Tag: saving

Saving Energy in Online Activities

  • Servers at Expedient data center in Garfield Heights, near Cleveland, Ohio (Photo by Julie Grant)

One industry that’s not suffering in the economic downturn is information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But that worries some people. Our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a lot of energy. Julie Grant reports on how some companies are making their IT more environmentally friendly – and saving money in the process:

Transcript

One industry that’s not suffering in the economic downturn is information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But that worries some people. Our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a lot of energy. Julie Grant reports on how some companies are making their IT more environmentally friendly – and saving money in the process:

(sound of an internet search with a tea kettle)

By some estimates, two Google searches create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling water for a cup of tea.

Most people don’t think about the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their internet use. But there are about 200-million
searches globally each day – and each search kicks a lot of servers into gear. It adds up.

Albert Esser is an IT expert with Dell Computers. He says
in just a few years internet use could use 3% of the nation’s energy supply. That’s a lot of carbon pollution.

“From a global greenhouse perspective, that’s about the same as the airline industry will cost.”

But Esser says computers don’t need to use that much energy. Most computer systems are so
in-efficient today – that they’re wasting more than 90% of the energy they use.

(sound of a data center)

This is a data center. It’s filled with racks and racks of servers.

A hundred different companies rent space here. Each company has its own set of servers – to coordinate its email systems, word processing, online credit card transactions – all kinds of programs its employees and customers use.

But data centers can be real energy hogs. They need electricity to run all those servers. That creates a lot of heat, so they also need air conditioning. One data center can use as much electricity as a good-sized town.

(sound of electricity in the data center)

“You can hear the electricity, in here. The piles of batteries you see are attached to the uninterruptable power supply.”

Bryan Smith is marketing director for Expedient, which runs this and other data centers around the country. His customers want their computers to be fast, and that takes a lot of power.

But Smith says the data center does everything it can to cut down on energy usage.

“It’s obviously in our best interest to be energy efficient, because we’re the ones paying the power bill.”

So, they’ve set up the server racks to make them easier to cool. They’re also building a system to pull in cool air from the outside, instead of using so much air conditioning.

Some companies that use the data center are also starting to use software to create what are called virtual servers.

“This rack here is a virtualization rack, so you’ve for one rack here that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 computers in it. Right? So each one of these servers is equal to 16 physical servers.”

And so for each of those ‘virtual servers’ they can turn off
15 actual servers.

But, even with all that saved space and energy, Expedient’s data centers are growing faster than they ever anticipated.

This one built in Cleveland only two years ago is just about sold out of space – so Expedient is building another data center next door.

Albert Esser at Dell says the most environmentally friendly way to build data center is not to build one at all.

He says making better use of old centers, with virtual computers and other energy efficiency measures, produces a lot less pollution. And it saves money.

“I think the economic downturn, as harsh as it sounds, is the best thing which could ever happen to green IT. Because the economic pressures will make people think much harder to just build a new data center without changing the way they operate it.”

So IT is learning what a lot of companies are learning – that going green can mean saving energy – and that’s better for the bottom line.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Noisier Oceans Bad for Whales

  • Beluga whale (Delphinaptherus leucas) with its mouth wide open, White Sea, Russia, Kareliya. (© Andrey Nekrasov / WWF-Canon)

Scientists say the oceans are
getting noisier. The racket threatens
whales and other marine mammals that
communicate through sound. Nancy
Greenleese reports:

Transcript

Scientists say the oceans are
getting noisier. The racket threatens
whales and other marine mammals that
communicate through sound. Nancy
Greenleese reports:


The oceans are already noisy from military sonars and oil and gas exploration. Scientists say it could get worse. Some of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is getting soaked up by the oceans and seas. The carbon dioxide makes the water more acidic. Sound travels through that acidic water more easily. A UN climate change panel recently issued a report raising concerns about the chemistry change. Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Conversation Society says already there’s an “acoustic fog” in the world’s waters.

“The ambient noise levels in the oceans because of pH are likely to rise. This is a very unexpected finding. They’re anticipating that marine mammals will have further problems communicating.”

The noise confuses marine mammals. So, they’re beaching themselves and running into ships more often.

For The Environment Report, I’m Nancy Greenleese.

