i think green

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CreditsThe People Behind This Book

EditorialEditor Robert Sovereign-SmithHead-Copy Desk Nash DavidWriter Kshitij Sobti

Design and LayoutLead Designer Vijay Padaya Senior Designer Baiju NVCover Design Jayan Narayanan

© 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt. Ltd.Published by 9.9 Mediaworx No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

July 2010Free with Digit. Not to be sold separately. If you have paid separately for this book, please email the editor at [email protected] along with details of location of purchase, for appropriate action.


Contents

Green Home• Introduction• Greenvest for the Future• Go Green = Save Money• The community's thoughts on a green home

Work Green• Introduction• The Green Channel• Emerald Dreams• The community's thoughts on working green

Travel Green• Introduction• Green Wheels• A supercar with a hybrid engine• The community's thoughts on travelling green

Live Green• Introduction• Computer graveyards - A walk through the ‘e-slums’ of Mumbai• 5 Inventions that will save the Earth• The community's thoughts on living a green life

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We all have our inhibitions when it comes to going green. It seems like huge change in lifestyle, and anything less than a full commitment would make you feel like a hyppocrite. We

cannot simply abandon our industrialized lives and move to jungles instead, but we can all take steps to reduce the inefficiencies in our living. It is a fact that unless we are at balance with our environment — using only as many resources as we can give back — we will end up destroying it.

Even in today's modern world we depend greatly on our environment. We depend on the plants to provide food, and clean air, we depend on the animals to provide food for ourselves, each other, and for the plants. It is more than just a cycle, it is a web of life, and with each string we break, we get closer to destroying that which we depend on greatly.

It may not yet be too late to return to balance, and that is something we should strive for. We decided to tap into the power of the community to garner these ideas, and decided to use our broad reach to bring the ideas of the community, to the community.

To be able to proudly proclaim, that “I think green” one needs to know what exactly green thinking entails. In this book lies a wealth of information about the different facets of our lives which could use a little green.

It is not exhaustive, and we highly encourage you keep looking for ways to make your life greener. You can always join us at our Facebook page “ithinkgreen” at http://www.facebook.com/ithinkgreen to participate with the community and share your insights.

Introduction


A green life begins at home. From the way we cook to the kind of glass our windows are made of, each and every thing has an impact. Our home is where we spend the a major part of our time, and it is what we spend a major amount of our earnings on. By spending and living responsibly together we can effect

a great change on our environment. Saving electricity, switching to renewable sources of power, it can all be

done at an individual level at home. Often all that is lacking is the knowledge of what we are doing wrong, and what we can do to improve.

What follows are some of our articles and quotes from our community about how to make a greener home.

Green Home


ithinkgreen1 Green Home

Greenvest for the futurePower cuts and water shortages have become grim realities of our lives. It’s a clear case of a skewed demand - supply ratio. Everyone has, at some point or the other, faced power and water shortages. Conventional sources of energy are fast depleting. With a booming population, short supply of resources is inevitable. Thus, the need for investing in alternative sources of energy is paramount.

We come across lots of articles and web sites telling us what steps to take to cut down on your power consumption, how to make your life more green and the likes. We at Digit, believe in doing all those things. So for this issue, we decided to hunt for individuals who have actually gone ahead and done something in this regard.

The people you will read about in the following paragraphs are people like us, who lead normal lives and have normal power consumption needs. But their attitude towards sustainable living is what sets them apart from us. These are people who have taken pro-active rather than reactive measures to future proof their energy needs.

Lighting up your houseThree thousand kilometers of cycling a year is just one of the things that the determined Atul Gopal indulges in. His other pet project is saving energy by switching to alternative means to light up his house. An engineer and MBA by education, Gopal, based in Pune, is the co-founder of Bull’s Eye, a training institute which prepares students for management entrance exams. Since the last two years, Gopal has adopted light emitting diodes to light up his drawing room.

So what really prompted him to switch to LED lights inspite of knowing that it was going to be an expensive affair. “In 2008 my friends Pankaj and Rahul, engineers from IIT Bombay, were working on street lighting using LED lamps. I pestered them into doing something for my drawing room,” he said. The pestering worked and the three friends got together to light up Gopal’s drawing room.

Atul Gopal (inset) along with a photograph of his drawing room in which he has replaced all the

lights with LEDs


ithinkgreen 1 Green Home

The early days of adoption gave them a taste of failure as well. “In 2008 the LEDs available had a rating of 1 W, with a light generation of about 85 Lumens. We used roughly one for every 10 sq ft. The current lighting is reasonable for most activities, except reading. We deliberately chose a slightly lesser intensity, after spending Rs. 4000 for a new set of LEDs when our electronics to dim the LEDs ended up busting all of them,’’ he says tongue in cheek. The situation has improved now with LED lights coming with 50 per cent more Lumens at a 50 per cent lesser price.

But these failures did not deter Gopal as the savings he encountered with this source of lighting were quite significant. Before LEDs, he used two CFLs that consumed 40 W of power. Using an LED having a power consumption of just 1W, Mr Gopal used 17.5 W in all to light up his 150 sq. ft. drawing room. “I am saving about 22.5 W using LED lights. In terms of rupees, assuming a usage of about 4 hours a day and 300 days a year, the savings are about 1200 * 22.5 = 27 kWh. My residential electricity rate in Pune is about Rs. 5 per unit. So I end up saving about Rs. 135-150 per year. In percentage terms this is 2 – 3 per cent of my bill, with just one room converted. Also note that I was already using CFLs before this,” he said. According to Gopal, the LED lights he has invested in will last him for a good 25-30 years.

Harnessing solar energySealine Society in Bandra (W), Mumbai seems like any other housing society in the neighbourhood, but signboards like ‘Water is precious’ and ‘Conserve Energy’ are out of the ordinary. Only when you walk around the society and have a tour of its terrace, does the gravity of those signboards sink in. Thanks to octagenarian Navin Chandra, Sealine Society has no worries as far as electricity and water shortages are concerned.

A chemical engineer by education, Chandra has worked in the capacity of a CEO of a multinational company in the past. At an age when most of his peers would rather rest at home, Chandra has taken initiatives that have resulted in his society saving on their monthly electricity bills. One such initiative was to convince his society members to invest in solar panels in 2006.

While taking us to the terrace, Chandra stressed on the importance of such initiatives. ‘’Some years back the cost of solar panels was quite high,

Navin Chandra standing alongside the solar water heating panels



but now that price is reducing. Conventional electricity, on the other hand, is rising,’’ he said.

The terrace of the building has a small garden and is surrounded by solar panels, and a solar water heater facility. ‘’We have a total of 24 solar panels. Eight of them are rotary, which means they can move along with the sun such that efficiency is maximized by facing the sun. The energy from these panels is stored in the batteries that are placed in our terrace store room. The DC current is converted to AC by an inverter before this energy is used for lighting up common passageways,’’ he told us. One cannot help noticing the enthusiasm with which Chandra explains the whole setup and answers all queries with a smile.

The electricity generated by the solar panels which is about 2kW, is enough to light up about 50 lights in the common passageway. According to Chandra, since the common areas are only used during certain part of the day, the use of electricity is spread across the day. This little measure has ensured that the society saves a decent amount of money on its electricity bill.

One question that arised in our minds was, if the solar energy is used for lighting common passageways, then what was stopping members from using it for secondary lighting in their houses. Chandra stated that most of the houses in the society had concealed wiring, and to rewire the house for secondary lighting did not make sense. “Moreover right now we only generate enough solar energy for lighting common passageways. For generating additional energy we will need more solar panels and lack of space on our terrace prevents that,’’ he said.

Another interesting aspect about the society is that none of the houses have a geyser to heat water. Thanks again to Chandra who set up a solar water heater on the terrace. “Geysers consume a lot of power, so we thought of installing a solar water heater on our terrace, which will provide hot water to the residents,’’ he said.

Chandra showed us the solar water heating panels which were placed one level above the terrace. Placed in a 4 by 4 grid like arrangement called batch heaters, the water to the panels is provided by a pipe that runs across all the panels. It’s technically called an Integrated Collector Storage tank. Each heater has a glass covering and is placed at an angle from the ground. It’s fed water from one end. The water trickles down through the miniature

Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) is a part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) which has set a target of achieving 20,000 MW solar power installation by the year 2022. The main idea behind this mission is to bring the price of solar power and grid power on par. The idea of the mission is to build on this and also focus on Research and Development and HRD to develop and strengthen Indian skills thereby enhancing indigenious content to make the mission more sustainable.

JNNS Mission



capillaries such that by the time it gets out of one batch of four heaters, it is comparatively warm. The process is repeated for three more such batches.

‘’Sometimes during the summers, with soaring temperatures to prevent overheating, I have to let out some steam from these steam relievers,’’ demonstrated Chandra. After the water has passed through all the panels, it is considerably hot and is collected in a 2000-litre tank which regulates the temperature. When we were checking it out, the temperature of the water was 60 degrees Celcius. ‘‘This heater is connected to the all the 25 bathrooms in the building, thus bypassing the need for a geyser,’’ said Chandra. Just doing away with geysers cuts down on 30 units of power per month which equates to Rs. 150 (at a rate of Rs.5/unit) savings.

Hybrid Energy:

Solar + WindThe next logical question on our mind was harnessing Wind energy. But after talking to an energy technology specialist, we learned that using just windmills to generate energy from wind is just not a viable option.

Sunil Tongay, an electronics graduate from Mumbai University had always been interested in electronics and indulged in a lot of hobby electronics in his school days. After working for around 15 years in the IT industry, Tongay decided to move into the Energy Technology sector back in 2005. He felt that the future lay in Energy as IT was reaching a saturation point.

‘’I am deeply interested in electronics. I decided to take a break from IT because I thought that my base in electronics will help me a lot in the energy technology segment,’’ he told us recalling his decision. Five years into the field Tongay has spearheaded around 100 projects which involved using alternate sources of energy like wind and solar energy in daily life. He specialises in hybrid energy generation.

‘’The minimum wind speed required to generate electricity is 5m/sec. Now in a city like Mumbai where most of the housing societies are not planned correctly (ie houses facing the south) one cannot efficiently harness the wind energy. Housing societies in Worli have an edge over other places in Mumbai as the wind speed there is quite high. And apart from the monsoon seasons, there isn’t much wind blowing anyway,’’ said Tongay justifying his stand as to why only using a windmill in societies was not a viable option.

A grid tie inverter acts as a mediator between your DC solar array and your home’s AC power grid. The DC power generated by the solar panels or hybrid solar-wind system is inverted to a higher AC voltage so that home appliances can be used. When not in use, the power generated from the alternate sources can be fed back to the grid. Using a GTI bypasses the need to use battery power bank to store energy. But for the grid tie inverters must be in phase with the power grid for you to send back power to the grid.

Grid Tie Inverter



However if windmills are teamed up with solar panels, the combination can work wonders. During the monsoon months, the wind mills can contribute more and during summers the solar panels can take over. During other months, it will always work in a combined form thus harness the best of both natural sources.

Tongay has installed a hybrid system for his office premises. He took us to his terrace where he showed us an interesting aspect which involved using alternative sources as well as energy from the grid to reduce load on the grid.

‘’We have teamed the hybrid solar and wind system to a Grid Tied Inverter(GTI). The GTI allows us to combine the electricity generated from the hybrid solar – wind system along with the grid to power a load irrespective of its energy consumption. We have our server room in the basement, which needs 24/7 air conditioning. Thanks to the GTI we can use the grid power alongwith the power from hybrid system to power those ACs. Due to this we save a lot of power which we could have otherwise used from the grid,’’ explained Tongay. He also drew up a circuit diagram which simplified the understanding of the concept. However, this is effective only in places which have a constant power supply from the grid.

Suresh Patkar, a Navi Mumbai resident also installed a hybrid solar-wind energy system at his residence as his family’s consumption was quite high for a three member family. “I was planning to install it for the last 2 years. I stay at Vashi and my bungalow is facing the creek where wind pressure is good,’’ he said. This system has helped him reduce his conventional grid consumption by around 25% and he uses the system for around four hours daily.

According to Tongay, as most of the office building in most of the cities are working in the day time, they can easily install a couple of panels on their office premises to take care of their secondary lighting needs. “It will all ultimately add up and will make us more sustainable,’’ says Tongay.

Rain water harvestingJuly 26th, 2005 is a date that is etched in the memory of many Mumbaikars. The western suburbs in Mumbai were flooded for days with electricity cut off and many parts of the

Energy consultant Sunil Tongay

Jaago Mumbai is an organisation formed by the citizens of Mumbai with an objective to empower the community with the knowledge and awareness of making their surroundings more environment friendly. It plans to make a municipality garden into an eco-friendly one, which will act as a working model for rain water harvesting, using solar energy for lighting and vermi composting. It plans to come out with a community radio station which will have programs which will educate the community about energy conservation, disaster management among other things.

Jaago Mumbai



city not getting drinking water. Sealine society was one rare exception which had no problems of water shortage.

When Chandra moved into the housing society in 2001, Sealine society was facing heavy water shortages. Due to the residence of a minister in the society, there were a large number of security personnel who also used the society’s resources, thus putting a strain on it. Around two water tankers supplied water to the society every week. “Not only did this push our society’s water bills through the roof, but we found that the water provided by the tankers needed to be filtered to be consumed,” reminisced Chandra.

In 2004, Chandra proposed the rain water harvesting plan to society members. The rain water from the terrace and compound is collected in a 10,000 litre tank that is under the ground. A 70 feet channel with bare bottom (i.e. a channel having a base of mud, sand and pebbles) guides the water to the ground. This rain water seeps through the ground and charges the ground water table. “The speed of charging is low as compared to collection of water when it rains heavily. If it’s not charged at that rate then it will flow into the drains. So we have three 6-inch wide, 100 feet deep bore wells to increase the rate of charging the ground water table,” explained Chandra. This harvested water can be pumped out at the rate of 6000 litres / hour to all the homes with the help of a submersible pump. As water for non drinking purposes is supplied thanks to rain water harvesting, the society only needs drinking water from the municipality, cutting consumption by around 50 per cent.

This initiative provides the society with enough water for all the non drinking purposes. But being the innovative person that he is, Chandra took rain water harvesting one step further by installing a water treatment and filtering plant.”We have no shortage of drinking water. Our society has sufficient water for the next 10 years,’’ he claims.

Other InitiativesThe individuals we spoke to believe in spreading their knowledge. They are optimists and believe that time is not far when switching to alternative sources of energy is going to be inevitable.

Chandra is consulted by at least 2-3 societies every two weeks regarding adoption of solar energy in their premises. Apart from this consulting, Chandra is the Chairman of an organisation called Jaago Mumbai.

In this report we have covered a limited number of people due to space constraints. But there are countless others out there who are doing their bit. With time we are sure, things will improve on the alternative sources of energy front. They have to. We are left with no other choice but to adopt green measures.



Go green = Save moneyEight simple steps that can help you save enough to subscribe to Digit for 9 years!Usually when we think of ‘going green’, we assume it’s for people with deep pockets – that it will involve making monetary sacrifices and taking a lot of trouble, going out of the way in terms of both effort and money. This is just a widespread misconception, because on the contrary, cutting corners by taking green measures will save you a lot of money. Here, we tell you eight simple steps you can take that will help you save money and even save the planet.

Switch to CFLs or LEDsEnvironmentalists have been exhorting this paradigm shift for quite some time now. If you still have incandescent bulbs then you seriously need to throw them out. Consider this: by some estimates, the life span of LED bulbs is around 45,000 to 60,000 hours. On the other hand, incandescent bulbs and CFLs operate for 1,500 and 10,000 hours, respectively. In terms

of luminescence or the amount of light each of these produce, to get the equivalent of 60 W of light from an incandescent bulb, you only have to consume around 14 W for a CFL and 6 W for an LED. You might then say that the initial investment of the environmentally friendly options would be high. Yes, but considering the life spans and the low power consumption of both CFL and LED, you’d recover the cost in no time. In fact, imagine the money saved over the entire life span of an LED bulb – 60,000 hours. By some estimates, over its life span, it’ll save you close to Rs. 16,000 in cost of bulbs (40 incandescents) as well as electricity cost. But a figure you can relate to more is how much the switch from incandescent bulbs will save you in simple energy costs for a year - Rs. 788 for two bulbs.

