Video Games Suck Up Energy Like Vampires

In the context of our class discussion on how Google is trying to save energy and be creative on how to cool their servers I found the article: Video Games Suck Up Energy Like Vampires very interesting. The article itself is brief but the attached sound byte from NPR is extremely informative.

Video game machines like X-Box can consume as much energy as 2 refrigerators. I thought one comment on the article was extremely well written so I will not attempt to reword or improve upon the author's content. Ramin Honary wrote, "All across the microelectronics industry, companies are trying to find ways to make chips that consume less power without actually slowing down their computing capacity. But the more raw-numbers you are required to crunch, the more electricity you need; there is no way around it. High-quality computer graphics that run in real-time take a tremendous amount of computing power, and it takes even more power to cool the machine to prevent it from burning up. It's a tough engineering problem that will only get tougher as societies computing demands continue increase."

The energy required for future technology will far surpass what we understand as "neccessary" for today's computing and graphics. I think Google is wise to look at alternatives but in truth they are the only company I can recall that are addressing energy concerns in the technology sector. Undoubtedly there are more, but I think the primary focus is on oil and other fossil fuels.

If you have time listen to the NPR sound byte. You will not be disappointed. And while you are at it, turn off all electronic equipment that you are not using! A concerted effort to shut down your lap top or other electronic equipment will save the environment and save you money.