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Protecting Whales Across Borders

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

Environmentalists have wanted to
“Save the Whales” for decades. But experts
say that can’t happen until the people
realize whales don’t know if they’re in
American waters, Mexican waters or Japanese
waters. Nancy Greenleese reports whales
cannot be saved until all countries protect
them:

Transcript

Environmentalists have wanted to
“Save the Whales” for decades. But experts
say that can’t happen until the people
realize whales don’t know if they’re in
American waters, Mexican waters or Japanese
waters. Nancy Greenleese reports whales
cannot be saved until all countries protect
them:

Whales travel off many countries’ coasts and different countries have different laws
about protecting the animals. Chris Butler Stroud is with the Whale and Dolphin
Conservation Society. He told a United Nation’s conference for the Convention on
Migratory Species that international cooperation is key.

“When countries try to take political action to conserve an animal, they often think of
their own borders. Not remembering that animals are able to move beyond those because
they don’t see the lines in the sand or lines in the water.”

(sound of Gray Whales splashing)

Gray whales swarm around fishing boats off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
They’ve traveled -without passports – from the Bering Strait in Russia, into U.S. waters,
through Canada, and back into the U.S. before arriving in Mexico. Here they’re
breeding, and providing a water show to rival Sea World for ecotourists.

“Oh…it’s the baby. Right there! Right next to us. And here comes mom! (Splash) Hey,
wow, right at us.”

There’s an international agreement that bans commercial hunting for gray whales. And
the whales draw tourists. That’s pretty important for a poor country such as Mexico.

The whales are safe here, but not everywhere.

And everywhere the whales travel and threat looms: climate change. Many whale species
migrate to the poles where the ice is disappearing. The World Wildlife Fund predicts
30% of the ice will melt away in the next 30 years unless action is taken.

Wendy Elliot says that means the whales will have to travel even farther to get to the ice
and the food they find there.

“So they’re already hungry, tired, they’ve traveled a long, long way and now they are
going to have 500 km extra to go. So how these species are going to adapt is very
unclear and it’s very concerning.”

Another worry is the growing acidity of sea water. Greenhouse gases from burning fossil
fuels mix with the water and make carbonic acid in the ocean. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute chemists have determined that the altered chemistry will increase the
distances that underwater sounds travel. That disturbs the communications of marine
mammals. The oceans and seas are becoming a headbangers’ ball from rumbling ships,
air guns used for oil and gas exploration and military sonars.

Nicolas Entrup, managing director for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society,
lobbied at the UN meeting for an international resolution on marine noise pollution.

“Look, we stressed to the governments that underwater noise is a key threat to whales and
dolphins in the ocean. These animals are acoustic animals.”

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation society says research shows loud underwater
noises causes some whales to beach themselves.

At the UN conference, nations passed watered-down resolution to reduce ship sounds.
They did nothing about the noises made by oil and gas industry and the military. Entrup
is furious.

What we’ve passed is absolutely not enough. And I have to say it’s giving in to the
interests of the military and the industries in that occasion. That’s really bad.”

Officials admit that industrial noise can be reduced but the military, that’s another matter.

The 85 governments at the U.N. conference did agree to provide addition protection for
some small whales. But putting any initiatives into effect will be difficult. The global
financial crisis has drastically limited countries’ contributions to field research on whales
and other migratory species. Entrup with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
says the nations of the world cannot ignore the problems.

“If you care, then start now and do not wait until it’s too late. That’s expensive, that’s
irrational, that’s stupid.”

Wildlife groups say rich countries have to reach across borders and give a hand to poorer
countries if we’re going to save the whales.

For The Environment Report, I’m Nancy Greenleese.

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Orphaned Bear Cubs Find Refuge

  • Sally Maughan and her assistant John Knight (Photo by Sadie Babits)

Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:

Transcript

Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:

Sally Maughan used to be known as the “squirrel lady.” As a wildlife
rehabilitator, she took in weasels, foxes, raccoons and a lot of
squirrels.

She had no intention of working with bears until one day the
Idaho Fish and Game Department called.

“And they kept calling because nobody else had an enclosure that could hold a bear.”

Maughan named that first bear cub Ruggles. That was twenty
years ago.