Driving tipsIt’s a commonly accepted fact that driving between 45 to 55 kmph increases

YEarlY houSEholD EnErgY SavingS

Incandescent Light Bulbs CFL LED

Consumption in Watts 60 14 6

KWh used per year @ 5 hrs/day (2 bulbs) 219 51.1 21.9

Electricity Cost (@ Rs 4.00) Rs. 876 Rs. 204 Rs. 87

Savings by switching from Incandescent 0 Rs. 671 Rs. 788



fuel efficiency. At this optimal speed bracket, you’re expected to drive steadily without jerky acceleration and rapid braking. Basically, don’t be an aggressive driver and it’ll save you 15 per cent of your fuel cost; that’s the thumb rule. Idling the car for a long time obviously makes no sense. You’re wasting fuel and burning money, adding to the pollution, and not going anywhere. The rule here is that if you’re going to stop for more than 30 seconds, you should switch of the engine. The initial surge of fuel burn at ignition gets countered if the wait time is above 30 seconds. A Japanese study showed that for a distance of 3,700 kms, when idling norms are strictly followed it saves 6 per cent. For an average Indian car with a milage of 15 kmpl this distance would cost around Rs. 12,000 of fuel. So you could potentially save Rs. 740, every 3,700 kilometres. Consider this: if you travel 30 km a day, just preventing your car from idling can save you 6 per cent of 30 x 365 x 50 / 15 = Rs. 2,190 a year!

Also remember to use properly inflated tyres, avoid unnecessary dependence on air conditioning, and whenever possible, carpool.

Switch to solar heatingOne of the biggest guzzlers of electricity in any household is the big old water heater. In some parts of the country water is heated for nearly half of the year. This water is not used just for bathing, but also for other applications – washing hands, cooking, etc. A typical storage water heater that can raise the temperature of 25 litres by 35 degrees Celsius has a rating of 2000 W and takes about 33 minutes to do it. So a reasonable estimate would be that you’d need an average of 2 cycles to heat about 100 litres of water, ie one hour of usage a day (considering some water will not have to be raised all the 35 degrees from room temperature). This means 2000 watts a day X 30 = 60 kwh. Comes out to Rs. 240 per month just on heating water. By way of instant heaters the amount is almost the same. At a flow of 3 litres per minutes most instant heaters raise the temperature by 21 degrees. So heating around 100 litres of water takes about half an hour of runtime. However instant heaters have a higher rating than storage water heaters – 4500 W. That means 15 hours a month x 4500 W = 67.5 kWh. At a cost of Rs. 4 per unit that comes out to Rs. 270.

how much can you save?2 incandescents to LEDs 788CRT to LCD 700Solar water heating 1,500Driving responsibly (30 km a day) 2,190Pulling the plug 1005 star energy refrigerator 1,750Light and ventilation 400Total Rs 7,428



By either of these methods you end up spending over Rs. 1,500 a year on heating water if you only consume hot water for half the year. Switching to solar is a viable cost effective alternative. They work in any climate and the only fuel they need is sunlight – which is free. There is of course an investment which you can quite easily recover in the life span of the equipment. The real cost benefits of this system show up when you opt for a solar water heater for your society or building. Much greater economies of scale apply then. For an individual household the set up costs are around Rs. 130 per litre so a 100 litre setup would cost around Rs. 13,000 with an additional cost for installation. Here we’re talking about evacuated tube solar collectors. Some of the things to look out for are insulating material quality and the reflective sheet underneath the tubes.

Every appliance has a power rating in Watts. This is known as wattage. Multiply this figure with the number of hours you are expected to use that appliance. Divide this to get the Kilo-watt per hour consumption. You can use this formula:Wattage × Hours Used Per Day ÷ 1000 = Daily Kilowatt-hour (kWh)consumption A Kilowatt-hour is also called a Unit. So if an appliance consumes 3kWh is uses 3 units. Multiply this by the prevalent rate per Unit and you get the energy consumption in Rupees.

How to calculate electricity consumption

Use this online energy calculator to figure out how much money it’ll cost you to air condition your house and how much money you can save by opting for various star ratings. Head over to www.saveenergy.co.in. Use the simple and user friendly Energy Calculator that allows you to choose different capacity of AC, quantity, efficiency level and operating time. The interface is drag and drop. The tool even shows a dummy layout of your house. Once you enter the relevant details, hit calculate. It will then tell you exactly how much your electricity cost will be for the year. Additionally it will inform you of any savings that can availed by opting for higher star rating and how much.

Do this



Buy star rated productsEnergy Star Rating was first introduced by the US Department of Energy in 1992. The program ensures strict testing procedures in order to identify and promote energy efficient products. This reduces green house gases as well as saves money for the end users.

Specific to India, B.E.E (Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Govt. of India) has come out with a standard. Originally designed for Air Conditioning equipment, the objective of this labelling system is efficient use of energy and its conservation. BEE Star Label is now Mandatory – for Frost Free Refrigerators, Room ACs, Tubular Fluorescent Lamps and Distribution Transformers. We saw the BEE Star label on a couple of heaters too. The rating system is quite consumer friendly. The number of stars can vary from 1 to 5. Higher stars indicate higher energy efficiency and more energy bill savings for the customers. On a demo chart for refrigerators we noticed that a five star rated product consumed about half the electricity as non-rated refrigerator, which translated into a saving of Rs. 1750 per year.

Use natural resourcesMany homes as well as offices are increasingly being designed to be naturally lit, cooled and heated. You too can structure your activities in such a way that use natural light more often. For instance if you want to read a book, there’s no other source of light better than diffused sunlight. On the ventilation front, cross ventilation along with ceiling fans can do wonders. They’re cheap too, costing less than 30 paise to run. Put up light reflecting films on windows to keep indoors cooler. Clean air filters in ACs, this improves ventilation and air flow too. These methods should allow you to keep your cooling costs down by at least 10 per cent, which would be typically about Rs. 400 a year if your AC bill is Rs. 4000 a year.

Banish the vampiresAny electronic appliance when its on standby or even switched of draws some amount of power as long as it’s plugged into a socket. This is known vampire power. While many of us know that such a thing occurs, we often underestimate the magnitude of how much this drain could be. Some estimates suggest that up to 22 % of all appliance consumption occurs from standby power drain. Adapters that usually don’t come with a power button are the most hefty vampires. To avoid this it is recommended that you get power strips and flip just one switch for a set of connected appliances to turn them off. Or better yet, pull out the plug. The minimum reduction in bills is estimated to be around 10 per cent. So if you spend about Rs. 1000 on your electricity bill per month you should save Rs. 100.



Adjust the settings• Turn your water heater thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and up several

degrees in the summer.• Set your A/C thermostat to 23°C – 25°C. It provides enough comfort and the

AC operates for lesser time.• Check if your refrigerator is unnecessarily cooling more than you need.• Use appropriate load settings for your washing machine

Go LCD!Some people believe that the lower power consumption of an LCD is overrated and that continuing with a CRT is the way to go. This is absolutely false. Let’s just compare the power consumptions. A typical 19-inch CRT’s power rating is set at around 100 W, and a similar-sized LCD, around 30 W. So what type of savings are we talking of here? Say you run a monitor for seven hours a day for a year. A CRT will then consume around 255 kilowatt-hours of power, and the LCD will pull around 76. Assuming that 1 unit (1 kilowatt-hour) of power is priced at around Rs 4, the difference in bills between the CRT and LCD over a year is around Rs 700. Multiply that by thee years (the common warranty with most monitors), that’s over Rs 2,100 saved. If you use your screen for more than seven hours, that would mean an even bigger saving. Now the cost to replace a CRT is also very affordable, since at the lower screen sizes LCDs are dirt cheap. Also remember, LCDs run at much lower temperatures. If you use an air conditioner in your computer room, the benefits of using an LCD might show up from further savings in this region as well. And of course let’s not forget the glare reduction.

By now you would’ve realised that your little piggy bank of savings has become quite substantial. Although some of these calculations and assumptions are not exact, and others savings cannot be accurately measured, ball park figures suggest that you have enough savings to recover your annual Digit subscription. In fact there may possibly be enough savings to gift yourself another subscription! So go ahead go green – save the planet and save your money.

Green tips from ithinkgreenSource: facebook.com/ithinkgreen

Shopping online rather than driving to the shops saves around 100kg/year of CO2 in an average home"

Abhishek Poddar



Anyone here heard of people living off-grid? Globally it's gaining momentum, but here in India, costs and investments just prevent things from happening. Imagine living in a cosy home in the countryside with a windmill and solar panels on your roof, and getting paid from the electricity board for selling your extra pow...er! that's still a dream here in India :)

Nash David

The real key to go green is by reducinghome energy use. That's because, as we can't stop the oil from being burned for transport, since if we don't ...use it, another countrywill. But we can certainly reduce energy consumption in our home. And the quickest way to go green is to reduce our electricity consumption by 50%.

Ankit Karki

Take your fridge's temperature. Stick an appliance thermometer in a glass of water in the center of your refrigerator, or between frozen goods in the freezer, overnight. Your fridge temp should be between 37 and 40 degrees F (no more, to keep bacteria at bay); your freezer between zero and 5 degrees. If either compartm...ent is too cold, adjust the setting, since keeping them just 10 degrees colder than necessary can boost your energy consumption by up to 25 percent. switching off your fridge, especiall b/w 6 and 9 would save a considerable amt of energy and will not- i assure u- damage ur food

Arjun Satheesh

A small windmill on top of every vehicle. Those who have enough money can invest in a solar panel rooftop in cars as well as houses. All electronic devices including fans and tubelights should have proximity sensors which will put them in rapid sleep mode when no one is around.

A lot of users have medium power systems... running all day for downloads, they should invest in low power Via or Atom based systems exclusively for downloads. Imagine a million users like that....

Abhishek Singh

Invest in an inexpensive battery tester, then set up a "battery center" where you can store new cells, check used ones for power, and set aside those that have burned out and have to be recycled. A designated collection spot will deter you from throwing bad batteries in the garbage. Once or twice a year, you just take ...the pile to your town's recycling center.

Arjun Satheesh



Where you still use incandescent bulbs (with dimmers or three-ways) on multiple fixtures in a room, try consolidating. One 100-watt incandescent emits more light than two 60-watt bulbs combined but requires 17 percent less power. The 100-watter also uses the same energy as four 25-watt bulbs, but pumps out twice as m...uch light. Just be sure your bulbs don't exceed the maximum wattage recommendation for each fixture. This Old House: Energy-saving bulbs Using CFL is the best

Arjun SatheeshSpread sawdust on your floor. Take the superfine shavings captured by your dust collection system, wet them down, then push them around with a stiff broom to sweep your concrete garage or workshop floor. The mix is as good as a power-guzzling shop vac at picking up dust but doesn't swirl it into the air.

Arjun Satheesh

Spread sawdust on your floor. Take the superfine shavings captured by your dust collection system, wet them down, then push them around with a stiff broom to sweep your concrete garage or workshop floor. The mix is as good as a power-guzzling shop vac at picking up dust but doesn't swirl it into the air.

Arjun Satheesh

Unplug your power tools. Figure out which cordless tools (like drill/drivers) get the most use, then unplug the chargers on all the rest. Most cordless tools have nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries, which will hold some charge for up to a year. They lose 15 to 20 percent of their juice each month, but only take a couple ...of hours to power up again. Newer tools with lithium ion batteries lose just 2 to 5 percent of their charge each month, so they'll be ready to go even if you haven't charged them in ages.

Arjun Satheesh

Now a days foods are packaged in plastic. Also after eating people use to throw them along with some food waste. Use old news to cover food waste and throw. Otherwise carry your own tiffen box to buy food.

Xxxxxx

In my experience lenovo have gave a turn off monitor option in laptops. Sony is giving switch between onboard/3d graphics card. Sony ericsson introduced a mobile phone with recycled components.

Gopi Krishnan S



While solar power obtained from Solar Voltaic Cells is quite sufficient to meet the energy demands of quite a large number of shopkeepers, households etc., much is needed at the ends of our government to bring down the cost of the equipment.

Gurpreet Singh

plant a tree beside home so that it may give shed and a cool environment in summer...

Sachchidanad Bharti

use http://blackle.com/ instead of www.google.com , it helps to save electricity , because it has a black background lowering the monitor's energy requirement....

Sanju Chauhan

Hang your clothes out to dry rather than using an electric drierSaransh Mehta

Replace all of your inefficient incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient CFL, or LED bulbs and lamps. Halogen spotlights can now be replaced by very energy efficient and far longer lasting LED Spotlights.

Saransh Mehta

"shopping with mind.." Purchase energy efficient 'A' rated white goods (fridges, freezers, washing machines,AC,etc.). Some of these models can use more than 50% less electricity than other models and that is a considerable saving on your electric bill.

Saransh Mehta

"Efficient use"... Do not leave your television, dvd player or console on standby mode. Electrical devices can use up to 80% as much power when in standby mode as when they are on. So never put anything on standby in your home or office.

Saransh Mehta

We Should Donate Clothes/Household Items(Recycle) AND should help someone...

Shyamson Goswami

A little comparison here. My mobiles battery is rated at 1320 mA at 3.7 V. Which means 4.9 W/s power consumed maximum. A laptop consumes about 65 to 150 W per second depending upon accessories and internal



configuration. A gaming rig on a desktop could consume anywhere in excess of 500W. An ordinary desktop consumes pow...er in excess of 200W. So the point again is what would you prefer now to check your emails, social networking and IM accounts, and video chat (provided you have a secondary camera and WLAN connectivity on your phone)

Vivek Mhatre

Plug out your laptop charger when the laptop battery is fully charged. Let it drain and then then put it on charge again. There is no point keeping it on power when the batteries can be used.

Sidharth Adukia

4) If you are 50 meters away from where you want to park your vehicle and you are traveling at 40 kmph turn off your engines and enjoy the free ride. This also applies to slopes. You would definitely save a few litres per month depending upon your vehicle usage. Works for me. ...5) NEVER USE THE SHUTDOWN OPTION ON YOUR COMPUTER. Always hibernate your computer if you don't usually install software. Simply run "shutdown /h" on your PC running Windows XP or higher. This will drastically reduce shutdown and start up times. 6) Don't use screen savers. Simply turn off your PC monitor when you would not be using it for a few minutes. 7) If you use more than one one cellphone and one or a few of them are not being used frequently. Consider turning them off to save battery power. 8) RECYCLE. PERIOD.

Vivek Mhatre

A single person can only contribute only in small ways. But if everybody does does contribute small things do add up. Here is how I contribute: 1) Using CFL's at home. ...2) Turning off the TV by unplugging it from the socket. On an average a TV on standby consumes anywhere from 1 - 6 Watts. 3) I HAVE RECENTLY STOPPED USING MY COMPUTER FOR DOWNLOADING FILES. I NOW DO THAT ON MY MOBILE. A POWERED ON DESKTOP COMPUTER CONSUMES ABOUT 200 W WHILE RUNNING. (IT ALREADY HAS A STANDARD 400W SMPS TO BOOT). A MOBILE ON THE OTHER HAND WILL USE ONLY ABOUT 5 - 10 WATTS. THIS IS TRUE SAVINGS.

Vivek Mhatre

Lowering refrigeration temperature only wastes power. Set it between 3°C and 5°C, and the freezer temperature between –18°C and –15°C.

Yash Janiani



A single person can only contribute only in small ways. But if everybody does does contribute small things do add up. Here is how I contribute: 1) Using CFL's at home. ...2) Turning off the TV by unplugging it from the socket. On an average a TV on standby consumes anywhere from 1 - 6 Watts. 3) I HAVE RECENTLY STOPPED USING MY COMPUTER FOR DOWNLOADING FILES. I NOW DO THAT ON MY MOBILE. A POWERED ON DESKTOP COMPUTER CONSUMES ABOUT 200 W WHILE RUNNING. (IT ALREADY HAS A STANDARD 400W SMPS TO BOOT). A MOBILE ON THE OTHER HAND WILL USE ONLY ABOUT 5 - 10 WATTS. THIS IS TRUE SAVINGS.

Vivek Mhatre

Study suggests that a google search releases 7gm of CO2, so use search toolbars rather typing google.com in address bar, it will save your time & bandwidth. Be an astute guy. Let me present a comparative study of power consumption my PC which consists of following parts --> ... a) LG W1942S 19-inch Widescreen LCD monitor --> 36 W (max) ( Verification --> http://www.cyberindian.net/2008/07/27/lg-w1942s-19-inch-lcd-monitor ) b) Dual Core CPU 1.8 Ghz ---> 75W apprx Compare processor consumption here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-power-consumption,1750-9.html ) (http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=26547 ) c) Intel® 945GC Express Chipset --> 22 W http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=28994 A motley of devices in PC consumes about 175-200W/hr amounting to 1 unit power consumption for 5 hours or, 4.8 units for 24 hrs Just have a thought how much your bill could be if you use your PC 12 hr/day when 1 unit equals Rs.5 A close to Rs.350 a month. With the above facts, you can made a plan & consume less electricity from now & hence contributing towards greener planet.

