Wiki defines parasitic loss as often applied to devices that take energy from the engine in order to enhance the engine's ability to create more energy.
When thinking about parasitic losses (in terms of energy), I tend to reflect on three things;
1) Could this loss provide some sort of benefit to the system?
2) Is the loss just a complete waste of energy or perhaps a luxury?
3) Could there be a way to convert a wasteful loss into a beneficial loss?
An oil pump on an engine is considered to be very necessary, but it takes horsepower away from the engine! However, it’s benefit is far greater than the loss of power, as it provides lubrication for the engine, and that in turn provides more horsepower. So while there is a cost to run the oil pump, it in turn provides an efficient benefit that would otherwise be lost as heat!
Most of us consider brakes very necessary (at least I hope we think of brakes as necessary) to the car, but they were designed to slow the car with no thought to the energy lost when we stop. Very wasteful indeed! Brakes use friction to stop the car, and all that energy that was spent to put the car in motion now is lost as heat. Not only that, but you have to pay to get moving again!
But what if we could turn a parasitic loss into something useful? Or reusable? Hybrid cars now turn that heat from braking into a way to charge the car’s batteries. Rather than waste the energy that was once lost as heat, we can put that energy back where we need it! Nothing is 100% efficient of course, but if there’s anyplace to recapture heat and put it back as energy that’s something that can provide some nice efficiencies!
Do you leave your car running when you come home? I would certainly hope not… So why do many of us simply walk away from our computers and leave them on? They burn power all night, and in the summer, they produce heat that the air conditioners have to continuously cool. If we could recapture this loss, we could reduce an unnecessary waste into something profitable!
Convenience is big key to enabling power savings, and an important aspect to turn parasitic loss into a profit. Of course it just easier to get up and walk away from the computer, but if we could automate control and turn unnecessary energy use into savings, the dollars can really add up!
So where are the parasitic energy losses in your environment? I’ve outlined a few that come to mind:
- Servers that are on but not being utilized or even used
- Computers that are on when the end user isn’t using them
- Network devices that are on with no traffic
- VoIP phones that are on 100% of the time
- Printers when not in use
- Lighting systems on with no one home
- AC and Heating systems over cooling or over heating.
What other areas do you see that could be parasitic draws?
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If you’ve picked up a newspaper, visited a news website, read your friend feed on Facebook, or taken a look at trending topics on Twitter, you’ve probably seen the buzz about Earth Hour. In the strictest sense, Earth Hour is the hour between 8:30pm and 9:30pm (local time) on March 26, 2011 during which hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of thousands of businesses, and more than 125 countries around the world pledge to turn off their lights to take a symbolic stand against climate change.
At JouleX, Inc., we are encouraged, inspired, and challenged by the principles behind Earth Hour. This year’s new Earth Hour initiative, Beyond the Hour, is the epitome of the JouleX message for the corporate world. Conservation of energy resources is not something that can be accomplished one hour a year.
It’s easy for a company to sign on for Earth Hour and vow to turn their lights off for an hour when that hour is on a Saturday, when most corporate offices are closed and those lights weren’t going to be on anyway. After all, it’s a great way to generate some free positive press and public opinion with no effort and no real change to the impact on the environment.
When the lights come back on at 9:31pm on March 26, most of the world will be going back to business as usual and Earth Hour will have simply been 60 minutes with the lights off. However, for these corporations, it will have been 60 more tiny drops in the bucket compared to the initiatives they have already taken to improve the Earth’s environment and the lives of everyone on it.
INTEL has taken a multi-pronged approach to their environmental initiatives. By designing energy efficient products, cutting energy (carbon emissions) and water usage during production, and creating a corporate culture that promotes companywide innovation to their sustainability efforts, Intel has jumped to the forefront of companies working to change our environment.
HSBC was the first of the FTSE 100 to become Carbon Neutral, in 2005. Through programs such as the HSBC Climate Partnership, whose goal is “to reduce the impact of climate change on people, forests, freshwater and cities, and accelerate the adoption of low-carbon policies” and the HSBD Eco-School Climate Initiative, which aims to “inspire action on climate change by improving schools’ environmental efficiency”, HSBC stands out as a company that is working both locally and globally to improve the world.
