Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » TAG: Green IT

December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Electric utility providers going digital

TAGS: Green IT

The combined reach of the electric power utility companies and IP technology are making for some interesting services.

First, remember that the utilities have a built-in, government approved, right of way for just about every location going back in some cases almost 100 years.

The utilities also have the infrastructure, the telephone poles and the wiring so to speak to go everywhere.

What may not be widely known is the fact that many utilities also own lots of fiber, some already lit and some still dark, i.e., unused.

I spoke with Dianne Lachel, a spokesperson for Click! Networks, a division of Tacoma Power. Click, is the telecommunications arm of the power company.

Smart meters, a digital power meter with a cable modem built in, is one of those services that comes about due to the combined right of way and IP technology.

These IP-enabled electric usage meters are in place in about 9,000 homes and businesses.

For the utility smart meters obviously save them money on sending out meter readers once a month or every other month. Also they don’t have to do estimated readings as many power companies do.

The meter also allows the utility to start and stop power delivery, also a money saver for the company especially in big apartment complexes where people are moving in and out on a fairly regular basis.

To me one of the most unusual services is called Pay As You Go. Yes, just like buying a prepaid cell phone card, users can buy a prepaid amount of energy.

A home or business gets an easy to read output device so that they can manage their own power consumption and cut back or buy more power as needed.

Pay As You Go has a great many social implications and the administration of this service probably needs to be regulated closely.

What it is actually doing is making the individual or company more responsible for its own consumption, but by doing that it also gives the utility an out when they cut power to a family that doesn’t pay up.

Add this capability to one already being used by other utility companies on an opt in basis at the moment, where the utility can actually measure the individual usage of each appliance in the home, and you can end up with the following scenario when power company is called in to explain to the local governing body why they shut off power to a particular home:

"Yes, we cut off such and suches power, but we know for a fact they had the air conditioner on every night and the outside temperature did not warrant it."

Lachel tells me Click doesn’t monitor individual appliance yet but with the smart meter the capability is there.

Click and other utilities also now offer VoIP and broadband.

This is a topic that deserves a lot more coverage and I will be doing just that in 2008.

Lachel tells me Click is at the forefront of the movement and I’ll be checking back with her and others in the very near future.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 14, 2007 08:46 AM

July 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Rise up against ink waste

TAGS: Green IT

Printer manufacturers must be held accountable for ink replacement policies that are far from green, writes Ephraim Schwartz

When it comes to high tech, rarely is anything repaired. The same goes for consumer electronics, as both industries have been componentized at nearly every level of manufacturing. When something breaks, just throw it away and plug in another component.

A nice little revenue model for manufacturers -- one that, if you are not paying close enough attention, could end up costing you more.

For example, when my first VHS player broke down after the warranty period, I was told by the manufacturer that it didn't pay to fix the device. However, a friend who put a scope over the ICs found the dead chip, bought a new one in Radio Shack for under $1, and put my tape player back in business.

My guess, and my electronically inclined friend's guess, was that this chip didn't just accidentally burn out. It was manufactured for a certain number of hours of use and then, Good bye, Charlie.

We are now seeing variations on this theme, especially in the highly competitive printer industry. So componentized is this industry, that you can buy an ink-jet printer for less than $50 or a laser printer for less than $75. I paid $40 for my latest Samsung laser printer, an energy-efficient model to boot.

As for ink-jet printers, my latest model signals when ink is low and stops working altogether when out of ink. How does it know when this happens? A small sensor in the cartridge monitors the ink levels.

The question is, How much ink remains in the cartridge when the sensor decides it is empty? Is it like when a laser printer tells you your toner is low? Most people know that when you get this message all you have to do is remove the toner cartridge, shake it back and forth a bunch of times, and put it back in the laser printer. Lo and behold, you get another hundred pages out of that cartridge, if not more.

But it is even worse with ink-jets. My printer manufacturer does not allow me to buy ink refills; so I can't just open up the cartridge and refill the ink. Even if I could, the sensor indicator cannot be reset to indicate a full cartridge, so refilling it would be pointless. If I could refill the cartridge and reset the sensor, I could save a lot of money, meaning the manufacturer would make less, of course.

Instead I have to spend about $28 for a new color cartridge. Worse, the latest ink-jet models don't have separate cartridges. I suppose high tech, the industry that invented componentization, feels it has the right to take it back when it suits them. So now most of the latest ink cartridges are all-in-one affairs. If one color runs out, you need to replace the entire cartridge.

This is most "ungreen." Manufacturers might say they are producing energy-efficient products, but they are also quite wasteful. Instead of letting you use the same nonbiodegradable plastic container, most would rather have you toss it out and buy a new one. It is time for printer manufacturers to stop this practice -- even if we have to force their hand a bit.

In the spirit of revolution, I recommend that consumers of the world rise up and unite against printer cartridge waste.

Here's how. I am asking everyone with an ink-jet printer to conduct an experiment and report back. When your printer signals that your cartridge is out of ink, open up the cartridge and see what's left. Send me the manufacturer and printer model number, as well as the ink status, and I will post the printer models that are the worst offenders.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on July 31, 2007 03:00 AM