Ayush

Lowering refrigeration temperature only wastes power. Set it between 3°C and 5°C, and the freezer temperature between –18°C and –15°C.

Yash Janiani

go for upvc windows and doors rather than conventional wood windowsNithin Kumar

Anyone here talking about LED (Light Emitting Diodes). You can save a lot of power by using LED instead of conventional Bulbs or even CFL.

Srikrishna Narasimhan

Are you staying in college/private hostel. Please switch off your light and fan



when you are going out of your room. Especially dinner.Vivek Mhatre

Are you staying in college/private hostel. Please switch off your light and fan when you are going out of your room. Especially dinner.

Vivek Mhatre

Put some coconut tree's or palm tree's leafs on your terros to make your house cool. So no need to run air conditioner for long time. Learn and try to tolerate some hotter air. Ceiling fan produce more heat. Instead try table fan. Use air conditioner as lesser as possible.

Vivek Mhatre 3

Another simple way. Will follow this from today. If you want to defrost your refrigerator simply turn it off from the mains. A refrigerator opened on average 5 times a day will consume at least 1-2 units depending on cubic capacity of the refrigerator.

Vivek Mhatre

Use Water Purifiers which do not need electricity for purifying the water. This will save some amount of energy....

Abhishek Kumar Dutta

A very practical tip was to switch off the power rather than let equipment remain in standby mode. Lets see how many community members can confirm that TODAY, yes today, they have switched off the equipment not in use. Mention what you switched off.

I Think Green

Cell phone batteries and old cellphones should not be thrown right away into the dustbin,...instead return to the company for recycle. Same goes for Any acid battery too....Avoid using CFC containing Aerosols such as Insect killers and snowsprays. Always look for ozone free alternatives. Using Public transport and car ...pooling if living in a group is a very good idea. Take your own jute bag or organic bag to the mall or the greengrocer's shop. Refuse the plastic they give. It does not have to be them who should stop issuing plastics. It has to be us who must refuse this thing.

Kumar Siddharth

1. Do not splash much water while taking a bucket-bath 2. Do not run the taps/showers at full speed as most of the water spills outside the object to be washed 3. Do not insist on polythenes for things that can do without it.And



if you do need it,try adjusting your purchases in one packet even if bought from different ve...ndors

Nisha Kapoor

Do not use electricity to heat your bath water if lpg or png is available.Umesh Luktuke

Three (more will come in future) simple ways to save environment- 1)Try using e-bills and carrying out every possible transaction online.For banking people it can be risky but you can follow some precautions.To get in depth knowledge about ways to prevent online frauds during banking refer to digit's last month issue(l...ittle off topic but this is a must know for everyone..).

Anirudh Jain

2)Use power plans given in windows wisely.Lowering your performance when you are not doing anything which requires more power. Switch to power saver mode and in laptops try using minimal brightness. 3)Try using registers which come with recycled papers.The papers are of low quality but can be used for rough work.

Nisha Kapoor

While u r reading this, just move your fingers to your monitor and adjust the brightness and contrast level and minimize them! this will help a lot in saving energy!

Daniyal Ansari

Big Bazaar(popular hypermarket stores in India) ask for each kind of vegetable bought to be placed in a seperate polybags .This is to ease them in billing by weight of each veggie but amounts to unnecessary use of polybags. On my recent visit, i alarmed the billing guy at the sheer environment unfriendliness of this app...roach and refused to pack ... See morethe veggies the way he wanted. I even sensitised the people queued up to the counter and atleast the immediate few agreed. I now always stick to my style of packing at Big bazaar ,saving wastage and nonsense

Nisha Kapoor

1.use of step up transformers and wattless current devices can save a lot or electricity. 2.use battery operated lamps instead of electric lamps. 3.use of 5 star rated equipments. 4.use of public vehicles instead of using your own vehicles while travelling.

Pratik Anand



Try to use more tap water and less bottled water.Doing so will reduce the energy, costs of bottling and transporting water.

Smitha Sinha

This suggestion applies to men (and women, just in case) who shave their beard. Most people use running tap water to clean their shaving blades. Why can't people use a mug full of water to shave; just like the barber does

Vivek Mhatre

The ancedote I wrote earlier had a big impact over me. I started preffring solar cells over solar heaters. The electricity thus produced can be used in a more versatile manner (fans, lights, TV, fridges etc - provided you attach a battery to it.) I don't know much about the financial implications of both though i.e ...which is cheaper to install solar heaters or solar cells?

Vivek Mhatre

A funny anecdote on going green. 10 years ago and friend of mine installed a solar water heater on his G+2 storey house. We all congratulated him for going green. The house had separate interconnected storage tanks for each floor. Whats its means is that water from the top flows to the 2nd floor, then to the first and t...hen to the ground level. The comedy here was that by the time the heated water reached the ground floor it already became cold. So what was the solution???????? He simply Installed a geyser on the ground floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We laughed and discussed this for months to come. MORAL: An unplanned implementation of an idea will leave you in an even worse state of affairs than you originally were.

Vivek Mhatre

A funny anecdote on going green. 10 years ago and friend of mine installed a solar water heater on his G+2 storey house. We all congratulated him for going green. The house had separate interconnected storage tanks for each floor. Whats its means is that water from the top flows to the 2nd floor, then to the first and t...hen to the ground level. The comedy here was that by the time the heated water reached the ground floor it already became cold. So what was the solution???????? He simply Installed a geyser on the ground floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We laughed and discussed this for months to come. MORAL: An unplanned implementation of an idea will leave you in an even worse state of affairs than you originally were.

Vivek Mhatre

Polyethylene(or polybags) r plyaing the major role in polluting our environment! See, the most populated country in the world- China, has



successfully banished the use of polybags! No country pray mother nature as we Indians do(be proud). So we have to be much aware in this case of polybags! Always carry a bag made of ...cloth or jute while u r out! Take a pledge not to use any kind of poly bag, start it today itself and see the result! Scold the shopkeepers and suggest them to use paperbags!

Daniyal Ansari

Switching the brightness & contrast level of all your tech. gadgets to low can save you lots of power. (Your gadgets battery life will also increase.) (Some people think that overcharging any gadgets battery can give them more battery back-up, but its not the truth, overcharging can shortern the life ...of any of your gadgets battery.)

Evewin Lakra

Nowadays People are so much dependent on A/C’s…which makes your indoor atmosphere pleasant & cool but harms the environment outside by releasing extremely hot air…causing the atmosphere to heat up more.

Evewin Lakra

Looking for an environmentally friendly way to keep food and drinks cool without electricity? A pot-in-pot fridge, also known as a Zeer pot, just might do the trick. Great for emergency situations, there's no moving parts and it's cheap and easy to make.

Kshitij Rawat

Take things that you are not going to wear or use and give it to a charity or someone who will use it.

Hitesh Pahuja

IPL season on the roll... If i am not wrong most of us are watching the matches daily... Don't watch matches alone... Call ur friends at ur home... Enjoy the Cricket and Save electricity too... We 7 friends watch the matches together in my home... Remember while watching the match.... Turn off the lights of the room an...d Reduce the brigtness n Contrast of Screen... Have Fun....... Save More Gain More....


have seen people set their AC's Temperature to 20 C at night and then use blankets, monkey caps and mufflers while sleeping. WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THIS? My suggestion is to set the temperature anywhere above 27C, the room will still be pleasantly cool. And of course, you would stop using those



blankets too. Powe...r savings and common sense go hand in hand. Vivek Mhatre

Use the Software's which take less process.. They are fast and they help in saving electricity too.. it's a very small amount... but still valueable... Use Foobar.. It takes very low space on CPU.. So use lite softwares.. Most of the lite software's are Open source software's.. Use them as much as possible...


A lot of water is wasted when the water tanks in our societies overflow. It takes about 5 mins. to turn off the water supply. The solution to this is to install float valves that automatically turn off the water supply automatically

Vikas Mhatre

Install motion sensors for outside lights so lights are only on when you need them. Look for LED versions of these types of lights, which use the least amount of energy.# Try car sharing, carpooling, and mass transit. Driving alone can be expensive -- and lonel

Kumar Gaurav

Add a low-flow shower head. It can save you up to a gallon of water a minute. * Take short showers instead of baths to save water. Or, if you do take a bath, don't fill up all the way and immediately stopper the drain before adjusting water temp. * Wrap your water heater and pipes with insulation to avoid wasting energy.

Kumar Gaurav

Get furniture for free on a reuse group like Freecycle, or buy vintage. * Borrow designer handbags and jewelry from Bag Borrow or Steal, instead of buying new. * Hand-wash clothing instead of sending to toxic (and expensive) dry cleaner.

Kumar Gaurav

Here are few other tips to reduce energy consumption 1>Remove your CD/DVD's from the drive when not in use. 2>Unplug the peripherals like speakers,printers,portable Hard Disks.etc when putting your PC on standby for long time3>XP can download and install application like Uniblue-Localcooling since XP's power management is less efficient as compared to Vista and Windows 7.This app shows the power saved in terms of watts. It also displays the pow...er consumed by individual components of PC. 4>Keep your PC close to window for good air ventilation .Computer components perform well at lower temperatures 5>Clean your heat sink regularly. (If u



are using a blower to do so please disconnect it from motherboard while doing so)

Vikas Shetty

harvest rainwater for daily use.it saves lot of fresh water.use it for washing,cleaning and other things.conserve water. Debarun Banerjee 2Here is the link for the times of india epaper http://epaper.timesofindia.com/index.asp. save paper, save trees!

Swanand Raikar 1

Rain water harvesting can really make a lot of difference as its making in many villages of Rajasthan by increasing ground water level, which can be used during shortage. This technique is easy to implement, efficient and productive. Not a bad idea to try it at home

Animesh Dutta

Use carpet tile instead of wall-to-wall carpeting. Carpet tiles use low-tack adhesive, so they can be pulled up for cleaning, or one tile can be replaced rather than the whole carpet.

Kumar Gaurav

Try a power strip for all your electronic devices, and turn it off when you go to bed. * A plasma TV can use twice as much energy as an LCD. And larger TVs use more energy. Buy just the right size of TV for your room. * Skip the air freshener. Decorate with plants to improve air quality. * Adjust the bright...ness of your TV to the "home" energy setting, and your favorite shows will use 30% less energ

Kumar Gaurav

Use a slow cooker to save money and make meals while you're at work. Plus, slow cookers can make anyone look like a top chef. * Cut down on the number of cleaners under your sink. You'll save money-and you won't inhale gross toxic chemicals. Use baking soda to scrub your sink instead of commercial scouring powder.

Kumar Gaurav

One simple way you can reduce your global footprint is to sign up for e-Statements – saving paper, trees, postage and delivery costs. Online banking, paying bills online, say no to postage or courier are good way to reduce clutter and good for the environment too.




SAVING WATER INDOORS Water conservation is very essential because we use up our planet’s fresh water faster than it can be replenished naturally. Using water wisely will not only help the environment, but also save energy and your ... money. Water conservation can be started by checking the water usage at home. You can save water and prevent water wastage in the following ways:1) Do not throw away water when you can re-use it for cleaning purposes, or

watering plants. 2) Check if there are any water leaks at home. Repair dripping taps, toilet

tanks, and pipe lines. If water leaks from a tap at one drop per second, you would be wasting approximately 10220 liters of water per year!

3) Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other such waste in the trash rather than the toilet.

4) Take shorter showers. Replace you showerhead with an ultra-low-flow version.

5) Do not let water run while shaving or washing your face.6) Retrofit all leaking taps by installing aerators with flow restrictors.7) Operate automatic dishwashers and clothes washers only when they are

fully loaded. Otherwise, set the water level for the size of load you are using. 8) Insulate your water pipes to get hot water faster, which will avoid wasting water while it heats up.

9) If you have a well at your home, listen to check if the water pump turns on and off while the water is not in use. If it does, there is a leak

10) Replace or adjust the toilet flush handle if it frequently lies in the flush position, letting water run constantly.


fixing leakages can save a large volume of fresh water,conserving the fresh water resources.

Debarun Banerjee

Recycling is well known by people in most modern countries. Set up a home recycling center by using several boxes or bins and separate out items for recycling. Collect cardboard, plastic, glass, paper and metal in the containers.

Rohit Shrivastava

Recycling is well known by people in most modern countries. Set up a home recycling center by using several boxes or bins and separate out items for recycling. Collect cardboard, plastic, glass, paper and metal in the containers.

Rohit Shrivastava

u can deactivate vibration on ur cell phone,keep d display brightness



low,charge only when d battery is fully empty...these r d small steps we can take...this would not only save energy but wud also increase d battery life of ur fone...

Moharnab Saikia

You could save about 900 kg of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment of sliding your A/C thermostat up. Set the thermostat of the room air conditioner at 25 C to get the most comfort at the least cost.

Aman Agarwal

Regular maintenance home appliance keeps them working for longer and reduces the pressure on producing more.


Let food cool naturally to room temperature before putting it into your fridge.Keeping hot foods in a fridge uses a lot of energy bringing the food down to the right temperature.


Do not open the fridge simply for no reason,do not leave it open after opening it. Ensure that the rubber beading on the fridge is air tight. Close the windows when the AC is on.


Do not use cloth dryers istead dry cloths using sun's heat. Use Solar power.Abhishek Kumar Dutta

do not keep gadgets in standby mode,they consume a lot of electricity and increase your carbon footprint.

Debarun Banerjee

start using solar energy for charging objects like mobile and other devices.it is very economical as well as green

Debarun Banerjee

fix all the water leakages in your house,this will conserve water in a huge scale if all the people follow this


Buy a laptop instead of a desktop. It consumes five times less electricity. If you buy a desktop, get an LCD screen.

Aman Agarwal



Sunlight can be used in many ways to save energy. Use a solar water heater instead of an electric geyser. A 100-litre solar water heater can save around 15 units of electricity every year.

Unknown

Using CFL in place of 10 Incandescent Bulb can save you 3000Rs per year and can reduce carbon footprint by 10%.

Akash Agarwal

Harvesting rain water is one of d best idea 2 save water.People of drought affected states should join their hands to properly store it in such a way that they can use it any time 0void using ac when really nt required. coz ACs 2 keep ur rooms clean adds a lot of heat in atmosphere n the already heated atmosphere gets more hot

Swapnil

Switching from bottled water to filtered tap water 95% of the plastic bottles are not recycled.Switching from bottled water to filtered tap water helps to go green and saves your money.You could get a high quality staged water filter to make your tap water perfect.


Do not use cloth dryers istead dry cloths using sun's heat. Use Solar power. Abhishek Kumar Dutta

use pages which are only printed on one side for doing rough work.it helps to save paper and a lot of trees

Debarun Banerjee

use solar cookers this summer and save fossil fuels and protect the earth Debarun Banerjee 0

We were not used to AC s 20 yrs ago. Don't buy AC for any purpose. Start using tulasi plants. Keep one tulasi plant in your car ,and put tulasi leaves in your drinking water to fight various breathing disorders.


Replace plastic bottles nd Use Earthen pots(Matkas) for storing water at home.. this will also save electricity that is used to cool water!!!

Rohit Shrivastava

I have this crazy idea not only for ThinkDigit but also for all those subscribing



to the various magazines. Why not, after getting the emails, send digitizsed emags to your subscribers? Give each of your subscriber a unique secret key by which they can download or be emailed the monthly subscription. The non subscriber... (read pirate!!) will only get every page which will be pre stamped 'subscriber copy' in hideous black across every page!! Every subscriber will also be have his key pre stamped discretely so one can find the 'source' of the leak. A similar effort with the CDs will have to be worked out whereby each and every software will ask for the subscribers personal 'fingerprint' before proceeding any further. Think of the tons of paper and the trees saved!!! and ofcourse the money honey.

Karnal Saheb

Each degree you turn down the heat saves 3 percent of heating costs, while each degree you raise the temperature of your air conditioner saves 3-4 percent of cooling costs. By changing the temperature by 2 degrees all year, you can save about 2,000 pounds of C02 a year. Hitesh Pahuja 2 i thought about developing a intelli-socket (like the ones on every wall) which will have 3 regular points(-+ and gnd) and an inbuilt network port....every appliance can be controlled and monitored remotely. We can then put a check on our daily electrical consumption or even use a program to manage appliances easily,... even when you are not at home... cheap easy effective!