COCA COLA has created the Live Positively initiative, which “focuses on seven core areas key to our business sustainability with measurable goals and metrics for the Company and the Coca-Cola system”. Through more eco-friendly packaging, transportation, refrigeration, and water stewardship, Coca Cola is working diligently toward their stated goal of being the “beverage industry leader in energy efficiency and climate protection.”
GOOGLE made the decision to become Carbon Neutral in 2007. Since then, they have taken a “three-step approach” to reducing their environmental footprint. Through efficient data centers, using renewable sources of energy as often as possible, creating green workplaces for employees, and purchasing high quality carbon offsets, Google has remained true to the core values of its founders.
CISCO has systematically implemented more environmentally beneficial work practices, built more energy efficient data centers, and developed more overall environmentally friendly products. CISCO is also the driving force behind One Million Acts of Green, a growing worldwide effort to help the planet, one act at a time.
We encourage you to participate in Earth Hour 2011 and consider committing actions that extend beyond the sixty minutes.
Please let us know any other activities you’re planning for Earth Hour 2011.
Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!
It’s “game on” for greentech venture funding. The early part of this year is proving to be a watershed for greentech companies looking for VC investors. According to a recent article by GreenTech Media, approximately $1.7 billion has been raised in just the first two months of 2011, and a sizeable chunk of that funding is going to VC investments in energy efficiency along with smart grid, smart building, solar and lighting as well.
Raising venture capital for more than 20 years, JouleX’s CEO Tom Noonan has seen the number of greentech investors grow exponentially from only a handful in the early 2000s. In a recent interview at DataCenter Dynamics Atlanta, Tom goes on to say that funding today is available from a variety of sources for companies with good ideas and experienced management teams, that are capital efficient with attractive customer ROI models, and can demonstrate the ability to grow and generate a profit. The advent of strategic investors such as GE, Intel and Cisco—all with vested interests in energy management and efficiencies as they look to incorporate these capabilities into their mainstream products—only reinforces the interest and demand for this cross section of greentech.
Drill down even further, and you’ll find energy management technologies aimed at power-hungry data centers getting lots of attention as well.
What types of green technologies are you most excited about for your company?
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(or 19.8 million Veggie Burgers for our vegetarian followers)
A report by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas suggests the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament will result in 14 million hours of online viewership. Chief Operating Officers everywhere shouldn't be surprised to learn that 8.4 million of those hours will be used during normal business hours. Since it is hard to put these kind of statistics into an easily understood format for the general public, we took on the task of crunching the numbers for you.
14 Million Hours of Online Viewship =
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$560,000 US
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Energy costs powering online viewing of the tournament
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2.8 Mega watts
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Amount of energy used for online viewing
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1,932.5
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Metric tons of carbon emissions produced
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Here’s what else you could power with that much energy:
- 235 homes for an entire year
- 1,592 computers and monitors for an entire year
- 4 million servers for an hour
- 456 servers for an entire year
Here are the equivalents to emitting that much carbon:
- 378 passenger vehicles on the road for an entire year
- 4,493 burning barrels of oil
- 80,234 propane canisters - Which translates to grilling 9.6 million steaks (or 19.8 million veggie burgers)!!
Please don’t misunderstand. We love the tourney as much as anyone. Sure our brackets look as bad as anyone’s after the first round, but that doesn’t mean we wrote this as sour grapes. However, tournament committee, we’d really appreciate Georgia Tech getting a bid next year.
How many of you plan to watch March Madness online this year?
Calculations based on 14 million hours of viewing on a computer and monitor that draws 200 watts, at an average of $.20/kwh.
Energy information sourced from the United States Environmental Protection Agency Thank you for taking the time to visit the JouleX IT Blog. We hope you'll join us on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed! We look forward to joining you in the Green IT conversation!