So far, she’s helped 189 orphaned bear cubs from around the
West. She runs a non-profit in Boise called the Idaho Black Bear
Rehabilitation Program.

(sound of outdoors and cars passing)

It’s a chilly afternoon but it’s sunny. So Maughan, her helper John Knight
and I sit outside on her front steps. It’s hard to ignore the smell as
we talk. You know that musty smell of animals and straw and well, bears. It’s kind of an
animal barnyard smell out here.

This place used to be surrounded
by pasture. Not any more. On one side there’s an upscale subdivision.
And on the other side, there’s another large subdivision. Maughan says
her neighbors don’t mind the bears and sometimes she’ll let them come
visit.

“We don’t want bears seeing people any more than they need to.
John just comes in and feeds and comes back out. And I do the bottle
feeding which is when they really attach so once they are weaned he
pretty much takes over from there.”

(sound of gate opening)

Sadie: “So who’s that?”

John: “That is one of the Oregon bears.”

The cub makes a bee line for his house the minute he spots us. Maughan’s
assistant John Knight explains this bear and two others are the only
ones here at the center.

The bear pokes his head out then ducks right
back inside as I check out the roomy enclosure. There are logs to play
on and green apples to eat.

John: “That’s their swim tub.”

Sadie: “They have a swim tub.”

John: “Yep. They like to break it often.”

Sadie: “Will they get in there during the winter?”

John: Yeah. Some bears do. It’s odd. One bear last year was in it everyday. It was
snowing – 30 degrees. He was in it.”

These cubs are orphans. We don’t really know what happened to their
mothers. They may have been killed by licensed hunters or even illegally killed.

Each year more orphaned cubs show up at Maughan’s place. She’s one of only
a few bear rehabilitators in the West.

Jon Rachael works for the Idaho Fish and Game as a wildlife manager. He says they have
to turn to people like Maughan.

“We simply don’t have the personnel or resources to handle all
of that.”

Just in the last year, Sally Maughan took in 53 bears. It was a bad
year
for berries and there were a lot of wildfires around
the West.

“What are you going to do? Say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you – just die?’ Uh-uh. Can’t do
that. So, hopefully, eventually, there’ll be some more rehab-ers
for bears. It’s a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy.”

The World Society for the Protection of Animals covers most of Maughan’s
expenses. She relies heavily though on donations. It’s still not enough.

Anything left from her paycheck as a travel agent goes back to the bears.
She’s even wiped out her retirement just to get these black bears back
into the wild where they belong.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Tire Pressure and Gas Mileage

  • Tire experts say that your tire pressure does, in fact, effect your gas mileage (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Earlier this year John McCain
and Barack Obama traded jabs over how
important tire pressure was in saving
gas. Lester Graham reports the experts
say it does make a difference:

Transcript

Earlier this year John McCain
and Barack Obama traded jabs over how
important tire pressure was in saving
gas. Lester Graham reports the experts
say it does make a difference:

Tim Bent is the Environmental Affairs Director at Firestone Tires. He says you ought to
check your tire pressure.

“Many people don’t maintain their tires well enough. They don’t check their tire
pressure frequently enough. And that does result, not only in lower gas mileage, but
premature tire wear which could be a safety issue as well.”

Bent says you should check tire pressure once a month. How much of a difference can
it make?

“A couple p.s.i could result in a few percentage points in fuel mileage.”

And at today’s prices, that can add up at the pump.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Hotlines for Wild Animal Rescue

  • Possums pretty much just want to be left alone – and they let you know by opening their mouths full of teeth. It’s called an alligator gape. (Photo by Patti Roman)

Let’s say you find a baby chipmunk that fell

out of a tree… or worse, you hit an animal with your car.

Who do you call? Rebecca Williams has the story of people

who feel it’s their duty to nurse these animals back to health…

and get them back to the wild:

Transcript

Let’s say you find a baby chipmunk that fell out of a tree… or worse, you hit an animal with your car. Who do you call? Rebecca Williams has the story of people who feel it’s their duty to nurse these animals back to health… and get them back to the wild:


(sound of phone ringing)


“Thank you for calling the Friends of Wildlife hotline for squirrels, chipmunks and other small rodents. If you have rescued a small animal please keep it warm and quiet…” (beep)

There are hotlines like these set up all over the country. There are bunny hotlines, woodchuck hotlines… you name it and there’s a volunteer hotline for it.