Jaskirat Randhawa

my idea : please turn off the electric appliances which you do not intend to use

Mukul Guptaall elecricity appliances should be charged by trapping co2 and releasing out oxygebln as a waste

Rohit Shivnani


ithinkgreen 2 Travel Green

Travel Green

Traveling to and from work, or simply travelling anywhere is possibly the most pollution task that we perform during the day. It is easy to recognize this pollution as it can be directly be attributed to the vehicle we are travelling on. It is easy to see where the change must be affected too. Travelling is an

important activity, and many have found ways to actually use this time to their benefit — by cycling or walking to work if at all possible.

For many others a different approach might be required. What we have here is some information and throughts from us, and community, about what can be done to change the way we travel for the better.


ithinkgreen2 Travel Green

Green wheelsChetan Maini is one of those rare people who get to live their dreams. As a young boy growing up in Bangalore, cars defined his world. At 39, Maini is setting automotive benchmarks for the world to follow

I was always putting things together. It was something I loved doing. Maybe the practice of taking things apart helped. My parents tell me even today that when I was very young, I broke everything, and when I got older, I fixed everything.

My love for motors began early. I started out by making remote-controlled cars and planes. In my teens, I was building motorised go-carts. Since specialised components were hard to come by in India, I would ask my dad’s friends to buy spare parts when they travelled abroad. By 11, my bedroom was too small for my hobby. I remember spending my weekends and holidays looking for electronic parts and designing motor mechanisms. School science fairs were a big deal for me.

Every boy loves his cars. But, my parents really nurtured that interest. My father ran a small electronics company then. When I wanted to build a radio in class four, he sent over one of his employees, an electrical engineer, to help me with it. In class six, I learnt how to model planes with the help of my uncle, a navigation instructor with an airlines company, and one of his students who was an aero modeller. The family network fuelled me.

The Lamborghini Countach is something I grew up dreaming about. I drive two Reva cars now, and enjoy all cars, but I have always had a soft spot for the Countach.

I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, where I was a member of the solar car team. We won the GM Sun Race in USA in 1990. It was here that the idea of a cost-effective electric vehicle, for city driving, first struck me.

Dr Lon Bell, a friend’s father and a technologist, was my early mentor. After winning the GM Sun Race, my solar-car buddies and I had started

Very Verte, Maini has just set up a new plant in Bangalore, and is preparing to floor the production pedal



talking about a company in the electric vehicle space. Dr Bell loved the idea and started Amerigon Electric Vehicles (AEV) in California in 1991. I worked with him before joining Stanford University for a masters degree in mechanical engineering. After I graduated, I went back to work for him full time. Over the years that I stayed there, I helped develop and design electric and hybrid vehicles.

In 1994, I started work on Reva as a joint venture between the Maini Group, founded by my father, and AEV. The first car rolled out in 2001. A lot happened in the interim. While I was in the US, in 1997, California did not mandate the regulation that would have made sure that 2% of all vehicles sold in the state would have to be zero-emission vehicles. The decision spelt doom for the electric vehicle space. I was sure that the Reva would not happen now. But my family would not let me give up. They pushed me to go ahead with the plans. Things, however, were not that simple anymore. I could not be just a technologist. I had to chase financial organisations for money and had to become an entrepreneur. Reva was a big emotional and financial commitment for us.

Our first assembly plant was clean and green. The design was a challenge since everything had to be low on investment, yet flexible. We used the “rolling chassis” model instead of the conventional fixed assembly line. Wheels were fixed on to the chassis, which moved from station to station for assembly.

Innovation drives me and research is at the core of everything we do. Reva’s first seven years were focused on development. We have more than 10 patents in battery and energy management systems. Reva is a ground-up electric vehicle, not a converted hybrid like other cars in the market. Our new model, the Reva NXR, is built on next generation lithium-ion batteries.

In the last five years, there has been a lot of change. Consumers, governments and automotive players have changed – not just in India, but worldwide. Now, people talk about auto emissions, city pollution and climate change. There are concerns about rising fuel costs and fuel shortage. International summits are abuzz with talks and discussions on fuel-efficient technology, hybrid and electric vehicles.

It’s actually London that set the ball rolling. Reva went on sale in Britain in 2004 as the G-Wiz. There are over a thousand cars on London roads. The city has set a fine example. Electric vehicles, even tax exemptions, and free parking and charging facilities for car owners. On and off-the-street charging stations have been introduced across the city. Our London story has encouraged other manufacturers. There are now more than 50 EV brands under development across the world.

The Frankfurt Motor Show 2009 was a big high. We were the only Indian company participating there, and showcasing new technology. We launched



two new models, a four-seater family car, Reva NXR, and a two-seater sports car, Reva NXG. We got a great response from the customers and the media.

I am excited about all this. Our business model now goes beyond just being electric vehicle manufacturers. We are licensing our technology and have partnered with GM India to bring out a battery-powered version of their Chevrolet Spark. GM shares our passion for reducing carbon emissions. Also, it has the expertise and ability to develop platforms.

I want to press the accelerator now. Our new plant in Bangalore has a capacity of 30,000 vehicles. It should be ready by the year-end. I want it to be an industry benchmark. It follows the Indian Green Building Council guidelines and our “born green” philosophy.

I believe nothing can stop you if you believe in your idea. I faced a lot of skepticism when I started. People did not take us seriously, and would test drive the car for fun. Then things began changing. In 2006, I received an investment of US$20 million from Draper Fisher Jurveston and Global Environment Fund to grow Reva globally.

Thankfully, I never wanted to do anything else even when things weren’t going well. I don’t stay disheartened for long, a couple of hours at most. A good night’s sleep and I am determined to go at things again.

A supercar with a hybrid enginePorsche sprang a surprise at the ongoing Geneva Auto Show with what looks like a possible successor to the legendary Carrera GT. Most concept cars never come down to the production line, and the ones that do have an excruciating waiting period before they actually hit the streets. The 918 Spyder seems to be in the latter segment, as auto enthusiasts around the world have spotted signs that the car, is eventually going to be made. The attendees at the Geneva Auto Show feasted their eyes on a supercar in the making, and the tech packed into it just blows away anything else that claims to be "cutting edge".

For starters, the 918 Spyder Concept has a whole bunch of smart systems under the hood for optimal usage of the hybrid 6.2 liter V-8 engine. A supercar with a hybrid engine - yes, this one does accentuate the fuel with electricity, but that does not mean that there has been any compromise on power or speed. The 918 Spyder has a 500 horsepower output, and can achieve a staggering top speed of 308 kph. There are four driving modes available. The E-drive mode uses just the electric power, which has a range of up to 25 kilometers.

The Hybrid mode is a great compromise between speed and efficiency, presumably used for regular cruising. The sport hybrid mode amps up the performance a bit, and also includes torque vectoring to make sure that the



wheels with the right traction is driven. This basically means that there is no wastage of the torque generated by the engine, and that it can be distributed to any of the wheels of the car when necessary, increasing the efficiency of the car in the process. The fourth mode is the race hybrid mode, which just unleashes the full force this monster is capable of delivering. Additionally, there is a push-to-pass button that gives that little extra boost to the car - similar to nitros.



Additionally, the car is about as green supercars are likely to get. The efficiency is so good that there are only 70 grams of CO2 emissions per kilometer. The Lithium Ion battery used to to power the electric half of the hybrid regenerate some of their power from brake energy. The materials used in the car are just a little alien, using a combination of aluminuium,



magnesium and carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFP). If you cannot head out to the Geneva Motor Show right away, we hope the pictures here are at least some consolation.


A small windmill on top of every vehicle. Those who have enough money can invest in a solar panel rooftop in cars as well as houses. All electronic devices including fans and tubelights should have proximity sensors which will put them in rapid sleep mode when no one is around. A lot of users have medium power systems... running all day for downloads, they should invest in low power Via or Atom based systems exclusively for downloads. Imagine a million users like that....

Abhishek Singh

Attaching a dynamo (DC generator) on axes of cycles (viz. Gym cycles) to produce electricity for daily purposes!

Darshan H. Godhia1

Vehicles should be fitted with mechanical electricity generators which could harness mechanical power from moving parts of the vehicles

Mukul Gupta

we should turn towards hybrid and cng vehiclesMukul Gupta

how about adding smaller light weight rolls on our roads. which can rotate as the vehicle passes over it. this can be used to generate a lot of electricity considering the growing traffic..

Raghavendra Sapaliga

4) If you are 50 meters away from where you want to park your vehicle and you are traveling at 40 kmph turn off your engines and enjoy the free ride. This also applies to slopes. You would definitely save a few litres per month depending upon your vehicle usage. Works for me. ...5) NEVER USE THE SHUTDOWN OPTION ON YOUR COMPUTER. Always hibernate your computer if you don't usually install software. Simply run "shutdown /h" on your PC running Windows XP or higher. This will drastically reduce shutdown and start up times. 6) Don't use screen savers. Simply turn off



your PC monitor when you would not be using it for a few minutes. 7) If you use more than one one cellphone and one or a few of them are not being used frequently. Consider turning them off to save battery power. 8) RECYCLE. PERIOD.

Vivek Mhatre1

Government is Providing Help for Using th Solar Panel. Whole Solar Kit Charge A Lakh rupee but as Government is providing the Help One has To Pay only 50% amount. A Whole Kit Comes With Solar Panel and Inverter for Your Home and Small Office. ...So Just Get installed it and Save Natural Resources, Stop Bio Waste. and Give Your Children Better Life and Safe Environment To Live. and Yes Try to Use Bicycle For Most time avoid Car and Bike. GO Green and ENJOY Our WorldJigar

Narendrabhai Amin 2

Instead of using cars and bikes, we can switch back to cycles...Srikrishna Narasimhan 0

ts a habit that I have noticed in many people. Imagine a bike parked in an inconvinient place which has to be maneuvered and moved into a proper place before it can be started. Most people would sit on the bike, start it, and them try to maneuver it. Why cant they just use good old muscle power?

Vivek Mhatre4

Here are some green Tips from my side... 1) After eating snacks Don't throw the packets on the road. Throw it in a Dustbin. 2) Use Public transport for traveling a long distance. 3) Don't use your own vehicle for traveling a short. Instead of wasting Fuel you can walk or you can use a bicycle. Riding a cool bicycle is bet...ter than riding a Bike.... :) ... SAVE THE FUEL 4) Don't Waste Water

Abhishek Kumar Dutta5

1. Let's do away with paper receipts . Electronic confirmations (our airlines are a big example) to be promoted. 2. And if receipt is unavoidable, let's reduce the size of it. I've come across blatant ause of paper by issuing reams of paper for a receipt with incomprehensible bar codes etc. e.g. try going through the co...ntents of the receipt issued at Bandra-Worli sea link (in Mumbai).Mnay of the contents can be done away woth or concised to fit in a smaller space.Let's propogate micro receipts.

Nisha Kapoor0

Kindly avoid personalised transport like car, taxi, auto or two wheeler to go



to office or for going to market for daily needs. Instead use bus or train then walk down the distance to the place. This will avoid pollution and keep one fit also. Encourage cycling for kids to reach school.Panneerselvam

Chandrasekaran

We ignore the large amout of Paper being used by Indian Railways.So promotion of electronic ticket on mobile will be a step forward to Green railways .....

Sushant Krishen

A Short Tip for u all... We always say that we use dustbins....But actually we don't use them very often... I have seen a lot of time.. When we are travelling in a Bus We eat snacks and after that we throw the empty packets on the roads... Why so... Now don't make excuse that in Bus we Don't see any kind of dustbins...... So what you will throw them on the roads............. No Way .... STOP Doin that.... Just keep those empty packets with u... n wen u come out of the bus then look for a Dustbin and throw those packets in the Dustbin.... Make a Promise...


Turn your Vehicle Off in Traffic Signal. Safe Fuel = Save Money.Abhishek Kumar Dutta

Do u really prefer bicycle over ur bike as i do? tell me! i don't and really don't think so coz 95% people thought it(riding a cycle) to be a shame and downgrading their status! Well am a cycle lover and still on my first one that i bought from my collected money!

Daniyal Ansari

Leaving your vehicle on by not removing your key while the engine is turned off wastes battery power. Many people to this regularly.

Vivek Mhatre

So many people says that for going small distance use a bicycle or take a walk to reach your destination but there are people (especially rich people) who doesn’t care about the wastage of the limited resource (e.g. petrol). There are people who tell their driver’s to keep the car ignition + car... A/c on, till their work is over so that their car doesn’t get hot. My request to these kinds of people who waste our resources is that please understand the situation and please help to preserve our natural resources.

Evewin Lakra



Guys decrease the use of vehicles use public transport its very cheap and its fun tooB-) hey guys by the way i don't use my moped anymore.

Kuldeepsinh Parmar

I think we should start the go green thing with basic things like If you have to go somewhere close walking there instead of your car or bike. It is better on the environment and healthier.

Harshal Limaye1

Use more of PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM........ this will reduce pollution, oil consumption and also many people will earn some money......

Altair Red-Devil1

Use 100cc bikes with good mileage instead of 150cc or higher bikes... This will help us to save petrol...

Harshal Limaye

service your car or bike regularly to decrease it's carbon emission and always use lead free petrol.

Debarun Banerjee

Install motion sensors for outside lights so lights are only on when you need them. Look for LED versions of these types of lights, which use the least amount of energy.# Try car sharing, carpooling, and mass transit. Driving alone can be expensive -- and lonel

Kumar Gaurav1

go on short ways through bicycles and do car pooling to contribute a bit from you to make this world a better place to live in

Sarang Khajuria

Walk, bike, car pool or take public transport at least once a week if you are a daily driver. You'll save 1.5 kg carbon dioxide for every 5 km you don't drive. Switch off your car if you stop for more than two minutes. Less driving will definitely help us in future otherwise in future our children will be having no option instead of opening cycle repair shop.... isn't it ...Aman Agarwal0Keep your tyres inflated . This improves the fuel efficiency of your car. Every litre of petrol saved keeps 2.5 kg of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Using radial tyres will help you save 3 to 7 % of fuel2You can simply walk while traveling short distances especially when the volume of traffic is high.




Hi me and my friend are developing a web portal for carpooling so sharing ride saving fuel thus saving earth .............the main motive of our portal is to decrease traffic by providing pepole travel mates

Praveen Ojha

We were not used to AC s 20 yrs ago. Don't buy AC for any purpose. Start using tulasi plants. Keep one tulasi plant in your car ,and put tulasi leaves in your drinking water to fight various breathing disorders.



We spend a significant amount of time working, at our office, or otherwise. Our work may be what we do for passion or profit, but it is an engaging activity in which we often use more resources than we do otherwise. Whether we are using our computer, taking printouts,

or simply eating our lunch there are plenty of things we can do which can do to minimize our impact on the environment.

By relying on greener technologies and approaches, and by abandoning old patterns of work which might be comforting but inefficient we can ensure that we help the environment instead of hindering it.

In this section we have garnered our communities thoughts and our own about a greener work environment and approach.

Work Green


ithinkgreen3 Work Green

The green channel...We contacted companies to get a feel of their contribution to the environment. This is just a snapshot. We initiated dialogue with many more, but very few responded. Some companies were eager and proactive in talking about their green initiatives. Others, despite bragging about their achievements, shied away from responding. The following were the responses we received.

HCL Infosystems Limited What’s HCL’s stand on going green? How high on your agenda is it?The duty of protecting and preserving the environment has to be shouldered by one and all. HCL Infosystems takes pride in being the first Indian company to have ISO 14001 certification in manufacturing and also RoHS compliance in our complete range of desktops and notebooks.

Does HCL use renewable power?Yes, we use renewable energy sources like solar energy. This year, we plan to double the amount of renewable energy as compared to last year.

What are the most significant changes HCL has made over the past year to go green? What are your future plans in the same direction?We use Spot Air Conditioning in our manufacturing unit. This approach to cooling concentrates the cool air at heat generating points/areas only, hence reducing energy consumption.

Is it cheaper or more expensive (in the long run)?Consumers as citizens of the earth are sensitive to environment and we are already seeing a shift in attitude of the consumers when buying. Going forward in the long run green products will have an advantage as far as sustainable value-for-money is concerned. From a long-term perspective, going Green makes our systems more efficient and sustainable, hence offsetting the initial cost.

