If you have been meaning to replace your regular incandescent light bulbs at home with energy saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) but are using the excuse that they cost more, then this post just nullified your reason. If you are looking for cheap CFLs in California, then go to your nearest 99 Ranch Market. They sell 4 Greenlite CFL bulbs for a dollar. That’s like ….. a quarter a light bulb! They aren’t even the dimmest ones either! They only have one model and its the 23 watt one which is equivalent to 100 watts for an incandescent light bulb. They are sponsored and discounted by PG&E. Maybe asians need a good cheap deal to convince them to buy CFLs? And no, you don’t have to be asian in order to buy it. The 99 Ranch Market that I go to has them located at the checkout stands. So go get your CFLs and change all your light bulbs at home to CFLs! With gas prices so expensive, saving money on electricity is always a good way to save some money. If you want to read more about CFLs, you can do so here.

Network World released a study showing that servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses 12% less power than those running Windows Server 2008. The tests were run using Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, REd Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1, and SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 SP1. They were tested on 1U Server machines from Dell, IBM, and 2 from HP. Windows Server 2008 drew the least power when the maxium power saving settigs were turned on but RHEL was the most consistent. In the testing, the techniques for the Operating System to reduce the server’s energy draw, the CPU ‘throttle-back’ mechanism,  required firmware and driver updates making the test more difficult than normal. The main power draw comes from the CPU’s ability to throttle back the CPU to let the server rest when it is not in use. Reducing the hard disk spinning usage and putting it into a quieter state is another reduction in power use. From looking at the results and benchmarks of the study, it still seems pretty difficult to get servers to be green as it would take quite some tuning, driver and BIOS updates. Most servers play a critical part in operation and being able to perform efficiently while also being energy efficient is quite a challenge. You can read about the full study here.

via Earth2tech and Network World

Different computer monitors use vastly different amounts of electricity.

*Based on PG&E average commercial rate of $0.16528 per kilowatt hour

**Using power-management setting

Source: Climate Savers Computing Initiative; Chronicle research

Above is a chart that shows how much power can be saved by using a power management setting on your LCD monitor. By using the power management setting, you can reduce energy usage by up to 90%.

If you use Windows XP or other forms of Windows, you can modify the screen saver settings like this:

Right click on the background display and click on Properties. You will get a Display Properties box

Here, you can choose to use a blank screen saver or any other screen savers you choose. Keep in mind that a blank screen saver can save the most energy because using a graphics screen saver can use just as much energy as not using a screen saver. If you click on the “Power” button, you can choose more power options such as turning off the monitor, hard disks, system standy and hibernate.

Here are the settings that I have on my home computer. You should definitely have the settings turned on for turning off the monitor and hard disks after a certain amount of time. If you tend to leave your computer on for a long time, it is also a good idea to enable the system standby and hibernate mode.

In the Hibernate tab, you should have the “Enable Hibernation” button checked.

Here is the difference between hibernation vs Standby mode.

Hibernate saves the system information by writing a hibernation file that contains the contents of the memory (RAM) and is basically a snapshot of the active state and then pretty much turns the computer off. When you come out of hibernation, the previous active state is restored to the way it was before the hibernation.

Standby turns off the power consuming components such as the hard disks and monitor and puts the computer in a low power state.

There are pros and cons to both as Hibernate can take longer to come back up but it is almost like turning off your computer. Standby mode still uses some power but your computer comes back up a lot faster.

As for purchasing computers, there are several websites that can help provide resources for finding energy efficient computers such as the nonprofit Climate Savers Computing Initiative and EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool). EPEAT awards bronze, silver, and gold ratings to computers and monitors based on different environmental criterias.

via: SFGate

On June 21st and 22nd, 9am-7pm, in San Francisco Sharon Meadow and Golden Gate Park, there will be a community event with live music, speakers, booths, exhibits and more. There will be a circle of theme “neighborhoods” set up to explore different issues. There will also be tents and tables with booths from nonprofits. There will not be anything for sale, so people wil have to bring your own food and drinks. On sunday, June 22nd, from noon-5pm, there will also be Radio Alice 97.3’s Summerthing concert in Golden Gate Park as well. The Big One event will be near the Children’s Playground and Carousel while Alice’s Summerthing will be at the Speedway Meadow. It is a free concert featuring Lifehouse, Ingrid Michaelson, The Last Goodnight, Marie Digby, and Secondhand Serenade. It is going to be a busy day at the park. Hopefully the weather will be nice so people can enjoy a nice Sunday at the park.

http://beautifulcommunities.org/

San Francisco will be building a grease-to-biodiesel plant scheduled to be finished in December 2008. SF Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the city received $1 million from the California Energy Commission to build the facility at the Oceanside Sewage Treatment Plant. The plant will create three grades of biodiesel from brown grease which is the dirtiest grade level of grease to yellow grease. The “yellow grease” from restaurants is currently being used in a recycling program to power city vehicles. The brown grease is normally discarded at sewage treatment plants but at this plant, it will be converted into ASTM (high grade American Society for Testing and Materials) certified biodiesel. The plant is also planned to be named after President George W. Bush. He is not exactly a supporter of biodiesel since he comes from a family of oil tycoons but I guess it is ok since there is a lot of crap there that we can turn into something useful.

via SFwater.org and Valleywag