Commercial buildings are responsible for about 20 percent of the United States's greenhouse gas emissions; encouraging landlords and tenants to cut power is a great way to fight global warming. Problem is, many states have regulations which allow only one meter per building, and charges are generally divvied up by square footage. So even if Tenant A takes measures to cut electricity consumption (installing CFLs for example) but happens to have the biggest suite in the building, it'll get stuck with the biggest utility bill. And though Tenant B might lease offices half the size of Tenant A's, they will pay far less even if they are an energy hog and use more power than its green neighbor. It's a classic tragedy of the commons.
But last week California regulators moved to remedy that conundrum by allowing utility PG&E and building owners to install meters for each tenant. The idea is that "submetering" will provide an incentive for tenants to conserve energy by making them pay only for the electricity they actually use. Presumably, the other two big California utilities, Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE), will be able to implement submetering as well.
PG&E and the Building Owners and Managers Association - which manages 600 million square feet of office space - have already agreed to implement submetering; estimates are that this agreement alone will eliminate the construction of a 320-megawatt gas-fired power plant. Conservation begins with the wallet; thanks for adjusting the rulebook. :: Green Wombat
Steve Jobs has posted a response to the muffled whalesong that Apple doesn't have a green agenda. Frankly, I shrieked a little about it myself (it's showtime), but I'm glad Steve responded. And he responded as only Steve Jobs could.
Slowly, lovingly, Mr. Jobs dissects the frantic accusations being thrown at Apple's green computing program for months now into their constituent parts. His retort is measured, beautiful; you get the sense of a Zen master talking to a petulant schoolboy. And lo, after the lesson, you find that there is really nothing there. Like the fact that Apple stopped making CRT's in mid-2006, and eliminated all the associated lead problems that go with them. Or that Apple was RoHS compliant before the law went into effect. Or, by 2010, that Apple plans on recycling 28 percent of their eWaste by weight (almost three times more than current rates by other vendors), and they never ship it out of the US. Steve names names, but he doesn't do it often; he doesn't need to. And neither do I.
The beauty of Steve's writing (can I call you Steve?) is that you always get a chance to unite with whatever he's saying, and then go together into the void. You can see it with every author; Thomas Claburn from Information Week, Ken Barbalace from Environmental Chemistry, Zdnet, our avid Scuttlemonkey. Thank you Steve, for bringing up those results in my lackluster googling for this story; as you know, I used to work with one of those guys. Bless you. And fake Steve Jobs, eat your heart out; even though you are hilarious, you just don't exist.
Engadget pushed for change with Dell's Plant a Me for Me Campaign. I've wrote about carbon offsets myself, and I do agree that they draw on your heartstrings to give money to businesses to fix their environmental problems.
Do they help? In one way, it helps - when you drag a tarp across a landfill in South Africa, capture the methane and then set it ablaze, yeah, it doesn't go into the atmosphere. I guess that not my idea of offsetting carbon. Nor am I crazy about funding these for-profit business to fix the environmental problems that they created.
Matt James over at ecoGeek has a nice interview with Sean Donahue, spokeman for Dell, on their environmental program. There is some same old, same old here - Dell's Plant a Tree for Me program has been covered extensively - and there a quite a few 'forward looking statements' such as plans to integrate with EnergyStar 4 and moving towards 80 Plus power supplies. Ok, we're all doing that.
But there also some fresh ideas. Dell is starting to offer GNU/Linux on factory installs, which will help reduce obsolescence, and there are also some specific recommendations for the most efficient systems that Dell has to offer. These come mainly from the Optiplex and PowerEdge lines. Also, virtualization, a big resource saver, also figures in prominently to their program. Matt remained undecided on their program at the end and fell back to the 'if you don't need it, don't buy it' argument. Barring something truly groundbreaking from a hardware vendor such as, say, six year warranties on all new machines, we will probably be in a holding pattern for some time to come. It's bar raising time.
Since everyone else covered this story (Hank at ecoGeek, zdnet, the hugger) I might as well too, even though I don't have a lot to add.
Dell has a Via-like plant a tree campaign, where you give them up to six dollars when you buy a machine, and they will give it to either the CarbonFund or the Conservation fund. It supposdedly covers carbon emissions from the 'puter over a three year life span. Just like Via. It doesn't cover the carbon emissions from building the thing.
What to make of it; well, it overshadowed Cisco's announcement this week about going green, and IBM's has had a green campaign for a long time. With the desktop going away, Dell's in a tough spot, as J.P. Morgan noted when they downgraded their stock last week. I personally would like to see six year maintenance contracts.
It passes the straight face test. But If you want to bypass Dell, just send the six dollars to me. I'll forward it along.