Do you have any special drives to encourage your customers to go green and recycle your products?HCL Infosystems initiated ‘Green Bag’ campaign where people come and

George Paul, Executive Vice President, HCL Infosystems Limited, 6400 employees globally


ithinkgreen 3 Work Green

discard their old IT equipment like computers, keyboard and printers in an environment-friendly way through all the HCL Touch centres. HCL Infosystems has also set up an eWaste helpdesk to support computer owners with help/resolution of any problem faced during disposal process by sending an email to [email protected].

Have you made changes to your products as part of your green initiative?We recently have launched PVC-free laptop in the market. The eco-friendly ME notebook has been designed and manufactured with materials completely free of harmful chemicals like Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), a hazardous toxin, absence of which makes recycling of electronic products safer and environment friendly. Elimination of PVC would bring down exposure of poisonous chemicals reducing risks to health and environment. Also, our products comply to the latest Energy Star 5.0 specifications.

GigabyteRajan Sharma, GM, Sales and Marketing, Global employees: 3000+ (45+ in India)

What’s Gigabyte’s stand on going green? How high on your agenda is it?Going green is an endeavour on which we had our eyes set right from 2006-07 RoHS compliance agreements. We strive towards ensuring that our customers get green and affordable technology and meet the broader goal of protecting the environment.

Does Gigabyte use renewable power?Yes, we use renewable power in our manufacturing plants and factories.

What are the most significant changes Gigabyte has made over the past year to go green? What are your future plans in the same direction?We have launched green and energy efficient motherboards with EES & DES technologies to help desktops consume less power. GIGABYTE has made a concerted effort to produce motherboards that use the least amount of energy possible without sacrificing performance.

Is it cheaper or more expensive (in the long run)?Adoption of green technology will definitely help in the long run. With the rising cost of energy and its increased consumption at every level, conservation and optimization strategies are increasingly important to overall profitability. For example, the amount of power which customers can save due to our G41/H55/P55 motherboards is almost equal to cost of the product, used over 3-4 years life-cycle.



What were your 2009-2010 spends towards this, and is the allocated 2010-2011 budget higher or lower?Our R&D is constantly working towards maximizing goals and conserving and designing products that help make green technology effective.

Do you do anything special to get customers to recycle?Yes, we work closely with like-minded companies to achieve this objective.Have you adapted products as part of your green initiative?We have reworked our PCB and hardware designs to incorporate Easy Energy Saver and Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) in our products. The DES can adjust voltage, power phases and clocks speeds of the board and CPU to ensure as little energy as possible is wasted while providing as much power as needed.

NEC IndiaWhat’s NEC’s stand on going green?In 2003, NEC formulated the NEC Environmental Management Vision 2010, which states our commitment to reducing NEC’s overall net impact on CO2 emissions to zero in 2011. Our “Real IT Cool Project” is a series of activities and programs for developing technology, products, and services aimed at reducing the power consumption of customer IT platforms and sharply reducing CO2 emissions from IT devices.

Does NEC use renewable power?NEC has a 3-R policy that stands for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle of used electronic equipments. We have an exclusive ‘take-back’ policy where it takes responsibility for the products it has created. Also, we have an ongoing Reforestation Project, where NEC plants a tree for each PC received from a customer.

What has NEC changed this year to go green? What about the future?Other than our 3R policy, NEC has gone a step ahead and extended its Green IT initiatives to its vendors by launching “Green Purchase” project through which it collects data about the ingredients (particularly toxic substances)

Rajiv Bhalla, Country Head - Sales & Marketing, NEC India. More than 1, 40,000 employees globally



used in the parts and raw materials it buys from its suppliers.

Is it cheaper or more expensive (in the long run)?Clearly in the long run it is more cost effective to go green. It helps in bringing down production cost by ensuring zero waste materials, reduction in usage of chemical substances and bringing about production innovation to drive lower TCO. There is a significant impact on logistics and product shipment. Overall the benefits of promoting green IT through not just product development but also following it as a part of the culture of the organization helps us become more energy efficient by using less power, paper and conserve energy.

How much did you spend last year? Will it be more this year?Improvements are in the form of planned introduction of highly efficient energy-saving equipment, substitution of chemicals like PFC and HFC, and introduction of elimination devices. These activities convert into the reduction of approximately 4,30,000 tons of CO2. Moreover, due to the sufficiency and thoroughness of assessment at the development stage, the impact of reduction in CO2 emissions through providing IT solutions has increased to a significant 1.89 million tons.

Do you encourage your customers to go green?NEC’s web site contains an extensive range of information on the company’s environmental activities. This information is updated regularly. Further, highlights of activities undertaken in each fiscal year are also available in NEC’s annual environmental reports.

Have you changed your products in any way to be more green?“Eco products” are ones that meet all of the 29 eco standards independently established by NEC from the viewpoints of global warming prevention, resource recycling, environmental consciousness, etc. Moreover, NEC calls eco products that feature the industry’s highest level of environmental soundness “Eco Symbol products.” The NEC Eco Symbol is part of an in-house labelling system to help promote the development of environmentally sound products and to provide customers with environmental data on products.

AMDWhat’s AMD’s stand on going green?Increasing energy efficiency of our products is one of our top priorities and we are incorporating green aspect wherever possible. We believe in efficiency without compromising on performance or functionality.



Does AMD use renewable power?Apart from designing energy efficient products, our facilities are designed and operated in an efficient way. Our efforts were recognized when we secured LEED Gold certification for our new Lone Star campus in Austin, Texas and Dresden fabrication units (now a part of GLOBALFOUNDRIES) for powering them with ultra-efficient tri-generation plants.

What are the most significant changes AMD has made thus far to go green? What about next year?AMD as a company is making strides to provide more energy efficient computing through its next generation microprocessors and various other computing initiatives. Previously, computing innovation emphasized only speed and performance. But today, computer manufacturers and buyers need a total solution – incorporating performance and energy-efficiency.

Do you comply to green certifications such as ISO 14000?All AMD owned and operated manufacturing facilities are certified to the International Standards Organization’s 14001 standard for Environmental Management Systems.

Is it cheaper or more expensive (in the long run)?One of the short-term benefits would be low running cost. With low power consumption, these servers would emit less heat that results in low cooling costs. Looking at the long-term is the realization of data centres return on investment (ROI). Above all benefits comes the responsibility.

How much did you spend last year, and is this year’s allocated budget any different?AMD is making significant R&D investments to develop energy efficiency products, however we cannot disclose details.

Do you do anything special to entice customers to go green?Saving costs isn’t the only driver for investment in Green IT. Today going green is one factor that every CIO keeps in mind. Every technology provider is talking about technologies that are friendly to environment. This results

Vamsi Krishna, Senior Manager (Technical) AMD India, 10,300 employees globally



in a positive change in attitude of IT managers when we talk about green.

What changes have you made in your products to be more green?All latest products from AMD feature the latest energy efficient technologies making them more energy efficient without compromising the performance.

NVIDIATonie Hansen, Senior Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility, 3000+ employees globally, 45+ in India

What’s NVIDIA’s stand on green? How high on your agenda is it?Being an environmentally-conscious company is important to NVIDIA as it’s an opportunity to partner with our employees and customers to decrease our collective carbon footprint as well as improve the efficiency with how we operate as a company and engage with our supply chain. Our three focus areas for having a positive green impact are: campus operations, supply chain and product design.

Does your company use renewable power?We have evaluated renewable power alternatives such a solar and fuel cell, but at this time we have not made a commitment to incorporate them into our energy mix.

What are the most significant changes NVIDIA has made this year to go green? What about the future?Our most significant change in the past year was the addition of a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum Data Center in Silicon Valley. In the future, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to make our buildings, products and data centers more energy efficient.

Do you comply to green certifications such as ISO 14000?Yes, we are ISO14001 certified for our largest campus in Santa Clara.

Is it cheaper or more expensive (in the long run) for NVIDIA to go green?We have found that most green initiatives require an upfront financial commitment but the pay-back is usually very short and in the long term the ROI is better than a less-green alternative.

What were your 2009-2010 spends towards this, and is the allocated 2010-2011 budget higher or lower?We’re unable to share our budget for green investments. Budgets are integrated into regular business operations.



Do you have any special drives to encourage your customers to go green and recycle your products?Our Quadro business unit offers a take back program for clients who purchase large quantities of our technology. The technology is donated to the NVIDIA Foundation, which partners with non-profit partners use it for educational initiatives.

How different is the agenda (for all of the above) of your India operations when compared to global operations?All our offices are expected to maintain full legal compliance at a minimum and work towards incorporating continuous improvement in their environmental programs. We look at all of our larger sites with an eye towards improvements in energy efficiency and decreased waste. One of the key successes to NVIDIA’s global green program is to give employees a say in the green improvements they’d like to make to their offices.

Have you changed your products in order to be more green?In an effort improve battery life in notebook computers, NVIDIA has launched Optimus, that intelligently senses when the GPU is not being used, and shuts it down to increase battery life, allowing consumers to enjoy longer computing time, and improving the life of the battery overall.

Data center intensive businesses have benefited from our Tesla technology. The power of the GPU means companies use fewer computers while getting increased performance, which cuts down on energy. Similarly, Tegra, has a low power management architecture for ultra-efficient power consumption across all use cases.

Emerald DreamsElectricity is one of the most important sources of energy that drives us. According to International Energy Outlook 2008, an official energy statistical release by the US government, global electricity generation will nearly double from about 17.3 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2005 to 24.4 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2015 and 33.3 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2030. Even though nuclear power and other means of electricity generation will increase over the period, the most carbon-intensive source—coal-will still dominate, says the report.

Last month, we carried a news snippet underscoring the research initiatives for harnessing mechanical energy into electrical energy that can be used to power your portables. However, on a larger scale there are many initiatives being undertaken to reduce the carbon footprints in the domains of computing, and daily lifestyles in general. It is not only computing that



matters, there are these all new breed of hybrid vehicles and electric cars, organic fuels including bio-diesels and natural gases, fuel cells and so on. We at Digit delve a bit deeper to give you a sneak peek on how these greener initiatives will change the face of our technology and reduce our carbon footprints.

As the transistor count of today’s microprocessors increases, overheating and power dissipation is becoming a vital issue. As we move towards growing transistor microprocessors, the increasing power budgets of these chips must be addressed. Research carried out at Purdue suggests that after exceeding 35 to 40 W, additional power dissipation increases the total cost per CPU chip by more than a dollar per watt.

Efficient Cooling SystemsResearch initiatives for efficient cooling systems are inevitable. Especially when current technologies available for cooling cannot break beyond 200 watts of heat per square centimetre. A Purdue university research team led by Professor Issam Mudawar not only managed to break this barrier, but exceeded it by over five times when they created a way to cool chips that generate more than 1,000 watts of heat per square centimetre.

A fan is an almost inevitable component of the same. However, even if these are sufficient for basic computer applications like business computing and Net surfing, this method is rendered ineffective when the machines are revved by gamers and overclockers.

The new technology is based on a water cooling system as against the conventional air cooled ones. The method implements series of microjets that distributes a coolant in miniscule channels over the top of the chip. The coolant in this case is a hydrofluorocarbon. The heat generated by the chips cause these narrow grooves to heat up, which in turn causes the coolant liquid to vapourise.

One of the biggest advantages of liquid cooling over the conventional air cooled methods is the uniform pattern of cooling seen in the former. The reason being, while the airflow cannot be kept under control, coolant liquid jets can be maintained uniformly along the length of micro channels. Uniform cooling prevents formation of any hotspots and increases the life of the processors.

Mudawar explains that it is not the superior properties of the coolant that results in such a significant improvement in cooling mechanism, but it is the hybrid nature of the overall mechanism. It’s hybrid because it relies on two cooling methods: greater surface area via the microchannels and better circulation via the microjets. The coolant collects at both ends of the channels and is circulated back through the system.



Mini Computers And ApplicationsCloud computing is the new buzzword. Not sure what the term connotes? Just turn over the pages to find it explained in the W5H section this issue. Now the question arises—what makes it so popular? Nothing else but greater economy and flexibility.

Zonbu is just one of the products being churned out that function on this concept. In the wake of technological initiatives, products like Zonbu are power miser alternatives that business computing demands. Zonbu works on a Linux platform and considering the minimalist apps that it carries, it doesn’t even resort to a fan for its cooling needs. A mini device, no moving parts, energy efficient components and that’s all that an Outlook and MS Office user would ever require. On board flash memory as opposed to hard disk based one further reduces its power requirements.

All it requires is a meagre 10-watt power supply and it performs as well as any laptop can perform for the minimal usage that it allows. It can play music, movies, check email, and comes with the Open Office suite. A gamer of course won’t go for these mini apps, but a business user and Net surfer wouldn’t demand for anything more.

For a comparable output, most conventional CPUs will consume 60-100 watts or more—approximately 4 to 5 times more than what Zonbu does. Zonbu authorities claim that it’ll save more than 1,200 kilowatt hours over the course of a year. If you prefer to be more conservative, you can also add on an optional solar panel to power the device for mini applications.

Task Specific ComputingAs computing gets more and more task specific, the micro architecture and microprocessors that go into making a computer also are drastically changing. A mobile application wouldn’t require a dual core. Similarly a minimalist computer app like Zonbu would neither require a configuration that a gamer would demand. In these transitions there are specific lines of processors hitting the market. Likewise we might see Intel developing multi-core chips for servers and datacentres, and for mobile apps and minimal computing we might see power stingy microprocessors thronging the market.

There is Intel’s Atom, the smallest and lowest power consuming processor from Intel. Tests suggest that an Atom based microprocessor exhausts about 32 watts of electricity; around 80 per cent more efficient, on the desktops and laptops of conventional users. Its widespread implementation would mean all the functions of a traditional desktop being catered at much lower costs. It really is worthwhile to let your CPU suck only as much as you require. There is no point in allowing your processor to consume 100 watts when all you would ever require for basic computing is 50 watts. Further advances



would ensure that similar low power demanding tasks would be taken care by dedicated hardware designed specifically for that purpose resulting in significant efficiency. This clearly makes it evident that the processor as a ‘central’ unit will find diminished implementation in the time to come.

Microchips For Portables And HandheldsIn the move towards miniaturisation, it is predicted that PDAs and full-fledged mobile applications might well replace laptops. Even though that seems a bit further away, the total energy consumption by these devices, considering the sheer number of users it has got worldwide, cannot be overestimated. In this regards more energy efficient microchips that could lead to longer-lasting cell-phones and lesser recharge cycles is deemed necessary; especially when it is cognized that these devices amount to a sizeable proportion of electricity consumption.

One of the driving forces for any application has to be the million transistor packed silicon chips that power these devices. However, as technology has moved further, chip designs have evolved and in another such research initiative, a team led by Anantha Chandrakasan, the director of the research lab at MIT, has managed to develop a new chip design that they claim to be up to 10 times more energy-efficient than present technology. Ten times more energy efficient implies that if your device chips consume 100 units of electricity in a particular time period, being replaced with these new microchips they will be ten times more effective and consume a measly 10 units of power without compromising output.

The efficiency of these chips was already displayed when they were tested on a widely used microcontroller device and the results were quite promising.

Now the question that arises is that how do these chips manage to deliver the same performance at much lower power feeds? The answer to this is the ultra low level of voltage that is sufficient enough to power these new designs. These new chips eat up a mere 0.3 volt of power, which is around one-third the value of what the contemporarily implemented chips consume. The new design implements an efficient DC to DC converter that allows voltage reduction without the need for separate components, and makes it possible for it to work on such a low voltage. Chandrakasan takes it a step further by saying that the team is working to make this voltage requirement further down, so much so that the microchips would work even on the available ambient energy; viz. using one’s own body heat or the kinetic energy derived from bodily movements.

According to the researchers, the new chip would hit the market and find its implementation in gadgets in a span of five years while the other issues related to its mass production and cost efficiency are being worked on.



According to Chandrakasan, it would be crucial in military applications and tiny sensors where a frequent recharge value results in loss of vital time. The longevity of such devices and other mass communication and networking devices would mean an enhanced user experience as well, without worrying about frequent discharge and running around for a charging socket.

Cash On The Trash!Moving away from computing and portables, there are significant breakthroughs being achieved in other areas of energy efficient implementations as well. The noise about exhaustible sources of energy resources and their impending death is reverberating loud now. In the meanwhile, without making much noise, there are significant initiatives and research being carried out by individuals who are doing their small bit to protect our planet from peril.

