At a time when everyone is looking for ways to save money, what could be better than saving money and helping to save the planet at the same time. This is what you can do when you trade in your old model and upgrade it to a model you want which is pre-owned and works and looks perfectly fine.

OK, so you won’t have the self gratifying pleasure of pulling a virginal iPod out of the factory sealed sleave for the very first time, but hey, you’ll have a staggering effect on the global e-waste crisis, if you and a few million other Americans thought the same way.

And after a few days of owning it, you’d have forgotten you bought it pre-owned in the first place!
Upgrading to stay ahead is paramount for tech enthusiasts, many of whom are now upgrading their first generation iPhone after just 6-8 months of use.

You’d be surprised what you can find pre-owned. Many people may use a cellphone for a month, or even less and want to get something else, or perhaps a newer model has just come out. Maybe they were given a free upgrade by their phone company and are quite happy with the one they’ve got.

Virtually anything that has been on the market for a few weeks is available pre-owned in a like new condition.

So why does buy it pre-owned reduce e-waste and your carbon footprint? Buying it pre-owned means that you are reducing the demand for that product by one unit.

And if you go ahead and trade it in or sell it to someone else down the line, you are reducing the demand for a new one to be sold to someone else by another unit again (because he’s buying a pre-owned one off you instead of a new one from Best Buy).

When you trade it in and purchase another pre-owned, again, you are reducing the demand for another product too – and so the cycle continues. Now imagine a few million consumers having the same idea?

Each MP3 player, for example, takes roughly 300 lbs of CO2 to produce. Then there’s the small matter of transportation by road and shipping to the store (from China usually) and ultimately to you. Millions of products – millions of upgrades, millions of tons of e-waste every year, the cycle is endless.

When you buy pre-owned instead of new it means that at the end of the product’s life, there will 3 to 4 times less of that product ending up as e-waste, because as you have reduced the demand, less is being produced as a consequence, especially when you are one of thousands of consumers wanting to save money when they upgrade, and reduce their carbon footprint in the process.

But it’s not just millions of tons of less e-waste every year. China’s demand for oil projected over the next decade has created the speculative price surges we see today. What most people don’t know is that this isn’t totally the blame of Chinese People lining outside the Cadillac showroom in Beijing.

Manufacturing is the biggest single consumer of oil in China, and the biggest (and fastest growing) sector of manufacturing is, yes you guessed it, consumer electronics.

Steve Jobs would love you to upgrade every time he brings out a new iPod or iPhone. Well, providing you trade in your old model (and keep it nice for the next person) and then buy a pre-owned upgrade that someone else may have had for a few weeks or months, then you’ll be doing exactly what he wants and saving money and the planet in the process. Not sure he’d be as happy as I’m suggesting though.

Trading portals like trade 2 save will enable consumers to buy, sell and trade their used electronics, computers, games and movies - with more confidence and for better value so they can upgrade readily while still saving money and reducing ewaste.

The most worrying aspect about the current energy crisis is that there appears to be no short term solutions in terms of demand. Energy Consultant Dominic Whittome of Mainline Energy advocates the increased use of nuclear power as the most effective medium term sollution, however any new stations are unlikely to come online in any significant numbers for another 8-10 years, leaving America in a potential 1930’s style depression and the rest of the World in a food crisis for the short term.

Ironically a 1930’s style depression would significantly reduce demand for energy and bring down oil prices to about $30-40 a barrel, but a depression is hardly the solution we should be seeking.

What I have done here is try to put together 10 realistic measures that Americans can do as individuals, that if done in mass, would greatly reduce world oil prices and increase living standards in the short term whilst we wait for nuclear power stations if the political will allows it and more renewable energies in the long term.