The woman who answers the Possum Hotline is Patti Roman. She volunteers in Michigan. She has a basement full of baby possums.

“Mom has 13 babies so if you get a weekend where two or three moms are hit I’ll get a lot of babies in a few days.”

She says possums get hit by cars a lot. They love to eat roadkill, and they’ll just sit there in the middle of the road, staring at your headlights.

Possums are marsupials like kangaroos. Except they don’t hop out of the way. They keep their babies in their pouches. When a mom gets hit, a lot of times the babies will survive. Someone will find the babies and call the Possum Hotline.

Patti Roman says she’s had up to a hundred baby possums in her basement at one time.

She puts gloves on before she pulls a possum out of its terrarium. I don’t know if you know possums, but they look like a huge hairy rat on its worst day. But this baby possum is kinda cute. He’s giving us a sharp-toothed little grin. It’s a I’ll-rip-your-hand off kind of grin.

“He’s doing the alligator gape right now. But he’s not biting me, but he is trying to scare me.”

That mouth full of sharp teeth is your first clue that possums just want to be left alone. If your dog chases after one, the possum might play dead. Then it’ll get up and waddle off when you’re not looking.

Patti Roman takes care of the possums until they’re a few months old. Then she takes them into the woods and lets them go. She says wildlife is always better off in the wild. But she says she does get criticized for interfering with nature.

“A possum who gets hit by a car is not supposed to die. It has nothing to do with natural selection. And if we can help I think we should.”

But some scientists debate that. Jim Harding is a wildlife specialist at Michigan State University.

“I think the majority of rehabilitation efforts is often just based on a human need to care for things. It isn’t really related to conservation unless you’re dealing with a very rare species.”

Harding says rehabbing some types of common animals can actually make things worse. For example – he says there are so many raccoons that they can wipe out a lot of birds because they eat their eggs.

But Patti Roman says she really feels like she’s doing the right thing. She spent 18 years at the Humane Society rescuing dogs and cats. But she never knew for sure those animals would be placed in good homes.

“When you call to check on the animal a year later – it’s been given away or run away or accidentally been killed. It was breaking my heart. And after awhile I thought, you know, I enjoy doing the wild animals because when they’re ready to go I’m not dependent on people anymore. It feeds my soul. It really does. I do this and I feel very, very good every morning that I can save a life.”

She says when she lets the possums go they don’t look back. They just take off into the woods. And even if that little possum ends up getting eaten by a fox, Roman says that’s okay, because at least that’s natural.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Study: Going Green Without Going Broke

  • A study finds that companies can be environmentally friendly and still make a profit(Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

Critics of environmental regulations
often say the restrictions are bad for a
company’s bottom line. But Rebecca Williams
reports a new study finds companies can find
ways to offset the costs:

Transcript

Critics of environmental regulations
often say the restrictions are bad for a
company’s bottom line. But Rebecca Williams
reports a new study finds companies can find
ways to offset the costs:

Researchers looked at more than 2,000 manufacturing plants in seven countries.

Nicole Darnell is an assistant professor at George Mason University and the
study’s author.

She says it’s true that the tougher the regulation, the more it tended to lower a
company’s profits. But she says some companies were able to break even.

“Those companies that are proactive and seek to do right by the environment
can offset or eliminate the cost of regulation and potentially get ahead of the
curve.”

Darnell says that’s still a pretty rare case. But she says some of the most
successful cases are companies that reduce energy and water use in their
manufacturing processes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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A Three-Day Weekend Every Weekend

  • Employers are hoping to cut down on costs and commutes by switching to a four-day work week (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)

With gas well over four dollars a
gallon, more employers are offering the
four-day work week as a way to cut down on
commuting costs. Rebecca Williams reports
it can boost morale, but it might not always
save on gas:

Transcript

With gas well over four dollars a
gallon, more employers are offering the
four-day work week as a way to cut down on
commuting costs. Rebecca Williams reports
it can boost morale, but it might not always
save on gas:

If you want to skip out on a day of commuting you could fake a stomach
flu – or you could talk your boss into letting you work four 10 hour days,
and then take a nice long weekend, every single weekend.