Domestic waste is just inevitable. It is this vast resource which is being tapped by a Nigerian civil engineer Dr Joseph Adelegan—who is generating energy from domestic waste. His unparallel credits have been awarded with adulation and due recognition for his “Cows to Kilowatts” project that generates cooking gas from waste products in abattoirs. The project today provides cooking gas supply to more than 6000 homes in Nigeria.

Imagine the vast amount of LPG (chemically butane) that would be saved if every household worldwide manages to latch on to this novel initiative. It is estimated that Nigeria accounts for over 20 per cent of the world’s cassava output and it is in this waste that Dr Adelegan saw the resourceful supply of power. His project “Power to the Poor: Off-Grid Lighting from Cassava Waste in Nigeria,” is based on the principle of generating power from cassava.

The system relies on the anaerobic fixed film biogas technology that is different from existing approaches. The septic tank and soak away system and existing biogas technology use the conventional anaerobic treatment process which has several drawbacks such as extremely low efficiency and long retention time. However, the hybrid Universal Anaerobic Sludge Blanket-Anaerobic Fixed Film (UASB-AFF) bioreactor replaces the septic tank and soak away system. It also replaces conventional biogas technology by advanced high rate anaerobic reactor produced by systematic engineering design.

Using this method, Adelegan says he hopes to generate 200 kw daily, which will provide basic electricity for more than 2000 households initially.

Besides computing, technology is seeing a green revolution in other walks of life as well. The list is growing… hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fuels, solar panels and so on. The researchers at MIT are even contemplating artificial photosynthesis. These will definitely leave a long lasting impact



on the technology of the future. Be it hydrogen cars or bio-diesels, unwired communication, ubiquitous computing or other aspects, it won’t be too long before further groundbreaking research makes the current technology obsolete.

[email protected]


A typical google search leaves behind a carbon footprint equivalent to 0.2 g of CO2! How many searches did you do today?

I Think Green

A small windmill on top of every vehicle. Those who have enough money can invest in a solar panel rooftop in cars as well as houses. All electronic devices including fans and tubelights should have proximity sensors which will put them in rapid sleep mode when no one is around. A lot of users have medium power systems... running all day for downloads, they should invest in low power Via or Atom based systems exclusively for downloads. Imagine a million users like that....

Abhishek Singh

Where you still use incandescent bulbs (with dimmers or three-ways) on multiple fixtures in a room, try consolidating. One 100-watt incandescent emits more light than two 60-watt bulbs combined but requires 17 percent less power. The 100-watter also uses the same energy as four 25-watt bulbs, but pumps out twice as m...uch light. Just be sure your bulbs don't exceed the maximum wattage recommendation for each fixture. This Old House: Energy-saving bulbs Using CFL is the best

Arjun Satheesh

Spread sawdust on your floor. Take the superfine shavings captured by your dust collection system, wet them down, then push them around with a stiff broom to sweep your concrete garage or workshop floor. The mix is as good as a power-guzzling shop vac at picking up dust but doesn't swirl it into the air.

Arjun Satheesh

Unplug your power tools. Figure out which cordless tools (like drill/drivers) get the most use, then unplug the chargers on all the rest. Most cordless tools



have nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries, which will hold some charge for up to a year. They lose 15 to 20 percent of their juice each month, but only take a couple ...of hours to power up again. Newer tools with lithium ion batteries lose just 2 to 5 percent of their charge each month, so they'll be ready to go even if you haven't charged them in ages.

Arjun Satheesh

In my experience lenovo have gave a turn off monitor option in laptops. Sony is giving switch between onboard/3d graphics card. Sony ericsson introduced a mobile phone with recycled components.

Gopi Krishnan S

While solar power obtained from Solar Voltaic Cells is quite sufficient to meet the energy demands of quite a large number of shopkeepers, households etc., much is needed at the ends of our government to bring down the cost of the equipment.

Gurpreet Singh

Each degree you turn down the heat saves 3 percent of heating costs, while each degree you raise the temperature of your air conditioner saves 3-4 percent of cooling costs. By changing the temperature by 2 degrees all year, you can save about 2,000 pounds of C02 a year.

Hitesh Pahuja

I have this crazy idea not only for ThinkDigit but also for all those subscribing to the various magazines. Why not, after getting the emails, send digitizsed emags to your subscribers? Give each of your subscriber a unique secret key by which they can download or be emailed the monthly subscription. The non subscriber... (read pirate!!) will only get every page which will be pre stamped 'subscriber copy' in hideous black across every page!! Every subscriber will also be have his key pre stamped discretely so one can find the 'source' of the leak. A similar effort with the CDs will have to be worked out whereby each and every software will ask for the subscribers personal 'fingerprint' before proceeding any further. Think of the tons of paper and the trees saved!!! and ofcourse the money honey.

Karnal Saheb

Screensavers are not energy savers; they continually use the monitor at full power ,so its better to switch the monitor off or shut down the computer when not in use!!!

Koll Ash



my idea : please turn off the electric appliances which you do not intend to use

Mukul Gupta

all elecricity appliances should be charged by trapping co2 and releasing out oxygebln as a waste

Rohit Shivnani

use http://blackle.com/ instead of www.google.com , it helps to save electricity , because it has a black background lowering the monitor's energy requirement....

Sanju Chauhan

Replace all of your inefficient incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient CFL, or LED bulbs and lamps. Halogen spotlights can now be replaced by very energy efficient and far longer lasting LED Spotlights.

Saransh Mehta

Plug out your laptop charger when the laptop battery is fully charged. Let it drain and then then put it on charge again. There is no point keeping it on power when the batteries can be used.

Sidharth Adukia

4) If you are 50 meters away from where you want to park your vehicle and you are traveling at 40 kmph turn off your engines and enjoy the free ride. This also applies to slopes. You would definitely save a few litres per month depending upon your vehicle usage. Works for me.

...5) NEVER USE THE SHUTDOWN OPTION ON YOUR COMPUTER. Always hibernate your computer if you don't usually install software. Simply run "shutdown /h" on your PC running Windows XP or higher. This will drastically reduce shutdown and start up times.

6) Don't use screen savers. Simply turn off your PC monitor when you would not be using it for a few minutes.

7) If you use more than one one cellphone and one or a few of them are not being used frequently. Consider turning them off to save battery power.

8) RECYCLE. PERIOD. Vivek Mhatre

A single person can only contribute only in small ways. But if everybody does does contribute small things do add up. Here is how I contribute: 1) Using CFL's at home.



...2) Turning off the TV by unplugging it from the socket. On an average a TV on standby consumes anywhere from 1 - 6 Watts.

3) I HAVE RECENTLY STOPPED USING MY COMPUTER FOR DOWNLOADING FILES. I NOW DO THAT ON MY MOBILE. A POWERED ON DESKTOP COMPUTER CONSUMES ABOUT 200 W WHILE RUNNING. (IT ALREADY HAS A STANDARD 400W SMPS TO BOOT). A MOBILE ON THE OTHER HAND WILL USE ONLY ABOUT 5 - 10 WATTS. THIS IS TRUE SAVINGS.

Vivek Mhatre

Use Water Purifiers which do not need electricity for purifying the water. This will save some amount of energy....


Always take a back-to-back print out and do not leave the overleaf blank Nisha Kapoor

1. use of step up transformers and wattless current devices can save a lot or electricity.

2. use battery operated lamps instead of electric lamps. 3. use of 5 star rated equipments. 4. use of public vehicles instead of using your own vehicles while travelling.

Pratik Anand

Making any changes at the office can be a push and pull situation, because everyone wants to voice his/her opinion. It’s one thing when you make green updates to your desk or workspace, but it’s another when you’re trying to get the entire office on board. So what are some easier ways to green your office without creat...ing rifts among your co-workers?... Check Out... 1) Start with the changes that can save the office money. For example,

discuss the possibility of switching your energy provider to one that uses 100 percent alternative power sources. Or at the very least discuss the options for the future such as saving up for solar panels. If discussing energy efficiency is stepping... too far out of your bounds, why not try something simpler like using high efficiency bulbs?

2) Consider purchasing sustainable office supplies that are made from 100 percent recycled paper and other post-consumer products. The office already has to buy the supplies, so it only takes a few more minutes to find alternatives. There is great selection of eco-friendly office supplies out there....

3) Show your co-workers how to recycle and compost. As long as you have the recycling and composting bins in an accessible area with labels, the



employees will have an easier time with this transition. You can even designate yourself as the recycling and composting bin manager that way your co-workers will feel less in...convenienced. If you do decide to have a composting bin in the office, it’s best to have one that is Self-contained.

4) Bring up the idea of gardening and see how big the response is. Wouldn’t it be nice to have fresh tomatoes and herbs at work? Convince your co-workers to have a small garden project, which will take minimal amounts of time to maintain.

5) Spice up your workspace with new furniture from stores that sell vintage and refurbished pieces. Not only is this a money saving approach to updating your work environment, but it will also give your area unique and comfortable feel. ...There are so many ways to green your office area, but it helps to have

other co-workers in on the fun too. If the employees aren’t interested in the planet saving aspect of going green, focus on the money saving And convenient aspects.


Switching the brightness & contrast level of all your tech. gadgets to low can save you lots of power. (Your gadgets battery life will also increase.) (Some people think that overcharging any gadgets battery can give them more battery back-up, but its not the truth, overcharging can shortern the life ...of any of your gadgets battery.)

Evewin Lakra

LCD monitor’s saves power as compared to CRT monitors. (Now a days LCD monitor’s comes in a very cheap price and various size option) Suppose you have 2 computer’s (1 P.C. & 1 laptop) then working on your laptop more can save you lots of power as compared to working on your P.C.

Evewin Lakra

Nowadays People are so much dependent on A/C’s…which makes your indoor atmosphere pleasant & cool but harms the environment outside by releasing extremely hot air…causing the atmosphere to heat up more.

Evewin Lakra

Other wasteful practices in offices also inclue leaving Bluetooth and WiFi connections on when not needed.

Vivek Mhatre

Leaving laptop and phone chargers plugged in even when they are not in use is a common sight in many offices and homes. Even these consume



electricity in the milliwatt range. Analogus remarks apply to USB drives, connectivity cables, dongles and other accessories.

Vivek Mhatre

if you have a printer with a double sided print option use it. You will save half of the amount of paper you would have normally used.

Hitesh Pahuja

Use super power saver mode (tun off speaker, sound device, wifi, BT, low processor utilization) when using your laptop for editing documents, and while writing small programs.

Gopi Krishnan S

Run your Laptops in Energy Star power mode Gopi Krishnan S

visit http://www.epeat.net/ if you plan to buy a Desktop/Notebook PC, It suggests some products that have standard that compliance with green computing

Gopi Krishnan S

Use the Software's which take less process.. They are fast and they help in saving electricity too.. it's a very small amount... but still valueable... Use Foobar.. It takes very low space on CPU.. So use lite softwares.. Most of the lite software's are Open source software's.. Use them as much as possible...


Fight Global Warming From your Desktop: We may have put our laptops into standby or hibernate modes a thousands of time by now, but these features are ignored in case of PC's. But even During standby mode the ram and the CPU... remains powered up..

PC's nowadays include a power management standard called ACPI(Advanced Configuration and power interface) , which allows operating system,BIOS and hardware to co-operate and reduce the power consumption. The state discussed earlier is called as the S1 state(one in which the Ram and CPU remains powered up).But this setting can be changed to S3 state the one which drops the PC's power down to 10 watts or less when idle,even if the system consumes more power when active .But the S3 state might have some problems with older boards and especially sound cards. In order to enable S3 state, Enter your BIOS,navigate to power management menu and change the ACPI suspend mode to S3.Enable the setting labeled 'USB KB wake-up from S3' ,and set the power on function to any key to let keyb...oard and mouse



wake from PC standby. Vikas Shetty

Here are few other tips to reduce energy consumption 1> Remove your CD/DVD's from the drive when not in use. 2> Unplug the peripherals like speakers,printers,portable Hard Disks.etc

when putting your PC on standby for long time3> XP can download and install application like Uniblue-Localcooling

since XP's power management is less efficient as compared to Vista and Windows 7. This app shows the power saved in terms of watts. It also displays the pow...er consumed by individual components of PC.

4> Keep your PC close to window for good air ventilation .Computer components perform well at lower temperatures

5> Clean your heat sink regularly. (If u are using a blower to do so please disconnect it from motherboard while doing so)

Vikas Shetty

use fountain or ink pens instead of ball or gel pens.it saves a lot of plastic and resources of the earth.

Debarun Banerjee

Using dual a SIM phone in place of keeping two cell phones when needed would be safe and will dilute burden on Earth. Each Cell phone is made of many metals which we derivates from Crude Oil. Crude oil is base of many primary or we can say maximum metals use in our day to day use products.


Use carpet tile instead of wall-to-wall carpeting. Carpet tiles use low-tack adhesive, so they can be pulled up for cleaning, or one tile can be replaced rather than the whole carpet.

Kumar Gaurav

Banish junk mail to save time, trees, and headaches. * When your computer sits idle, it draws a lot of energy. Switch to the power save mode, or even better, turn off the monitor and computer when you're not using them. * When it's time to upgrade a computer or mobile phone, recycle your electronics instead of sending them to landfills.

Kumar Gaurav

Try a power strip for all your electronic devices, and turn it off when you go to bed. * A plasma TV can use twice as much energy as an LCD. And larger TVs use more energy. Buy just the right size of TV for your room. * Skip the air freshener. Decorate with plants to improve air quality. * Adjust



the bright...ness of your TV to the "home" energy setting, and your favorite shows will use 30% less energ

Kumar Gaurav

Eliminate Paper Recipts Think of all of the wasted paper from receipts, sometimes you buy just on product you get a "mile" long receipt. The wasted paper is one, but the ...inks and heat paper chemicals must not be to great for the planet one bit. To solve this, offer “E-receipts”, the customer upon ending of the transaction is asked for their email address and the receipt is sent directly to them. Laziness of most people will just take the normal paper receipt instead of typing in or telling the cashier their email address, but if you offer a incentive such as 5% or 10% off your purchase total purchase, or in stop & shop’s case more points savings. Eliminates paper waste Creates an electronic copy, unless deleted it is very hard to loose on the way home from the store.


u can deactivate vibration on ur cell phone,keep d display brightness low,charge only when d battery is fully empty...these r d small steps we can take...this would not only save energy but wud also increase d battery life of ur fone...

Moharnab Saikia

You could save about 900 kg of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment of sliding your A/C thermostat up. Set the thermostat of the room air conditioner at 25 C to get the most comfort at the least cost.

Aman Agarwal

Buy a laptop instead of a desktop. It consumes five times less electricity. If you buy a desktop, get an LCD screen.

Aman Agarwal

Using CFL in place of 10 Incandescent Bulb can save you 3000Rs per year and can reduce carbon footprint by 10%.

Akash Agarwal



do not keep gadgets in standby mode,they consume a lot of electricity and increase your carbon footprint.

Debarun Banerjee

start using solar energy for charging objects like mobile and other devices.it is very economical as well as green

Debarun Banerjee

use pages which are only printed on one side for doing rough work.it helps to save paper and a lot of trees

Debarun Banerjee


To Live Green isn't easy if you wish to be through. It is easy to scratch the surface and see benefit in switching from a gas cooker to an electric cooker. Or from a diesel generator to an electric inverter.

Of course things are as usual more complicated than they appear. If you switch from a gas cooker to an electric cooker you cause less direct polution, but how much pollution did creating that electricity cause? How much more will it cost? How will you cook when there is a power outage? You can replace that generator with an inverter, but how much pollution did creating those batteries cause?

It is important to not only make change just for the sake of change, but to objectively see how it will benefit. It is beyond the scope of any individual to follow each and every chain to see how it affects the environment, but we can at least ensure that the companies we purchase products from have a good record of environmental responsibility.

Living Green is more important than ever, it is no longer enough to counter every damaging action with one that doesn't harm, what we need is to heal the environment.

Live Green


ithinkgreen4 Live Green

5 inventions that will save the earthFrom harnessing the power that fuels the sun, to little black boxes of wonder; we look at 5 inventions from the cutting edge of green technology that could one day save our planet

Going by some of their responses, the lovelies at beauty pageants seem to be bang on target about crucial issues facing the planet. Most flutter their eyebrows prettily about world peace (if that won't stop militancy, nothing will); protecting the environment (will give up furs and ammonia-based hair colour); and definitely doing something about global warming. Now this last one is where the leggy ladies from exotic lands have caught our attention. In reality, besides not participating in the swimsuit rounds – a major contributor to global warming – there's little that these lovelies can do. But let us take the beauties seriously for once, and find out from the geeks if their wishes can really come true.