1. Stop using the Shopping Mall. What? are you crazy I hear you say. Well OK, I know it’s quite a social thing for some people, but realistically, driving to and from the shopping Mall equates to about 15% of petroleum needs for this country.
2. Buy Groceries off of the Internet. Think about it - a single Safeway van can deliver the groceries of 100 customers in one journey. Now turn that single van into 100 cars - do the Maths!
3. Buy Everything else off of the Internet and use land based postage. There is a certain amount of retail therapy that my wife, for one, will miss - so what’s a girl to do? To be honest, searching for that little black dress online can be equally as satisfying. Retailers like Victoria Secrets has an incredible online experience, and some retailers are even toying with the idea of online personal shoppers and utilizing the very latest in technology which will allow customers to download a body picture of themselves and place the clothes onto the model in a 3 dimensional landscape. The point is that a USPS or FED EX van (however polluting they are - and many run on natural gas now) - use up a tiny fraction of the millions of cars which go back and forth from the Malls every day! Also, freight trains move a ton of freight up to 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Most retailers also offer land based postage for free and guarantee delivery within 3-5 days.
4. Buy pre-owned or refurbished if you can. Our deteriorating buying habits of consumer electronics, gadgets, games, (anything manufactured in China or the Far East) has lead to a significant rise in e-waste as well as increasing energy demands. When you buy, sell or trade used or pre-owned consumer electronics, cellphones, or PC Hardware, you reduce the amount needed to be manufactured.
5. Reduce demand of imported products. Every time you upgrade your cellphone, iPod or computer for a new one, another one has to be made to fill that demand (by you). Making the product requires more energy than you’d think - a typical computer requires the equivalent of 4 gallons of petrol. This doesn’t include the energy needed to ship it to the US or the pollution created by the e-waste at the end of its (every shorter) lifecycle.
6. Increase product lifecycles of consumer products. A decade ago you’d have a camera for 7-10 years before replacing it - we usually replaced it when it broke. Now we don’t think twice about upgrading from the 8MP model to the 10MP model after a year or so. That’s 5 times more cameras being made to satisfy the MUST HAVE revolution in the industry. We can still have the latest iPODS, laptops, camcorders, cellphones etc, but don’t always buy them new.
7. Save money by buying pre-owned. The consumer electronics industry or Steve Jobs will certainly want to stop you from buying pre-owned - the industry as a whole has been making historic revenues as a direct result of shortening product lifecycles. They’ll lose money for sure, but don’t worry about the lowering of the demand having a negative effect on the economy.
8. Spend the money you save on local produce. Imported consumer electronics, computers and gadgets make up about 15-20% of your total outgoings after tax. (Staggering isn’t it - websites like Mint.com can show you in detail just how much money you’re putting away on these things). Buying pre-owned (and sometimes new when you had to) would reduce this figure to 3-5%, whilst still owning exactly the same kit in perfect working order. You’d only notice the difference in the first week. If most Americans did this we’d reduce the amount of tankers heading to the US by about 65%. That’s about 100% of the total energy demand of the global airline industry! The money you save, use on local produce which doesn’t require shipping across the globe. This will reduce demand for imports even further because you’ll be buying more stuff locally that you would have otherwise bought from abroad. In turn this would have a positive effect on our trade deficit too.
9. Only recycle with local recyclers who guaranty local disposal. It’s a sad fact that the Ned Flanders in us skip-a-rooneys along to deposit our recycling in the hapless belief that we’re doing the right thing. Some ‘Green’ recycling firms even charge significant recycling fees for your monitors, computers etc. What you may not realize is that it’s pure black gold to them. They pass it on for a further fee to a recycling exporter who then dumps it on a gas guzzling tanker to be shipped back to China destined to saturate the drinking water of local peasant populations with benzine and bromide.
10. Buy a Prius. OK, this last point is perhaps predictable, and living in San Francisco I am getting quite used to the sight of these things. These cars are much better than what the efficiency figures would suggest. Much of the petrol we use is spent sitting in traffic or behind a red light. A hybrid simply stops using energy when it stops moving. So the real efficiency should be judged by how many ‘real’ miles are traveled on a full tank of petrol. In reality you could easily double the efficiency of a Prius on top of what they are allowed to advertise. If you switch to a Prius expect to reduce your petrol consumption by 60% at the very least! I stick by the Prius because the other hybrids are so far behind in comparison. The Prius is streets ahead of the rest in terms of consumption. VW Golf are releasing a hybrid diesel at the end of 2009 which has better figures, however, with diesel currently at $4.75 in the Bay Area - I think it’s a non-starter.

So there it is - 10 ways that we could reverse the energy crisis NOW. Following these simple steps would have a dramatic and immediate effect. You’ll have more money in your pocket by following these rules, and you’ll be spending much more money on local goods as a result, which will stimulate the American economy instead of further stimulating the Chinese economy and our trade deficit with it.

A national study commissioned by the Consumer Electronics Association shows that using electronics to telecommute saves the equivalent of 9 to 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year — the same amount of energy used by roughly 1 million U.S. households every year.

The study, “The Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact of Telecommuting and e-Commerce,” was commissioned by CEA to determine energy savings and CO2 reductions that result from the nation’s increased use of electronics, such as personal computers and wireless networks.

