Sideloading and its associated methods and processes can materially contribute to the more efficient utilization and conservation of our Nation’s energy resources by making new computing devices more energy efficient.
Over one hundred million new personal computers are purchased in the United States annually. About one third are mobile and two thirds are desktop or tower. The average power consumption of an entire desktop system is 300 watts. Mobile systems consume 90 watts. Thus, the average power consumed by a typical personal computer is 230 watts. The aggregate annual power draw for these new computers would be twenty three gigawatts.
Furthermore, according to industry analysts, on average, it takes two days to load, customize, configure, and otherwise make ready a new personal computer. Therefore to customize these 100 million new computers in the United States each year takes 368,000 megawatt hours (MWH) of electricity, using the additive methods of installing programs now standard.
However, sideloading a single 300GB UDMA-5 hard drive conservatively takes less than 12.5 watt hours of energy to replicate the master image and remove software not to be supplied. So sideloading all the personal computers sold in the United States would take under 1,250 megawatt hours. Were sideloading to completely eliminate all additional start up tasks, the energy savings would amount to 366,750 megawatt hours of electricity annually.
Taking into account a half a day of work still required to transfer legacy user specific files, an additional 92,000 megawatt hours of electrical power might be consumed. In this the case, the total savings directly achievable with sideloading could amount to 274,750 megawatt hours or about 275 gigawatt hours (GWH) annually.
To comprehend the significance of this energy savings, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this 275 GWH of energy could supply electrical power to an entire city with a population of 1,150,000 people, equivalent to one Dallas or two Bostons for one year. The extent of such savings is clearly material to our national energy conservation efforts.
By saving this energy, sideloading can reduce the demand for new power stations construction. Additionally, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), reducing energy consumption by 275 GWH annually will reduce the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most significant greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, by 173,250 metric tons.
Likewise, 687 metric tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and 275 metric tons of nitrous oxide (NOX) emissions will be avoided. These two gases are responsible for nationwide acid rain, stream pollution, building corrosion, smog, asthma and other serious respiratory ailments. By reducing emissions of CO2 , SO2, and NOX , sideloading will additionally materially enhance the quality of the environment.
In addition to the direct benefits accruing from sideloading energy savings, there are secondary energy savings from eliminating the materials used in uploading soft assets from physical media (e.g. CD-Rom and DVD). Industry analysts report that 650 million discs of personal computer software are sold in the United States annually. Were sideloading to eliminate the need for only two packages for each new computer, almost a third of those discs are eliminated.
An individual CD weighs a half ounce. 200 million discs in aggregate weigh 3,400 tons. The plastic “jewel boxes” to protect them weigh an additional 22,000 tons. The cardboard packages, by themselves, add another 50,000 tons to our national annual waste stream, equivalent to a fresh, full cargo load of a Boeing 747 airfreighter of trash dumped or incinerated twice a day.
According the US Plastics Council, the energy necessary to produce 200 million CDs totals 464 billion BTUs. To produce the associated jewel boxes consumes another 2.2 trillion BTUs of energy. The energy to make the cardboard is yet another 2.5 trillion BTUs. So sideloading provides an overall opportunity for saving over five trillion BTUs, equivalent to another 500 megawatt hours (MWH) in energy savings a year. In doing so, sideloading also reduces the national consumption of petroleum by 400,000 barrels annually.
This savings elaborated is only predicated on adopting sideloading of personal computers. However, sideloading is applicable to other content and devices as well. One and a half billion video DVDs, 700 million audio CDs, 200 million console game CDs are sold into the US market annually. Were only ten percent of these 2.4 billion discs eliminated by sideloading, the energy savings would likely surpass those described above for personal computer software discs.
Therefore, widespread use of sideloading in the manufacture of new computers, console games, audio and video players, and the like will materially conserve energy resources through both the significant reduction of direct energy consumption by such devices and the associated media and packaging that they currently require.
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