Mankind's unquenchable thirst for energy is one of the biggest contributors to our planet's demise. We need energy to drive our cars, to power our computers, to light our streets and ultimately, power our lives. Therefore finding a super-efficient, non-polluting, sustainable method of producing this elixir is the answer. When it comes to saving the earth, other than birth control, ironically it will be technology that will be the saviour. Could mankind's seemingly endless search for the perfect energy source be just around the corner? Maybe a clean, green and environmentally friendly technology that might even reverse the effects of pollution on our planet. Or a new source of water – despite being in abundance on the planet, water that’s consumable is still scarce inland. Let’s don our Nostradamus hats, peer into the future and find five inventions that could one day save our planet.

BloomboxAfter almost a decade in complete secrecy, on a sunny day in silicon valley

How the bloombox works


ithinkgreen 4 Live Green

recently, a nondescript scientist of Indian origin had the world's spotlight turned on him. In an almost unbelievable interview for prime time television show 60 Minutes, Dr. K R Sridhar held up two little boxes about the size of large Rubik’s cubes and claimed they could power an American home 24 hours a day. (He even joked that the same would power six homes back in India). This set into motion one of the most trending topics on the internet all of February and early March. From environmentalists, skeptics, to technologists; everyone was debating whether to believe Dr. K R Sridhar – the man whose invention promises to reinvent the energy business. Sridhar who worked for NASA prior to setting up Bloom Energy, has come up with a new innovation based on fuel cells. For those who are completely unaware of fuel cell technology, let’s look at how they work. Unlike energy produced by combustion, fuel cells produce energy by a chemical reaction. A fuel (usually hydrogen) and an oxidant is pumped into a fuel cell which contains an electrolyte. A chemical reaction occurs that results in the creation of electricity, water and some amount of carbon dioxide as byproducts. Fuel cells are of different types and depending on the type of cell a significant amount of heat is also generated. This heat can also be utilised to increase the efficiency of energy production.

In common parlance Fuel Cells are most often associated with green cars. But their application in the mobile arena faced many challenges including carrying enough hydrogen for long journeys. The technology was dismissed by many as technically challenged, but Bloom has once again brought into the forefront.

The BloomBox is a fixed (stationary) fuel cell that utilises a stack of ceramic plates, each coated with two different proprietary chemical mixes which Sridhar calls 'inks' as the electrolyte. Unlike other fuel cells that need to be fed pure hydrogen, the BloomBox uses natural gas. It can even use green fuels like bio gas and landfill gas. It is more efficient at converting the fuel into energy – using only half the amount of gas as traditional power plants would use to produce the same amount of electricity and uses low cost materials even for the catalyst, which in most cases is platinum.

These BloomBoxes can be linked together to combine their energy output. His bigger boxes or Energy Servers, which are about the size of a parking space have been secretly powering some of the most well known companies in Silicon Valley for quite some time. eBay is reportedly using the 100 Kilowatt boxes for powering 15 percent of its headquarters.

Currently, even with the subsidies and taxbreaks, the costs are still not favourable for large scale implementation. They have a significant investment and the ceramic plates need replacing every five years. Still the company believes the technology will be brought down to within the reach of an average home owner over time. Sridhar's powerplant in a box could one



day take you off the electricity grid entirely, since his dream is to install one in every backyard. “Don't start signing up for orders yet, this is a product of the future”, he said at the unveiling.

Solar-powered water de-salinationAccording to Karan, head-business development at Shashwat Green Fuels & Technologies “Our biggest challenge is Water and not Energy. People can live without lights or air conditioners or an iPod, but they cannot survive without water.” Although most of Mankind is located near water, not much of it is usable for drinking. 97 per cent of all water on earth is sea water and half of what is available is frozen at the poles. By some estimates nearly 20 per cent of humanity does not have access to clean drinking water. The quest for desalinating or removing salt from sea water to make it drinkable has been on for quite some time. Some of the well-known methods of desalinating water are distillation or reverse osmosis however, as you can imagine they are very energy intensive and hence expensive. So what about the majority of the world's population that cannot afford this luxury?

A company called “Saltworks Technologies” from Vancouver, Canada, may have the solution. The company is on the verge of commercialising a breakthrough desalination technology during a time of increasing freshwater scarcity, rising energy prices, and mounting concerns over carbon impacts. The company has come up with Thermo-ionic technology that can make cheap drinking water from the sea using evaporation and ionic conduction, powered mainly by sunlight. Saltwater is evaporated to produce a concentrated solution.

This solution, which has concentration gradient energy, is fed into Saltworks' proprietary desalting device to desalinate either seawater or brackish water. Some electrical energy is used to circulate fluids at a low pressure, yet the bulk of the energy input is obtained through the evaporation

The desalination process explained



itself. The amazing features of this kind of an approach are that it uses up to 80 per cent less electrical/mechanical energy that is required by plants based on reverse-osmosis and other processes. Theoretically, the technology is scaleable enough to supply anything from cities to small villages.

High altitude wind power generationWind, along with the sun, have always been looked at as the prime sources of renewable energy. There has been a lot of work in the solar sector in both photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). A company called Nanosolar has even come up with technology to make super thin photovoltaic films. Still, one of the most promising sources and relatively untapped is Wind. Magenn Power is making strides in this sphere. "There is enough energy in high altitude winds to power civilisation 100 times over; and sooner or later, we're going to learn to tap into the power of winds

and use it to run civilization." says Ken Caldeira, Professor of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science on Magenn Power’s web site. Magenn Power has developed a high altitude wind turbine system called MARS - short for Magenn Air Rotor System. It's essentially a flying turbine in the form of a large balloon which spins at high altitudes generating power. “MARS is a lighter-than-air tethered wind turbine that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, generating

electrical energy.” says the official description. This electrical energy is transferred down the 1000-foot tether for immediate use, or to a set of batteries for later use, or to the power grid. Helium sustains MARS and allows it to ascend to a higher altitude than traditional wind turbines. MARS captures the energy available in the 600 to 1000-foot low level and nocturnal jet streams that exist almost everywhere.

Laser fusion possibilitiesHarnessing the energy of the sun and stars to meet the Earth’s energy needs has long been the holy grail of scientific and engineering endeavour. At the heart of this branch of alternative energy are ultra powerful lasers, since the

The Maggen high altitude turbine prototype



kind of heat and pressure required to drive a fusion reaction can only be created by such lasers. A fusion power plant will generate energy by fusing atoms of deuterium and tritium – two isotopes of hydrogen, the lightest element. Deuterium can be extracted from abundant seawater, and tritium will be produced by the transmutation of lithium, a common element in soil. When the two atomic nuclei overcome their natural tendency to repel one another and fuse under the intense temperatures and pressures, a helium nucleus is formed and a small amount of mass lost in the reaction is converted to a large amount of energy according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2.

The National Ignition Facility based in California USA is at the forefront of this research, and released details on one of their press releases. “A fusion power plant would produce no greenhouse gas emissions, can

operate continuously to meet demand, and would produce shorter-lived and easier-to-store radioactive by-products than current fission power plants” says the press release. Currently, estimates suggest that around 16 per cent of the world's electricity is generated by Nuclear Fission. Fission involves the splitting of heavy atoms such as uranium, to release energy. HiPER or High Power laser Energy Research facility is the European research project that runs along similar lines.

Another Ambitious project called LIFE aims to create energy from Nuclear Waste. An acronym for Laser Inertial Fusion Engine, LIFE is an advanced energy concept under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and is based on the physics and technology developed by NIF. LIFE has the potential to meet future worldwide energy needs in a safe, sustainable manner without carbon dioxide emissions. By burning nuclear waste for its fuel, LIFE may have the added benefit of reducing the planet’s stockpile of spent nuclear fuel and the nuclear materials that

The difference between fusion and fission



lend themselves to nuclear proliferation. Once NIF's ultra powered laser completes a successful fusion burn (scheduled for 2010), it will serve as a springboard for LIFE, a hybrid technology that combines the best aspects of nuclear fusion, a clean, inherently safe and virtually unlimited energy source, with fission, a carbon-free, reliable energy technology, according to an NIF announcement.

Cold fusion to heat things upOnce relegated to the back alleys of Junk Science, Cold Fusion still remains that unattainable goal. Yet there is renewed interest in the technology and an imminent breakthrough may be on the horizon. Cold Fusion holds the promise of fusion at room temperature or near room temperature and that too on a table top. When it was announced back in 1989 more than twenty years ago by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, it shocked the world. But the whole thing was almost instantly discredited when other scientists tried to replicate the demonstration and the flash in the pan five minutes of fame it received came to an end. The Cold Fusion experiments as we know it are not strictly fusion. What transpires is more of a nuclear effect. Scientists bring together three components of this process – deuterium (which is abundant in sea water), palladium (a platinum like metal) and electricity. The resultant product is 'excess heat', which is what scientists are hoping to create – an output that is greater than the energy supplied to the experiment. The exact process of this nuclear effect is unknown, but stopping research just because something is not fully understood is not what scientists do.

Researchers in this field found that there is indeed excess heat – about 20 times higher than the electricity input.

However, this so called 'cold fusion' comes with its criticisms and sceptics. First of all, it does not have 100 per cent success rates, and critics are also skeptical about the way in which input/output energy is measured. However, reportedly, a US agency called Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency corroborated that there is indeed excess heat. There are lots of physicists and electro-chemists in labs all over the world researching this subject. As with any technology there is always scope for refinement, and when that eventuality happens, Cold Fusion could be the next big thing, that was revived from the ashes.

Siddharth [email protected]



Computer graveyards: A walk through the ‘e-slums’ of MumbaiI had to pass a few horrid bylanes and blind alleys with no clear markers, using word-of-mouth guidance before I got to meet Harshit Patel, who had agreed to show me to an informal e-waste operation in the slums of Mumbai.

The city generates one sixth of India’s GDP, and its slums function like some kind of informal special economic zone, churning out everything from export quality leather goods, clothes, and pottery using cheap labour. According to a 2007 Guardian article, the recycling industry employs around 2,50,000 people. Stuart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog considers squatter cities like Mumbai to be hubs of opportunity, full of informal enterprises that

Phot

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: Tus

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E-waste processing in Mumbai



engage in unlicensed and untaxed businesses. They’re the “dark energy of economic theory,” says a slide. And on a positive note, rapid urbanization as a continuing trend will defuse the population bomb, as statistically, people in cities have lesser children.

The talk has been tagged as “unconvincing” by TED users, and I would like to load the argument a bit further. It has to do with a particular social malaise that to a large degree afflicts us as a species – we take serious counter-measures and have strong convictions against direct risk (terrorism, theft, rape or violence), but turn a blind eye towards issues when the penalty is distributed. This, to a large extent explains why Mumbai city has filthy, claustrophobic hubs like Kurla, where people spit and litter without compunction, why people tolerate the burning of plastic and garbage right next to its railway stations. (rants go here)

Back to the e-slum for now. The whole area was caked with red stains and plastic gutkha packets. Graveyard workers who burn bodies traditionally eat paan to anesthetize themselves, and this computer graveyard was no different. Cell phone in hand, I wandered around, walking past a guy who was brazenly burning plastic off a bunch of wires to get at the copper. Around this time, Harshit called and asked me to turn around. He was going to give me a guided tour.

People here didn’t seem friendly, some were worried. My long haired photographer friend was drawing a crowd with an SLR camera in his hand. One guy came up to me and asked me if we were going to get them arrested. I don't know if he was joking, I assured him that I had other designs. In these shacks, I saw workers extract copper out of wires using hammers and blades. There was quite a bit of hardware memorabilia in the form of decades-old chipsets and components - I saw hard drives the size of bricks, a Cyrix processor and motherboard, and a sea of glass, plastic and metal strewn around.

According to Harshit, the next chain of recycling takes these components out of Mumbai, (it mostly goes to Delhi, he said). Nevertheless, when the rains come, in all likelihood the e-waste pollutants seep into the soil, E-waste processing in Mumbai



flow through the gutters and nallahs and into the sea. Dead computers and their galaxy of components have in them a number of rare earths and precious metals (gold, palladium, neodymium, etc.) worth recycling, but also contain a number of toxic substances that can spill into the ecosystem. The laundry

list of toxic chemicals include: arsenic, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

Older, bulkier computers have a lot more precious metals apparently, which also explains, perhaps, why they were so expensive back then. It is fraught with health and environmental risks, which is by recycling them is best left to industries with ISO certification standards. Another reason to not try this at home: In all likelihood, a motherboard that sells for $100 will have less than a dollar’s worth of metals worth recycling.

Most of the e-waste ends up in the third world, some, in the land of the jugaad. According to SVTC, only 10 % of e-waste is recycled responsibly. “The rest are openly burned, soaked in acid baths, and dumped into rivers or piled into mountains of e-waste for scrap recovery.”

Harshit runs Techshop, an e-commerce website that sells computer hardware. The company has an e-cycle program that gives incentives to users while disposing e-waste in an eco-friendly manner. He was familiar with the problem at hand here, quoting a 2007 report by Manufacturers Association of I n f o r m a t i o n Technology (MAIT), which says that e-waste from discarded computers, TVs and mobile phones is

Wire cutting

Recyling PCs



projected to grow at a rate of 15 per cent, and touch 4.7 lakh tonnes by 2011. Even though the zone here doesn’t exactly meet environmental standards; there is one good thing about this place, said Harshit. “The people here help reduce e-waste by working and identifying which parts are working. They take it and reassemble it into a working computer and sell it.”

The source of the e-waste and what’s being done about itThe Earth from Above exhibition quotes a 2004 UNU report which states that it takes 1.8 tonnes of materials to make a desktop computer and a monitor. This includes 240 kg of fossil fuels, and 22 kg of chemicals. Pound for pound, it is a lot more energy intensive than the automobile industry. The same report gives readers a good reason to support durable products with a good servicing ethic, and platforms with a lesser number of upgrade lifecycles: “The energy savings potential of reselling or upgrading is some 5-20 times greater than recycling.” says Eric Williams, author of the paper.

Nokia has put up 1300 recycling bins across its dealers and centres in India this year, and Sony Ericsson claims to have cut the carbon footprint of its phones by 15% by using recycled plastics and smaller packaging.

According to Apple, hardware recycling amounts to just 1% of their product’s environmental impact, but we weren’t able to ascertain how this had been calculated. They further claim to have reduced energy consumption by using a combination of evenly matched power supplies, components, and power management software. According to their calculations, product use - the amount of electricity a computer consumes counts for 53% of its total greenhouse gas emissions.

The gigahertz race pushed the power consumption of desktop processors to outrageous levels, but lately, power efficiency has been given the emphasis it deserves. To a fair extent, computer manufacturers have begun to close in on the gap between power and power efficiency by making their desktops more energy efficient when idle. Intel recently unveiled a ‘Single Chip Cloud Computer’, the IA32, which has 48 cores running at a maximum of just 125 watts. It’s also another reason why we look forward to nVidia’s Tegra chipset, which promises to run a netbook for a week, and apparently only consumes 300 milliwatts of power in the Zune HD.

Energy consumption is coming down across the board and is not just relegated to the CPU powering your system: Apple’s page boasts that the Mac Mini consumes 14 watts of power at idle. Other manufacturers have also begun to follow suit. NEC came out with a monitor recently that consumes 20% less power than other LCDs of the same size.

Google.org, a philanthropic branch of Google is developing PowerMeter, which taps into smart meters and helps track energy consumption through PCs and smartphones. The service will eventually be rolled out in India



through Reliance who have partnered with them this year. According to Google’s Ed Lu, they aim to save a “socially relevant amount of energy” through this software. According to Wikipedia, there are currently 40 million smart meters in the developed world.

How can you help? Reuse and refurbishOlder computers can be refurbished to boot on Linux, or they can be repurposed. An artist from New Zealand has turned circuit boards into lamps. Another artist, Benjamin Gualon, who has founded the movement

of recyclism, has made a totally unique object of beauty and joy - a custom rock band kit out of 8-bit Nintendo consoles and a bunch of gamepads. Each gamepad handles one particular sound: bass, drums, synthesizer, percussions, etc. Surely our country of out of work electronics engineers can make things like these for cheap!

Another book with the same sensibilities will come out this month – it’s called 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer.

Harshit and I plan to start a website with instructions and design ideas to refurbish e-waste. It will be an open source hub for design ideas. We will try and repurpose hardware and e-waste into objects of utility and art. We already have a few ideas implemented, and there are plenty more ideas in the information ether. We welcome your thoughts and contributions.

