It is very trendy in today's day and age to publicly announce how green you or your company are. But we must also remember that just because some people claim they are green, doesn't necessarily make it so.
Case in point, a CNN article about using ice cooling in large buildings in New York. They claim that by freezing water into ice at night, and then blowing air over it during the day to cool the air, they are saving money and helping the environment. Well, they most certainly ARE saving money. And they most definitely are lowering their PEAK-TIME energy usage. But are they actually helping the environment overall?
Everyone knows that it takes energy to make ice. And it takes energy to keep it as ice until you need it. It takes more energy to make ice, than to cool the air at the time you need it. Simply because of inefficiencies in materials, etc. All these companies are doing, is shifting their power usage from a peak time in the afternoon to an off-peak time in the middle of the night. And overall they are actually increasing their energy usage. It just costs less at night, saving them money. But they want to make this big hoopla over it. And yes, I'm sure that they are saving some little bit of pollution since off-peak power generation is more efficient and environmentally-friendly. But what about the added power being used to cool all that ice? And what about the environmental cost of building all that machinery?
Wouldn't it simply be better to find TRULY innovative ways to save money and the environment? Look at IBM, they have a bunch of telecommuting employees, and they save big $$ doing it. Most of these companies could have at least some of their employees work part-time or full-time from their homes. That way they don't even have to come into the city, or use up office space that needs to be heated and cooled. The real key is eliminating excess, not just adding more of it and calling it environmentally-sound excess.
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