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Advice for Facebook: save energy with Edison

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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Save energy with EdisonEnvironmental awareness is a trendy topic these days in almost every area of our daily lives. Cities reduce speed limits on behalf of contamination, home appliances are rated according to their energetic efficiency… even the software industry has recently started a series of green software apps, aimed mainly at helping companies and individuals reduce their carbon footprint.

But if there’s one business that really needs to improve its power management, that’s Facebook. Zuckerberg’s company was reported to spend about one million dollars a month only on electricity. Even if this massive power bill is justified by their 10,000 servers and the huge amount of user-generated contents those machines are forced to move everyday, it still seems too much for me.

Oddly enough, today I also found a program that helps you save energy. Edison (fun name for a power saving tool, isn’t it?) tweaks Windows energy management settings and turns off several computer elements – namely monitor, hard drive and the whole system – after they haven’t been in use for a while. Of course, this is no real solution for Facebook’s power needs but I still find it a curious coincidence.

Edison lets you create different power two different saving profiles, one to be used during working hours and another one suitable for your leisure time, though I guess the best method to save energy when you’re not using your PC is to simply switch it off. The program includes a tiny counter that shows how much money you have saved so far.

Saving power is not only a way to save money (something Facebook should start considering straight away) but also to care about our planet and avoid the effects of global warming. In this sense, Edison is not the only software app that contributes to a more environmental-friendly behavior. If not, check out our lists of tools to fight climate change or track your carbon footprint. I just hope Mark takes note of this advice and starts saving power today; otherwise we may have to create a Facebook group about it… oh wait: there are already a bunch of them.

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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