50g of CO₂e- per search

The average desktop computer consumes 120Watts of electricity per hour. An external monitor uses an average of 80Watts of electricity per hour.  Therefore, every hour you are on your computer, you use an average of 200Watts of electricity (200W).

One tonne of CO₂e- offset is the equivalent of 1MWh (1 million Watt hours or a Mega-Watt hour). Therefore, 200 Watts hours has the equivalent of 0.0002 MWH or 0.0002 tonnes or 200grams of CO₂e- per hour. 

An individual search takes approximately 30 seconds. The electricity consumed for a 30 second search emitts 1.66g of CO₂e- (200g per hr / 3600seconds x 30 seconds = 1.66g/30 sec).

Based on the above calculations, an average 200W computer (desktop and monitor) produces 1.66g CO₂e- for every 30 second search performed. To make more of an environmental impact, we will offset 30 times that amount to make it 50g per 30 second search performed.  How many searches do you do in a day?  Multiply that by 365 days, it adds up.

Carbon Offsets

The offsets used by Grevox are Voluntary Carbon Standard offsets (VCS) that are sourced from renewable energy projects which have an immedidate and positive impact on the environment and surrounding communities. 

Reducing your environmental impact

Set Grevox as your Home Page and use it for your Internet searches plus, and tell your family and friends about us.

to learn more about the offsets currently used with this initiative.Click here

I was reading BusinessWeek recently, and I came across an article about how Wal-Mart puts pressure on their suppliers to be more efficient, environmentally conscious, and save shelf space. So, General Mills decided to compress the pasta in their Hamburger Helper products, saving 20% in packaging. Snazzy, right? It is about time manufacturers do something about all that pointless and ultimately disappointing empty space in boxes of food. However, what’s amazing is the resources saved with this seemingly minor tweak to one product line (as summarized from several sources):

500 less trucks on the road!

660,000 tons of carbon dioxide gone!

890,000 pounds of paper saved!

$3.4billion in savings!

Holy cow – where to start? First off, who the hell still eats Hamburger Helper regularly any more? Even as a teenager, it was more trouble than it was worth. Boil the pasta, “sauce”, milk, and what’s the chance there is going to be ground beef in the house? Ramen noodle was much easier, cheaper, and not a whole lot less satisfying. Second, have you seen how much sodium is in there? I’m pretty sure salt itself does not contain as much sodium as Hamburger Helper. Most hover around 1000mg, while Cheeseburger Macaroni contains over 4000mg of sodium per serving. Egads.

So I assume you multiply the above numbers by five and those are the resources required to manufacturer the useless gruel. 2,500 trucks just to transport it? That’s unbelievable. We need to start seriously questioning whether the Hamburger Helpers (and some of this other highly manufactured products) are worth it. Please.