“This report demonstrates that consumer electronics are part of a climate change solution, as the use of electronics is preventing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing fossil fuel consumption,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA.

The CEA study, conducted by TIAX LLC of Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that just one day of telecommuting saves the equivalent of up to 12 hours of an average household’s electricity use.

Telecommuting also saves 1.4 gallons of gasoline and reduces CO2 emissions by 17 to 23 kilograms per day, showing the power of one individual to impact their environment in a single day by using electronics, said Shapiro.

If that same worker, with a one-way commute of 22 miles, telecommuted five days a week, she would save about 320 gallons of gasoline and reduce CO2 emissions by 4.5 to 6 tons per year, according to TIAX researchers.

He or she would also save an amount of energy equivalent to roughly 4,000 to 6,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, which is comparable to the electricity consumed by an average household in 4 to 6 months.

Data centers are becoming a bigger and bigger draw on energy resources. According to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency last year, they accounted for only 1.5 percent of the energy consumed in the U.S. But an interesting story by James Niccolai of IDG suggests that figure is growing fast.

Niccolai attended a sort of utility summit to address the question of the growing appetite for power among data centers. PG&E, which hosted the meeting, said demand for power from data centers in its region has grown to between 400 and 500 megawatts at a given moment today, up from between 50 and 75 megawatts only a year and a half ago. A PG&E official noted,

“We had tremendous growth in data center capacity in the dot-com boom that never got filled. I can tell you that that capacity is now full to the gills, and they are asking us for more power.”

Utilities could build more plants to generate more power, but they, somewhat shrewdly, see that it’s cheaper to get the data centers to run more efficiently. And apparently they are traditionally very inefficient. Solutions run from the high-tech (virtualization software) to common sense (using natural air to cool data centers.)

Joe Skorupa, a Gartner analyst at the event, said other power-saving ideas can be employed by end users themselves. He suggested getting rid of Gigabit Ethernet to the desktop, which sucks more power than lower-capacity Ethernet, and often isn’t really needed by users. And ditching sophisticated “Eight-line color display VoIP phones” is another good way to cut power consumption, Skorupa pointed out. The lesson: if you don’t really need it, it’s costing you money in energy use.

The first time nuclear powered tankers were proposed was back in 1961, when the Atomic Energy Commission and The Maritime Administration awarded a contract to General Electric. The plan was to install boiling water reactors in conventional T-5 tankers.

The plan was eventually shelved because they were considered uncompetitive against conventional ships running on oil, which back then was just $15.30 a barrel adjusted for inflation.

Times have certainly changed, and with oil prices currently on the wrong side of $100 a barrel, and the world’s tanker fleet consuming more fuel (and expelling more CO2) than the global aviation industry put together, plans are underway to seek out ways to reduce rising costs and environmental concerns.

Shipping is highly sensitive to even modest rises in oil prices, and recent increases have had a significant impact on inflation as the cost of imports has increased sharply throughout America.

Recent developments to cut costs have included tankers powered by a computer-guided kite. The technology steals the principal from the popular water sport ‘kite surfing’. The 132 meter long kite could cut daily fuel costs by up to 20% or $1,600 a day, assuming there’s no head wind of course.

The cost advantage of a nuclear powered fleet is receiving growing attention, forwarded by proponents such as Adams Atomic Energies and the BNFL group.

They advocate several reasons why future merchant ships should consider going nuclear.

• Lower cost fuel. At current prices, reactor fuel costs 85 percent less than bunker fuel.
• Zero emissions. In crowded port cities, air pollution laws are becoming more stringent and costly.
• Concentrated fuel. Nuclear reactors can be built with fuel supplies lasting for many years.
• High power to weight ratio. Merchant ship owners are increasingly interested in rapid transits over long distances.
• The US Navy’s nuclear powered fleet of aircraft carriers are testament to their superior power and capabilities.

Nuclear Tankers aren’t something environmental pressure groups would relish, but with the cost of imports only set to increase further, and presidential candidates notably keeping an open mind on nuclear (Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator is a big donor of Obama), atomic tankers on the horizon can only be a matter of time.

A few days ago I wrote on the fact that internet usage was creating more emissions than aviation. Thankfully those bright people at Oxford University have come up with ways to address the balance.

Oxford are pioneering an energy saving research project to develop software that is free and easy to download, which will make networked computers more energy-efficient and reduce carbon emissions by saving on electricity needs. The project, underway at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI), will start with an 18-month pilot project on the Oxford campus, and eventually spread to include educational institutions across the U.K.