But an eight hour day can seem long. Working 10 hours in a row, well,
let’s just say you might take a lot more YouTube breaks.

Denise Truesdell is a legal secretary. She’s been working four day weeks
on a trial period. She admits working 10 hours straight can be tough.

“By noon I feel like I could curl up and take a quick little nap but you just have to keep moving. I
have to run to the vending machine and get a little sweet just to keep my energy level up.”

But she says she loves having three day weekends, and that’s what keeps
her going.

“I think some employers are leery of the four day week because they don’t think productivity is
going to be there, people get tired easier. But I think it’s an incentive for people to maybe work a
little harder because they’ve got something to look forward to.”

Bosses like the 4 day week because they can sometimes save money by
closing the office one day a week, and they can make their employees a
little happier.

John Walsh oversees 94 custodians at Kent State University in Ohio.
He’s trying out the four day week for his workers.

“They’re not the highest paid on campus. With this summer coming up and the rise of gas I
brought it up and challenged my supervision to see if we could come up with a plan to make this
work.”

He won his supervisors over, so the schedule’s in full swing. He says it’s
actually easier to get projects done with 10 hour days. Things like
stripping and waxing a floor. And Walsh says his workers love cutting
back on their commutes.

“Well I’ve been in this position for eight years and I think this is the highest our morale has ever
been. Teamwork is the highest I’ve ever seen it.”

Walsh says they have to make sure there’s enough staff on duty to get
everything done – like making sure trash doesn’t pile up.

Quite a few companies and government offices are taking the four day
week seriously. Utah’s governor just made it mandatory for most state
employees. And at least eight other state governments are offering 4
day weeks or at least considering them.

They say they’re helping out employees who are feeling squeezed by gas
prices. And a lot of people say they save at least one tank of gas a
month.

But a short work week might not always be an energy saver. Frank
Stafford is an economist at the University of Michigan. He studies how
people use their time.

“So would you on your now newly awarded Friday off stay home and save gas? You might drive as
many miles on your day off as you did roundtrip. It’s pretty subtle. People are going to say well,
I’ve got a third day off, so why don’t I drive around and do some errands and enjoy myself?”

But Stafford says, still, there’s a clear trend happening. He thinks more
employers will offer flexible schedules as gas prices rise. And as those
gas prices stick around, they’re probably going to change our traditional
work weeks for good.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Energy Efficiency Often Overlooked

  • A new report says energy efficiency is often overlooked (Source: Jdorwin at Wikimedia Commons)

A new study suggests we could reduce our
energy use by 15% a decade. But Lisa Ann
Pinkerton reports many people don’t realize it’s
an option:

Transcript

A new study suggests we could reduce our
energy use by 15% a decade. But Lisa Ann
Pinkerton reports many people don’t realize it’s
an option:

Experts call energy efficiency the invisible powerhouse. They say people and policy
makers don’t notice efficiency as an energy solution, because its impacts aren’t
tracked. Plus, it’s an option that’s built into things like energy efficient windows and
appliances.

“Energy efficiency is imbedded in all of the products that we use every day that we don’t
generally see it.”

That’s Karon Ehrhart-Martinez, co-author of a new report from the American
Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

She compiled data from 2004, the most recent available, and found 300 billion
dollars of investment saved the same amount of energy that 40 power plants could
generate in a year. Ehrhart-Martinez says that’s just a fraction of the energy we
could save, if we chose more energy efficient options when we buy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Carmakers Race Toward Next Hybrid

  • The powertrain of the Chevy Volt. This concept image shows the lithium ion battery pack running down the center of the vehicle. (Image courtesy of GM)

If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:

Transcript

If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:

GM engineers and executives more or less admit that the first round of
hybrid vehicle development went to Toyota. The Prius is by far the best
selling hybrid on the road.

But GM has been racing to win the second round on hybrids.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner says his company will have a new kind of
hybrid battery, and a more powerful electric motor ready by 2010.

“And because our new system is three times more powerful, we’ll also
be able to use it in a wider range of powertrains, and that’s exactly what
we plan to do.”

Wagoner says the more powerful hybrid system will save more gas. And
applying it to more vehicles will make the system cheaper.

Toyota says it’s also working to have its next generation of hybrids ready by 2010.

For The Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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