Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin say that deploying correct power supplies in 100 million desktop PC's running eight hours a day could save 40 billon kilowatt-hours over three years, or more than $5 billion at California's energy rates. The Google white paper, "High-Efficiency Power Supplies for Home Computers and Servers," was written by Urs Holzle and William Weihl and describes their findings.Currently and historically, power supplies have been provided by converting high-voltage alternating current to low-voltage direct current to provide multiple output voltage. These multi-voltage power supplies are not needed in today's PC's. Google wants a single 12-volt standard with an 80 percent efficiency standard. Current efficiencies vary from 20 percent to 80 percent. The motherboard would still convert the voltage, but it would be easieer to achieve efficiencies. A company called Ecos Consulting and a group of utiity companies have been measuring computer electricity use. (New York Times)
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