The research team on the project will monitor not only energy use, but also cost savings from increase computer downtime. Researchers estimate that most computers are in use less than 25 percent of the time — roughly 40 hours during a 168-hour week. 



“No-one sits at their computer for 168 hours a week,” explained Daniel Curtis of Oxford’s ECI. “When a computer is switched on, its power demand remains pretty much constant — regardless of whether its user is surfing the net, word-processing or at home in bed. We are developing a system that will mean that computers only need to be switched on when actually in use.” He went on to add that although this seems like an obvious solution, creating a fix that is easy but doesn’t inconvenience the computer’s users or the IT department at an organization is much trickier.

Curtis estimates that the program can reduce energy consumption by 50 percent in the school’s computers, save nearly half a million dollars and reduce as much as 1,500 tons of carbon emissions each year.

A new tanker has been outfitted with a $725,000 computer-guided kite as an innovative auxiliary propulsion system which will offset fuel costs and allow the vessel to run more efficiently.

The 132 meter long MV “Beluga SkySails” is a joint venture between two companies; Beluga Group and Skysails. The technology steels the principal from kite surfing, now a hugely successful water sport. The 160-square meter kite is expected to reduce fuel costs by up to 20 percent ($1,600 per day) and significantly cut the ship’s carbon dioxide emissions as well.

Global shipping accounts for double the emissions of Aviation Read the rest of this entry »

Global Information and Communications Technology (ICT) usage accounts for approximately 2% of all global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a figure which now eclipses all CO2 emissions caused by aviation.

Read the rest of this entry »

The world’s computing power should be moved from desktop computers and company servers to remote outposts where renewable energy such as wind and solar power is abundant, according to a Cambridge University computer expert.

With carbon emissions from computing set to rise rapidly in the coming decades, he said his idea could significantly reduce the contribution made by computers to climate change. “There’s something very special about computing power which is very different from heating your house,” said Prof Andy Hopper. “Computing power can be moved around the world and can be done anywhere in the world where the energy is available.”

According to UK government figures, business computing is responsible for 2.8m tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. The UK’s total emissions are just over 554.5m tonnes. Office equipment (of which computers make up about a third) is responsible for 15% of the emissions from a typical office.

Moving energy via the national grid entails significant losses. Hopper’s scheme would work by shifting computer operations to servers close to wind farms that are working at full tilt. On a global scale a network of energy producers could be called upon depending on where energy was most abundant at any time.

“I think it is very interesting to contemplate a world with a smallish number of server farms, huge ones, which are deployed in places where the energy is produced,” he told a conference at the Royal Society in London yesterday. “The whole point is that we are using energy that would otherwise be lost. It is more efficient, more appropriate, cheaper to use it in situ.”

Greenpeace questioned the real green motivations by computer hardware manufacturers at the Cebit exhibition last week. Cebit’s commitments to Green IT were in fact disappointingly underwhelming.

The question is whether “Green IT” is really being taken that seriously beyond the PR activity and the glossy brochure work lovingly reproduced on recycled touchy-feely Hemp paper.

There were no toxics-free hardware demonstrations, no solutions to the problems with e-waste, or recycling - just an un-manned booth lost behind the “tree of commitment“ – ironically very under watered and wilting - all the servers in the house were clearly heating up its atmosphere; a global microcosm if ever I saw one.

Toxic chemicals, e-waste and the low recycling rate aren’t a big issue there. Many “Green IT” companies are exhibiting software and hardware technologies to reduce energy consumption in data centers. There, the search for less energy consumption is of course not mainly motivated by ecological reasons, but by financial reasons. The computer manufacturer Fujitsu Siemens also announced a zero watt screen which zero-consuming stand-by mode. Thus, energy (bottom line) efficiency is all the rave. e-waste and ever shorter product life-cycles thanks to over production - not such a hot topic.

There was no one at Cebit advocating that consumers buy and sell pre-owned and used consumer electronics as a way of reducing e-waste. This is not surprising, as any significant uptake on such a proposal would directly impact the profits of the consumer electronics industry.

Greenpeace did find some little innovative and eco-friendly things in the award-winner exhibition of International Forum Design at Cebit. One of the product design awards was awarded for a product called USB-Cell – batteries which have an integrated USB port and can be charged without a special charger, so you’ll never be without power.

Cebit did a good job in giving the impression that “Green IT” is the big thing but the tree of commitment’s condition said it all.