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In 2006, 61 billion kilowatt-hours, or 1.5 percent of electricity, was consumed by datacentres in America.  The electricty used by the computers isn't the only problem; in order to make computers perform at their best, they need to kept at a cool temperature, which means air-conditioning, which means electricity.

A number of initiatives have begun on both sides of the atlantic, the main one being the implementation of virtual computing.  With virtualisation it is possible to run a number of systems on one machine.  It takes advantage of the fact that a computer's resource is not used to its maximum all the time.  In the office environment this means that rather than having a PC that is powerful enough to take man to the moon, the computer is slimmed down and connects to a virtual computer on a network.  It saves on energy, and it saves on expensive hardware and software.

Now, a company based in Wantagh, New York, has created what it calls "the industry's first truly green server."  It takes advantage of the heat generated by computers by recycling the heat to produce electricty.

Applied Methodologies, Inc.(AMI) research division AMILABS produces what it calls the "ThermoGreen Server" which it hopes will revolutionise the way datacentres operate.  Rather than being simply consumers of electricity, they also become a power generating utility.  The energy created by their ThermoGreen Systems can be used to offset datacentre power consumption costs and contribute to global green initiatives.

Each individual ThermoGreen Server recursively uses the energy it generates to reduce its own draw of power supplied from the local utility. Equally the ThermoGreen Server can distribute the energy generated from multiple ThermoGreen Servers onto a power distribution network to scale the energy generated as a whole for other uses. 

The power is generated using a special Thermoelectric module that fits in the server, indeed AMILABS say that it can be retrofitted into existing servers.  Sitting inside the computer it simply draws on the heat being produced and converts it into current.  The electricty can then be used to charge up a UPS system or run other devices for free.

At the time of writing the device is still in pre-production.  Let's hope this kind of technology becomes the norm in all electronics.