The Australian Consumer Association recently published a list on Computer Energy Costs for various home gadgets such as your computer screen, DVD player, cordless telephone, gaming console, laptop etc.

Interesting with this list is that it shows how much energy these gadgets consume weekly, monthly as well as yearly, even when they are supposed to be off.

According to the study, the Sony PlayStation 3 consumes 33.34 kWh (weekly consumption) when on and playing a game. That is more than a Plasma TV who uses 29.68 kWh when on and playing a DVD.

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Michael Dell, the chairman and CEO of Dell, announced at the Fortune Green conference that the computer company will start selling a “never before seen” eco-inspired computer with a bamboo casing later this year.

The computer will be, according to Dell, 80% smaller than an average desktop computer. It will also contain recycled materials from plastic bottles and use 71% less energy than the average desktop computer.

The price tag is expected to land somewhere between $500 and $700. A name for the computer has not yet been decided on.

Image and Source credit: Earth2Tech

Nokia seems to be trying hard to gain the top green spot among mobile developers these days. For example, they recently released 3110 Evolve, an eco-friendly mobile phone. And now they are trying to introduce another gadget that will help us “reduce our environmental footprint” called the Eco Sensor Concept.

The Eco Sensor concept is made up of two parts – a wearable sensor unit and a dedicated mobile phone.

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Consider this statement: “The EPA’s Energy Star efficiency criteria only consider the energy a PC uses while it’s in standby mode, which means that almost all current PCs qualify as Energy Star compliant.”

Is that statement true or false?

What about this: “Constantly shutting down and restarting your computer during the day would consume more energy than just leaving it running.”

Is that true or false?

If you are a bit unsure you might want to check out the Sierra Club’s “How Green is My PC” quiz. The quiz will ask and tell you about ten different questions related to your computers energy usage, environmental impacts etc.

Thanks to Tedd Riggs for the link.

Yesterday we got this email from Matt Bentley:

Changing Microsoft XP power scheme settings determines whether or not power-saving CPU features are activated in a machine when idle.

All modern desktop CPU’s past the AMD Athlon XP and the Intel Pentium 4 (ie. AMD A64 & Intel Core and upwards) have some kind of speed-stepping feature built into them, which is utilised via Windows XP’s power management settings as per Orthogonal Thought’s blog.

What does this mean? Well, basically, if we all switch our desktop computer’s power scheme to ‘Laptop/Portable’, our computers will drop the cpu voltage and frequency when idle (provided the motherboard supports it, and most do), saving 30w (on average) - it’s like switching to an energy-saver lightbulb, essentially – and has absolutely no performance impact when not running idle.

Learn more: Intel SpeedStep, Windows XP, and confusing Power Profiles

Are you interested in how a sustainable city could look like? Just take a look at the EfficienCity!

EfficienCity is a city built and governed by Greenpeace. The city shows, with text, images and video how a sustainable city it’s made, the flash application way.

The site is packed with interesting information that explains and give examples on how a smart and “eco-friendly” city should look like. You can easily zoom in on the different buildings in the city and learn more about, for example, how bio-gas, wave, wind and solar is being used throughout the city.

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The cell phone towers are in today’s society a valuable service and you can pretty much find a tower anywhere you go. Yet they look like trash and people can go into legal battles if a company tries to put one nearby their homes.

Now Ericsson have introduced a more aesthetic pleasing cell phone tower called the “Ericsson Tower Tube“. It is designed by the Scandinavian architect Thomas Sandell. The tower tube is, just like it name says, a simple and hollow flexible concrete tower that replaces current steel structures entirely.

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The MacBook Air is Apple’s latest work of art. It’s slim and looks awesome. But what about the laptops green credentials then? Is it greener than the iMac?

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