The RES

Lamp mode out of keyboard membrane




Another interesting fact: Termites, or white ants, may be a source of power in the future as they can produce up to two liters of hydrogen from digesting a single sheet of paper. They are also one of the planet's most efficient bioreactors. Well, they’re not that bad after all :D

Abhishek Poddar

Some interesting numbers on Green gadgets: 15: Percentage of the average household electricity bill that goes toward lighting alone. 9: Lowest wind speed (in miles per hour) from which it’s efficient to harness wind power. 750: Number of electricity providers that offer a green alternative. 1%: The total percent of carbon dioxide emissions emitted each year from devices left on stand by 1.5 billion: The number of external power adapters, also known as power supplies, currently in use to power small electronic devices—that's about five for every person 50 percent: The amount of a computer that is recycled. The rest is dumped. Non-recyclable components of a single computer may contain almost 2 kilograms of lead AND THE CLINCHER: 75 to 80 percent: The percentage of old computers from the United States wind up in Asian countries such as India and China, where recycling costs are much lower

Ahmed Shaikh

Computer graveyards A walk through the e slums - Online Best Latest Computer graveyards A walk thru http://www.thinkdigit.com/General/Computer-graveyards-A-walk-through-the-e-slums_3799.html

I Think Green

GO green is an elementary process that has to be taken by an individual and not as in a big scenario. Using energy efficient equipment is one of the steps. Even the smartphones we use leave a C footprint. Going green is nothing "hi-tech". Its an awareness. Just control plain practices. Use biodegradable essentials and ...avoid disposable items. Reduce electrical consumption just by using LED's to the max. Last month I was successfully able in urging my



school principal in planting 7 tamarind saplings which I gave them.!! That makes me feel very good.

Kumar Siddharth

Well ... the best awareness is SELF-AWARENESS . We, humans are social beings,its really healthy if we spread the awareness among people about Mother Earth, then take initiatives step by step, we can not say that we can be cent percent successful in our initiatives, but we can really help and contribute to the best poss...ible extent. Lets join hands with DIGIT . Lets take it as a COMMITMENT for CONTRIBUTING something for our MOTHER EARTH . Lets CARE for HER , as HER future depends on our hands. GO GREEN.

Anirban Sarkar

The Government should take initiatives to install SMOKE PRECIPITATORS and SMOKE FILTERS on the chimneys of the Heavy Industries.

Anirban Sarkar

think harnessing wind energy is a valuable souce of power generation and India has great capabilities to do this but the governement is not utilising it!!!!

Arif Khan

When people clear land around here for houses and malls, etc. they stack the brush in piles and then burn it. Tons of CO2 go up into the air. Instead, there should be a machine or someway that can turn this land clearing waste into charcoal, which is a natural fertilizer and excellent carbon sequestration device.

Arvind Gaba

Every time you visit the ATM, avoid taking account balance ! Save Paper !! Ganesh Kanakaraju

we can't stop our need to grow but we can plant trees(one or two) for each new thinks we buy and consume, this will help us to decrease co2 and increase the greeny in llife

Gin Chhena

Any body know about algae? It's very good solution to control co2. Try cultivating algae. They are more hunger for co2. It gives out o2. Algae also consumed as food, beauty cream, etc:)

Gopi Krishnan S



Do you have very old electronic item in bad condition. Better to donate them for recycling.

Gopi Krishnan S

well STOP CUTTING TREES and by doing this we can save papers bcoz of less production means recycle them andamount of o2 get increase and then afterwards our university has taken an initiative on making university paperless and we r on to it.We have an university management system where all the announcements and assignm...ent uploadation being done...SO Rather i say I THINK GREEN...i should say WE THINK GREEN :-)

Kunal Pratap

contiribution of pvt sector in hydroelectric power generation should be encouraged.. clearly govt dnt hv funds for these projects in large nos.. thus govt finds thermal power stations an easier way.. bt that contribute to global warming, depletes non renewable resources.. on the othr hand if we switch over to renewable... resources like water and wind.. we not only save valuable resources for our future generations but also help minimizing the global warming effect..

Naman BansalLets face it. Despite all our individual efforts to save energy the demand is going to grow. The only real solution is to develop sustainable sources of energy.Solar, Wind, Tidal etc. have been around for a while and despite their plentifulness, they are expensive to tap. In my opinion, the constuction of hybrid plants ...can be a solution. Instead of using Solar PV cells with low efficiency, concentrating collectors can be used to heat the water which is fed to the boilers. This will reduce the fuel usage. If the plant is located in a suitable area, solar, wind or tidal enery can be used to supply the auxilaries of the power plant. This will increase the efficiency of the plant. It will be much easier to slowly migrate to these sources than to suddenly switch over to an alternative source..

Rajan Kinkhede

Make Wrist-watches work on the pulse of the hand rather than batteries. Varad Choudhari

stop smoking good for your health and environment too. Go green run your house at solar power Talk less work more ..go green all of us exercises on machines so use it to recharge ur batteries .. ...do cycling...save petrol,decrease pollution, good exercise, green planet.. all simple to do but very effective

Hussain Indorewala



Government is Providing Help for Using th Solar Panel. Whole Solar Kit Charge A Lakh rupee but as Government is providing the Help One has To Pay only 50% amount. A Whole Kit Comes With Solar Panel and Inverter for Your Home and Small Office. ...So Just Get installed it and Save Natural Resources, Stop Bio Waste. and Give Your Children Better Life and Safe Environment To Live. and Yes Try to Use Bicycle For Most time avoid Car and Bike. GO Green and ENJOY Our World Jigar

Narendrabhai Amin

everything u do realeses carbon-di-oxide in the atmosphere.. even this post is releasing a few grams of CO2 in the atmosphere... Every small effort is gud fr us.. we shuld start at personal level...

Palash Karia

The "What an Idea Sirjee" ad in which Abhishek Bacchan becomes a tree (suits his personality and acting talent) contains a lot of suggestions that can be practically implemented.

Vivek Mhatre

Start reading epaper. DNA India already has launched this a few years back. Vivek Mhatre

Don't Chop Down The Forest's for your benefits. Forests keeps the environment clean. Forest's are the home of Tigers and remember Only 1411 Tigers Left in India. So Save Forests Save Tigers...


Here are some green Tips from my side... 1) After eating snacks Don't throw the packets on the road. Throw it in a

Dustbin. 2) Use Public transport for traveling a long distance. 3) Don't use your own vehicle for traveling a short. Instead of wasting Fuel

you can walk or you can use a bicycle. Riding a cool bicycle is bet...ter than riding a Bike.... :) ... SAVE THE FUEL

4) Don't Waste Water Abhishek Kumar Dutta

Hey there are lots of tech readers thinkin about our future & have wonderful ideas of mitigating disastrous consequences.feels good:). We have a tremendous history filled with proud wars to virtuous living. ... We belong to a great Indian tribe, so just follow what a true indian does, 1) think of those people who have once a week water supply in summer



before bathing from shower. 2) think of 260 million people who don't have food for 2-times-a-day before

wasting the food. 3) think of the student in UP who can't study at night due to 20 hours

electricity cut-off before switching on your A.C. or just putting your PC on for talking to a friend on mobile for an hour. Dont be an oblivious. The Digit efforts can be called successful even a

single guy transforms & atleast have a thought for contributing towards an austerity.

Ayush

efficient reflecting surfaces can be used above the polar caps, in order to prevent their melting in a large sacle.

Kumar Siddharth

Earth has given so much that we cant pay it back! But our tries can help mother nature to keep it color shining green and greener! After all its our duty....

Daniyal Ansari

Big Bazaar(popular hypermarket stores in India) ask for each kind of vegetable bought to be placed in a seperate polybags .This is to ease them in billing by weight of each veggie but amounts to unnecessary use of polybags. On my recent visit, i alarmed the billing guy at the sheer environment unfriendliness of this app...roach and refused to pack ... See morethe veggies the way he wanted. I even sensitised the people queued up to the counter and atleast the immediate few agreed. I now always stick to my style of packing at Big bazaar ,saving wastage and nonsense

Nisha Kapoor

Definition for Human being: An intelligent creature that cuts trees, makes paper out of it And writes ''Save Trees'' on them....!! Funny world..

Palash Karia

Rain water harvesting was made compulsory(by the govt when J.Jayalitha was in power) for all new constructions as also for existing buildings in Tamil Nadu. We noticed a huge difference in the water table and also the quality of water.

Rajesh Vora

In the name of spiritual beliefs people throw so many t...hings in the river and they pollute the river. Such thinking of the people should be changed



ASAP (as soon as possible) to save the water from being polluted. Evewin Lakra

Just watched Next World on discovery channel and came to know about Vélib'. This programme is running successfully in Paris by the government where bicycles are given on rent. If such things would be implemented by other gov's around the globe, there will be a great improvement on earth's health! Read more at http://e...n.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lib%27 official site http://www.velib.paris.fr/

Himanshu Pant

We purchase so many things for single use - tools, appliances, various gadgets and all this consumption negatively impacts on the environment. Perhaps we need to think back to our childhoods where sharing was an important lesson.

Kshitij Rawat

Most of the reosurces (including water) are used to and should be used for The food we eat. And thus it becomes our moral duty, to not waste food.

Sagar Dubal

here's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.

Lordthimpu Baruah

digit magazine should also be sold in a cd which will save lots of paper Mahesh Ghiraiya

water plants..n trees in ur neighbourhood... if you cannot plant one~! Vineet Wankhede

Playing Football or Cricket in the Playground is better than Playing FIFA 10, PES 2010 n Cricket 2010... Guys just Get out from your home n Play Some Outdoor Games instead of playing Sports games on ur PC.... This is good for us and for our EARTH too..


When we go at fast food stall or at any restaurant most of them provide us paper napkins... So instead of using these napkins we should use handkerchief... This will help us to save some trees...

Harshal Limaye



Indian women at work...watch an interesting video of a girl from Kerala who designed a bicycle-powered washing machine. Considering its energy saving capabilities, it's indeed a blessing to power-hungry India. Just think of those wash cycles. Plus, doing away with the exercycle and washing machine at once isn't such a ...bad idea after all! Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxryeNycJX0 Although crude, it can certainly be improved upon. Nothing beats the line: It saves dad's electricity bills!

Nash David

Join me in welcoming Jimmy Dowds to the community. Jimmy teaches people how to make wind turbines in Ireland according to Hugh Piggott's (renowned in the field) design. They are mostly battery charging turbines ranging in size from 1200mm to 4800mm in diameter and work well in low winds. The blades are made from wood a...nd the frame from welded steel. With the alternator being made from coper wire and neodymium magnets cast in resin. They live off grid (without depending on utility companies) in the Leitrim Hills by choice; they'd rather make their own! Their power system consists of a 3100mm wind turbine and 500w of solar PV charging a 24v 800Ah battery bank and powering a 2000 kW inverter.

Nash David

Avoid using plasitc bags for shopping. We can make beutiful bags from old cloths and use them.

Vidyadhar Ajjibhat

Read E-books ... Save paper.. Buy an e-book reader... n download books from the internet for free.. :P ... Save money .. Save paper.. Save Planet... I THINK GREEN..


here are 100 ways , everyone can apply to improve our lifestyle and to save the environment 100 Ways to Save the Environment www.seql.org http://www.seql.org/100ways.cfm

Tarun Mishra

Make use of bags made from cloths. Avoid using plastic bags. Vidyadhar Ajjibhat

Innovation has nothing to do with money. Going green is not meant for the rich and the wealthy. Contrary to popular belief, going green makes life easier and saves a whole lot of money. Watch a video of a poor Malawi boy who transformed the lives of his fellow villagers by building a windmill and



generating electricity... for them! Let us know if you're inspired... Nash David

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/384/1/Greening-the-Internet.html GREENING THE INTERNET!!


use jute or any other biodegradable bags instead of plastics. it is one of the ways to go green.the bags can be reused.

Debarun Banerjee

follow the R's of conservation.recycle,reuse,repair and refuse. Debarun Banerjee

change your lifestyle by shifting from the use of disposable things to that of reusable things.it helps a lot.

Debarun Banerjee

Electricity from Algae? interesting read Stanford researchers find electrical current stemming from plants http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/april/electric-current-plants-041310.html

Nimish Sawant

join NGO's like greenpeace,FOE and many others to make a difference. visit www.greenpeace.org and www.foe.org

Debarun Banerjee

An absolutely amazing idea, everyone should do it! Japanese Village Embarks on Ambitious Zero Waste Campaign | Greenopolis http://greenopolis.com/goblog/green-groove/japanese-village-embarks-ambitious-zero-waste-campaign

Tarun Mishra

The amount of electricity we waste yearly is equivalent to the amount that would be required to establish a new planet Earth. Please do not waste energy, conserve it.


ban the use of plastic bags.use jute bags,it is reusable,recycable and biodegradable and safe for the environment.

Debarun Banerjee



Shop every two weeks instead of every week to avoid wasting food. Eat more eggs and beans instead of meat for protein. * A faucet that leaks one drip per minute can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water a year. And run up your water bill.

Kumar Gaurav

We live in a country where natural resources are pretty avaliable.Still we need to save these resources because they are not lasting for ever.So in our Govt. Institutions & schools ,colleges we need to use computer more than ever to stop these invaluable resources.This will save these resources & also increase allove...r computer literacy.Dual profit

Rahul Das

we should start forming rallies in our cities to spread the message even further to everyone out there.

Debarun Banerjee

our co. Sy-Tech doesnt use papers for day to use, we prefer emails, notes and e-bills for our complete operations, trying to save paper towards Healthy Earth. Wat about you.

Aditya BhimrajkaWhen you spot a person on the train/bus, about to litter -- please ask them to give you that plastic wrapper, or watever it is -- when they ask what/why, tell them you are playing your part in helping Mother EARTH, by throwing waste in a bin

Kimberly Almeida

all for the EARTH as the EARTH is for all.go green,plant more trees and save OUR HOME.do before it's too late.

Debarun Banerjee

Bamboo absorbs carbon-dioxide and releases oxygen into the atmosphere three to four times higher than many other trees. Bamboo also enriches the soil naturally and prevents soil erosion and effectively cleans the ...water pollution of of the septic tank discharge and factory effluent by its natural affinity for nitrogen, phosphorus and heavy metals. One mature Bheema Bamboo (Bambusa Balocava) would absorb above 500 kgs of carbon-dioxide.

Samiksha Garg

Avoid PVC plastics - (Poly vinyl Chloride) PVC is in a lot of things we use / buy on a day to day basis. Shower curtains, bags, toys. PVC is an extremely toxic material especially when burnt as it contains chlorine. So in your next



shopping trip, avoid all items containing PVC Abhishek Kumar Dutta

Handling Decomposing materials : Composting is a great idea. Effective and these guys have come up with a way of composting sans odour. Please check www.dailydump.org for What why and how of composting.

Anusha Shrivastava

E-Waste is a big hazard in India and because of no proper rules/regulations and recycling facilities the situation become worst, creating a big natural unstability dat by day..... Government should think of it.

Bishwajeet Banerjee

Trees help keep the planet cool, but rising levels of Co2 in the atmosphere are turning down this effect . In some regions more than a quarter of the warming from increase Co2 is due to its direct impact on vegetation

Kumar Gaurav

grow at least 5 plants in ur lif which can become big shady trees Swapnil

Recycling and re-using products like paper and bottles will protect the environment. Just by reducing your garbage by 25 per cent will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,000 pounds a year

It seems obvious so I thought I'd put it at number one. Recycling covers loadsof stuff which some of the other Ways To Save The Planet will explore in more detail, butgenerally put your cans, bottles, tins, paper and cardboard in the recycling bin/bag/big skipthingeither at home or a facility near you

Rohit Shrivastava

Giving living plant than flowers - Give your loved ones a living plant instead of cut flowers.The plant will stay green long after, the flowers have wilted and been thrown into the trash


Avoid buying books, if required download from the internet/ use libraries/ borrow from your friends. This not only save trees also money saved in your pocket




Biofuels are any fuel derived from biomass. Agricultural products specifically grown for conversion to biofuels include corn and soybeans. R&D is currently being conducted to improve the conversion of non-grain crops, such as switchgrass and a variety of woody crops, to biofuels. The energy in biomass can be accessed by..


try to use natural resources like sunlight and wind more than artificial ones,this helps conserve electricity

Debarun Banerjee

Sharing a textbook with someone else who is taking the class helps save paper and will contribute to your efforts to go green at college.



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i think green

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