatly
> back on topic again since Linux runs fine on older boxes that those XP 
> users
> who want to switch to Vista must replace.
> 
> I did buy a new box recently even though Linux was running fine on the old
> box, and I still feel slightly guilty about it.  However, the motivation 
> was
> that the 2001 box we replaced consumed a lot of power (roughly 100 watts
> more than now) and produced an uncomfortable amount of office noise to
> dissipate all that heat. Of course, some would argue a 2001 box is more
> likely to fail than a modern box, but I am not so sure about that.  Anyhow,
> I hope to get at least 10 years out of the box I just bought.  I don't 
> think
> that would be possible without a UPS, but the fact is I do protect our
> computer equipment with UPS's, and the results have been excellent over the
> last 12 years compared to relatively bad PC hardware reliability for the
> astrogroup computers during that same time span where they "saved money" by
> not buying UPS's.
> 
> Alan


Well said.
I have always been of the philosophy 'use-it-up where-it-out'.
People chide us occasionally that we don't get the latest
'fuel efficient car' or this thing or that thing. I listen politely
and remind them that 30% of the carbon produced by a car is produced
in its manufacture,mining and refinement of its raw materials.
This is why buying a 'smart' car is not the answer. The same
with solar panels/cells which take a huge amount of energy to
produce equivalent to ~25 years of that solar panels operational
production of energy.

Your suggestion of UPS is interesting. There are several small wind 
generator projects on instructables.com that should produce enough
energy
to run a couple computers on. I wonder if a UPS or larger battery system
could be charged sufficiently from one of those...

A near zero emissions linux box would be a pretty good hack in my
opinion.

Peter